Pioneer of the revival of natural dyes and the crafts movement in Bangladesh, Ruby Ghuznavi is no more.
Ruby Ghuznavi initiated the natural dyes project in 1982 and established Aranya Crafts in 1990. Along with Patua Quamrul Hassan and a few others, she established the National Crafts Council of Bangladesh (NCCB) to uphold traditional crafts. She was a past President and a member of the executive committee of NCCB.
NCCB and Bengal Foundation jointly organised the Jamdani Festival in 2019 under her guidance. The festival earned Sonargaon at Narayanganj, the status of a ‘World Craft City’.
Ruby Ghuznavi played an important role in earning recognition for Jamdani as a GI product of Bangladesh. She was an honorary member of the World Crafts Council  (WCC AISBL) and chairperson of WCC-Asia Pacific Region’s Natural Dye Programme. Ruby Ghuznavi was a trustee of Bengal Foundation,  as well as a Founder Trustee of Transparency International Bangladesh, and Naripokhho, a women’s rights organisation. Her publications include Naksha, Rangeen and many scholarly articles on natural dyes and crafts, in national and international journals.
Ruby Ghuznavi passed away in Dhaka on 14 January at the age of 88. We deeply mourn the loss of  this remarkable champion of crafts and craftspersons. The crafts world is poorer without her.