As a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, I had the immense privilege of immersing myself in that exceptional collection, where thousands of South Asian textiles awaited discovery. Mostly bought from the International Exhibitions of the 19th century, some had not even been unpacked from their original wrappings, and were accompanied by precious pieces of information about their places of manufacture, use, price and local names. The textiles were from every part of pre-Partition India, but my first close encounter with a drawer of Bengali muslins was an unforgettable experience. These snowy, diaphanous lengths of plain cotton had an appeal that was almost inexplicable they had no pattern and no colour but were somehow compellingly beautiful. Their power lay in their total simplicitya paradox not lost on patrons ranging from the ladies of the Roman Empire to the Mughal emperors, who chose fine muslin over more lavish materials for their court dress.
Over thousands of years, India has produced the world's greatest and most splendid variety of textiles, but those from Bengal have rarely been given prominence. This book, and the exhibitions accompanying it, showcase exceptional surviving examples of textiles produced by hand in Bengal, placing them in their historical and cultural contexts and indicating their global impact.
The designation 'Bengal' is itself problematic, since both its physical features and historical boundaries have altered significantly over time. Yet these changes are integral to the story of its textiles, tied in with the land, the movements of people, techniques, patronage and trade. Bengal appears to have first existed as a politically and culturally cohesive state in the seventh century as the Gauda kingdom, covering much of modern-day West Bengal and Bangladesh. Its boundaries expanded and contracted as it was ruled by different dynasties before being incorporated in the Mughal Empire as the Bengal Subah, which included parts of modern Odisha, Bihar and Jharkhand, as well as present-day Bangladesh. This complex and evolving story has led to the title of our project, Textiles from Bengal: A Shared Legacy. Besides its 31 chapters, the book also has a series of expert catalogue entries explaining the significance of particular items, from a royal quilt. from Murshidabad, to jamdani count songs or the textiles of terracotta dolls from Krishnanagar.
The book opens with Robert Ivermee's study, "The Historical Geography of Bengal: A Region in Flux'. This illustrates how the shifting landscape of Bengal and changes in the centres of political power, including the eventual inclusion of Bengal in the Mughal Empire, impacted its textile industry. The variety of Bengal's physical environments, including the largest riverine delta in the world, and moving river courses, affected agriculture, trade routes and population patterns. In "Textile Maps of Bengal, this changing geography and the human response to it is illustrated by Subham China, with a series of maps showing the decay and resurgence of textile centres in relation to the fluvial shifts and dissolving sandbanks of the Bengal Delta (the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta). The location of Bengal's textile production in the global arena of both maritime and overland trade is discussed by Jayati Bhattacharya in 'Bengal Textiles: A Global Demand'.
Essays on production, technology, products and people in Sections 2 to 4 collectively point out how we might study the history of Indian, in this case Bengali, textiles. Modern research interest stems from studies of the British Industrial Revolution, when revolutionary changes occurred in textile and transport technology, and Europe's economic expansion into Asia and Africa from the 19th century effectively integrated markets more closely. Local artisanal textiles sometimes collapsed in the face of this dual process of industrialization and colonization.
The impact of socio-economic conditions of 18th-19th century Bengal on the organization, hierarchy and 'place' of the weavers in the arang system (an arang was a centre for collection of textiles for export) is discussed by Hameeda Hossain in 'Weavers, Gomostas and the Company', while Subham China discusses a different aspect of enforced inequality in 'Forced Migration of Skills.
In 'Deindustrialization', Tirthankar Roy considers how artisans and traders adapted to changes in consumption, technologies and raw materials. They made goods of varied quality, reached new markets, cut costs, relocated themselves, and shared knowledge, information and risks by strengthening their collective organization. While European trade was undoubtedly significant for Bengal, local exchange networks were also substantial, and many traditional goods continued to be actively traded in these networks. Lastly, foreign trade was not just a trade in physical commodities but also in design and knowledge of quality. A range of tools and attachments that could be fitted into the handloom enabled a wider variety of designs that came from Europe to India in the 19th and 20th centuries. Indian textiles became part of a trans-national exchange of knowledge about 'exotic' material goods, as consumers became familiar with their varieties and wearing qualities, and of iconography, as patterns and images were exchanged across continents, enabling traditional Indian designs to be acceptable to foreign tastes, and absorbed into artefacts. The local reaction to these changes as well as to the colonial presence, is discussed by Bessie Cecil, in Textiles and Swadeshi, tracing the effect that the Swadeshi Movement had on the production of Bengal textiles, khadi as an anti-colonial statement, and conflicts between modernist and arts and crafts attitudes within the self-reliance movement. Bhaskar Das adds to this, in 'Weaving Memories of Partition'.
Although some of this story is common to other South Asian regions, the Bengal Delta's textile heritage is especially rich in its great variety of fibres, colours and design styles. The area around Dhaka produced the short-staple cotton plant that gave rise to muslin weaving. In 'Muslin: From Loom to Fashion', Sonia Ashmore explains how this delicate fabric became a fashionable accessory from the late 17th century, accounting for large exports, and defining high fashion in late-18th century Europe.
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