Tangail saris: Will the GI tag give them a boost?

Three sari weaves from West Bengal earned the GI (geographical indication) tag recently. These are Tangail from Nadia and Purba Bardhaman districts (102 km from Kolkata), Korial from Birbhum, and Garad from Murshidabad. 

What makes the Tangail sari stand out? Tangail saris embody a neat look and feel but also a stiff texture due to the application of a kali, a starch made of rice and lime. This is applied during the weaving process. 

Changing times 

Tangail saris were originally woven on a shuttle pit loom (where the loom is inside a pit and the artisan weaves the fabric using pedals). The weavers made use of a silk warp and cotton weft or fillers. Silk was later replaced with local cotton yarn owing to the scarcity of silk. The early weaving process was complicated where the yarn was spun with a takli (spindle) instead of a spinning wheel. Over time, new techniques, processes, and materials were introduced. 

Nowadays, Tangail saris are woven with pure cotton, khadi cotton, linen, tussar silk, matka silk, resham silk, rayon, blended silk, and zari. Indigenous bleaching and dyeing materials have made way for chemical dyes and ingredients. 

Decoding motifs 

Phulia’s Tangail sari is similar to Dhaka’s Jamdani sari in weaving technique but softer in feel, with its motifs spaced out. In Tangail cotton saris, the common motifs are birds, flowers, and leaves. They are further decorated with jacquard borders with extra warp and extra weft buti (motif).

The borders also feature paddo (lotus pattern) and pradip (lamp pattern) on them, apart from using aansh paar (earthy colours). From a single colour on the border earlier, weavers have now started using two to three colours to give it a meenakari (enamelling) effect. Dhaka’s Jamdani technique has lent its extra-weft ornamentation combined with lata-pata (vine pattern) to Tangail saris nowadays.

Tangail saris have a pattern running through every alternate or every two weft threads apart, with designs of extra warp in borders and extra weft in the body portion. It can be woven in two styles: jacquard and nakshi buti (a repetitive line of designs or motifs).

In the jacquard style, the desired pattern is fed in the loom. When the entire sari is ready, the loose threads are cut off to give it a smooth finish. As opposed to this, in nakshi buti, the work on everything including the fabric, motifs, and borders is done by hand. 

Innovate to reboot 

Will the GI recognition give a boost to the weavers? Commenting on the current state of affairs, Biren Kumar Basak, a weaver-cum-entrepreneur and a Padma Shri recipient, says, “Many weavers around Phulia are idle due to lack of work. I have 7,000 people working under me and have a team of designers. But around three to four lakh weavers are struggling with poverty.”

“Reduced demand and powerloom-produced saris imitating the (traditional) designs have affected the handloom weavers,” he says. His designs are a hot pick in countries like the UK and the USA. In addition to traditional motifs, he also seeks inspiration from mythological figures from the Ramayana, and gods like Krishna and Ganesha. 

Powerloom saris are a big competition for traditional Tangail weavers as the cost of producing the former is much lower. It usually takes a day to weave a Tangail sari with a handloom and four such saris on a powerloom!

Prodip Dhani, a weaver from Santipur in Nadia sold his handlooms to make ends meet. He now sells saris sourced from other weavers and vendors. He counts down their woes: saris manufactured in Surat in Gujarat, by imitating Tangail designs, are flooding the market; local handloom weavers don’t get their due wages; some traders have bought Chinese-made ‘rapier’ machines, which can turn out saris faster. “If we can’t sell our handmade items, what’s the use (getting a GI tag)?” he asks. 

Kolkata-based textile designer Paramita Banerjee, who works with handlooms, agrees that “just a GI tag won’t help weavers”. The weavers need to come up with a marketing plan to encash this recognition. “Diversification is important. We create bags, jackets, and notebooks with Bengal handloom material,” she explains.

Rabindra Nath Roy, managing director of Tantuja, a brand owned by the West Bengal State Handloom Weavers Co-operative Society to market handloom products, acknowledges that the use of synthetic ‘bumper’ yarn has affected the sale of authentic Tangail saris as the former can be sold cheaper. “This is a challenge handloom products face in other regions too,” he adds. 

Like Paramita, Roy feels the weavers need to think out of the box. “Weavers must understand market
dynamics and changes in consumer tastes. We can’t stick to old templates citing tradition. While retaining conventional designs, we can innovate and keep pace with modern times,” Roy says.

Explaining the ‘value-creation’ a GI tag brings along, he says “It establishes the sari’s specifications like length (5.5 m) and weaving technique and authentic design as well as the yarn used.”

How to identify a Tangail sari

According to the Indian Handloom Brand website, these saris can be identified from “the extra warp designs in the borders” and designs in the body, which are “produced with the help of jacquard for lifting the threads”. Coloured threads are used in the designs as well as throughout the sari and a “bulging effect is seen at the design portions of the fabric”.

Primary clusters

Tangail’s ‘original home’ is considered to be Chowhatta and Dhamrai in present-day Bangladesh. During the Partition of India in 1947, a large section of the weaving community migrated to present-day Bengal and settled down around Nadia and Purba Bardhaman. Around the 1971 Bangladesh war, another batch of weavers came over to India. This gave rise to a flourishing handloom sari industry around Phulia and Santipur.

Today, Dhatrigram and Samudragarh, villages in Purba Bardhaman district, and Phulia, a township in Nadia district, are known for the Tangail sari.

Wallet factor

Tangail saris start from Rs 600 for the plain matha, a pure cotton weave with simple motifs. The price can go into thousands of rupees when done in the Jamdani technique in fine silk.