Say ‘Battle of Tangail’ and anyone familiar with the Bangladesh Liberation War will tell you it was the largest airborne operation since World War 2. On 11 December 1971, Indian Army paratroopers landed at Tangail in then-East Pakistan, outfoxing the Pakistan Army and sending Dhaka on the last lap in its march to freedom five days later.
Fifty-three years later, Tangail has become a battlefield once again. But this time, it is Bangladesh and India that are crossing swords. The conflict is not over the mother tongue, as it was in 1971, but rather over the famed Tangail saree from a Bangladeshi district of the same name. Originating in the late 1800s, it boasts a tradition of unique handwoven techniques, designs, and motifs, worn by millions of women across the world.
However, this super fine saree has become a bone of contention between the two nations. On 2 January, India issued a Geographical Indication (GI) tag to the Tangail saree, listing it as a product of West Bengal where vast numbers are woven in the Nadia and Purba Bardhaman districts.
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Whose Tangail saree is it anyway?
The move has triggered public outrage next door, with protests against India in Tangail being reported by the media in Bangladesh. Craftspeople in Dhaka were angry that the Sheikh Hasina government had not staked claim to the Tangail GI already. Red-faced, the Department of Patents, Designs and Trademarks under the Ministry of Industries urgently convened on 7 February to recognise the Tangail saree as Bangladesh’s GI product.
“Were we sleeping?” says Bibi Russell, a Bangladeshi fashion designer and former supermodel who has been promoting handlooms since the 1990s. “Bangladesh should have got the GI already,” she tells me. “Tangail is in Bangladesh. The weavers may have migrated to Nadia. But the Tangail [saree] of Tangail [district] is surely the original.”
Ritu Sethi, chairperson of the Delhi-based NGO Craft Revival Trust, begs to differ. “If a ninth-generation Banarasi [saree] weaver moves to Delhi from Varanasi, he may have changed his geography but he is still weaving Banarasi sarees and must get the GI,” she says.
Defending the GI tag, Sethi says that India clearly identifies it as a mix of Tangail and Shantipur weaves. “Since we share borders, there will be trade, social and political sensitivities. But let us avoid controversies and celebrate our common traditions instead,” she adds.
Ruby Palchoudhuri, veteran champion of craft revival and president emeritus of the Crafts Council of West Bengal, tells me that “it would have perhaps been more accurate to get GI for Phulia Tangail or Nadia Tangail and not Bengal Tangail.”
That’s where the dispute stands today, but the storm over six yards of fine textile could turn cyclonic if Dhaka heads to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to complain of alleged violation of intellectual property rights and seek redressal.
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History of Tangail saree
Historically, fine fabrics have been woven across the delta of undivided Bengal since perhaps the 1200s, when the Delhi Sultanate arrived in the region. These fabrics found their way to European markets via the busy trading ports of Gujarat and drew attention for their superb quality. It was said that a full-length muslin saree could be folded into a matchbox. The fine fabric would become transparent when wet and eulogised in some quarters as ‘woven air’.
The hunt for these fabrics brought Dutch, French, and Portuguese traders to east India. The British, arriving last, soon gained a monopoly over muslin makers in the region. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution in England, they began shipping raw materials from colonies to their factories back home and dumping cheaper, factory-made textiles in the colonies.
With raw materials scarce and cheap mill cloth flooding the markets, Dhaka’s fine muslin lost its market and withered away.
That’s when the weavers moved from Dhaka to Tangail about 100 km away and found patronage from wealthy landowners. The quality of water, soil, and humidity determined the technique for weaving a particular kind of fabric. Those variations and a different raw material – the original variety of cotton used to make muslin had died out— meant that the yarn was different. All these factors gave birth to a new fabric – the Tangail.
The Tangail weavers were Hindus. Their surname was Basak and they were devotees of the 15th-century preacher Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who had roots in Nadia. The district already had a weaving industry that produced the Santipuri and Dhaneykhali sarees. Supply chains of yarns and dyes were in place and there was a train line from Nadia to the biggest market then: Kolkata.
Naturally then, when India was partitioned in 1947, Nadia was the destination for migrating weavers from Tangail. Some went further west to adjoining Purba Bardhaman. More migrant weavers streamed into the area in 1971.
The migrants brought with them their traditional crafts and skills and set up shop in West Bengal, where they flourished.
But are they flourishing still?
Not really, says Archi Banerjee, designer and curator of a Partition Crafts project and author of a report on the saree titled Weaving Narratives Together: Partition of Bengal and the Tangail Saree. There were about one lakh handloom weavers in the Nadia-Purba Bardhaman area 10-15 years ago, she says. Today, she adds there are about 20,000 handloom weavers left. The rest have shut down or switched to mechanised looms called ‘power looms’ that produce sarees faster and cheaper.
Powerloom products are not given the GI tag ever but as they are so much cheaper than the handwoven ones, the real thing is losing the market. In these circumstances, the GI tag is doubly important for the Tangail saree because it doesn’t just give a product a unique identity but also gives the product a speciality status and triggers economic growth.
“Not a good idea to fight over GI,” says Banerjee. “At a time when migration is a global phenomenon and migrants are carrying their crafts with them, all crafts are becoming shared crafts.
The Tangail is a shared craft too, she says. “Instead of fighting about it, we should think of collaborative solutions. The GI fights are divisive, with no economic benefit to anyone on either side of the border.”
Finally, the saree is a special thing. Not some esoteric piece of handicraft for display in a glass showcase. It is a living, breathing article of daily wear for lakhs of women in both countries and a major source of revenue for thousands of weavers. In short, a ghar-ghar ki item, a fight over which cannot come to any good, either in India or in Bangladesh.
The author is a senior journalist based in Kolkata. She tweets @Monideepa62. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)
Real Tangail wins over fake Tangail any day of the week. Indians have pilfered many Bangladeshi items via fake GI theft – but this is the most egregious of them all. I mean LOL Tangail is in Bangladesh !! What moronic logic would make something Made in Bangladesh since eons an Indian product? Tangail sarees are made in Bangladesh, and purchased by Bangladeshis who are way richer than WB people. Just give up already.
This is pure evil and robbery by India. Robbing Bangladeshi cultures, really shame on you. Tangail is in Bangladesh and the sharee is originated in Tangai, Bangladesh years ago.