MUSLIN JAMDANI

In the past, fine 500s to 800s count cotton yarns were spun on a takli (basic spindle). Today, there are only a few in the Murshidabad region, who can spin cotton on a spindle or charkha and most handspinning is done on ambar charkha. Few women spin up to 300s count, but there is not much demand for very fine fabrics as they are expensive and fragile. The most popular fabrics today are the 80s by 100s count. For the finer jamdani sarees, 120s count yarn is used in the warp and weft.

I visited Chandrakantha Lalitmohan Resham Khadi Samiti, a not-for-profit organisation based in Behrampur, Murshidabad district. They have been providing work to around 4000 people across 270 villages. The organisation was started in the early 1940s by two brothers, whose main business was trading in jute. They had joined the freedom struggle, and on hearing Gandhiji’s call to develop local village industries they had set up a samiti (co-operative society) to create employment in surrounding villages.

Women working on ambar charkhas at their head office earn around Rs.100 to 150 per day, depending on the quality and output. The ambar charkha is a great innovation, which could be installed in cotton growing regions. Without a huge investment, small-scale units could produce yarn suitable for handloom production. But, the ambar charkha needs to be connected to electricity instead of being operated by human hands, mostly done by women, as the 8 to 12 spindle charkhas have become very heavy, inhuman for women to mindlessly rotate the handle, which causes a lot of pain.

The opulent, intricately woven muslin jamdanis are probably the most expensive cotton fabrics, and their production flourished under the patronage of the Mughals. The word jamdani is of Persian origin; jam means ‘flower’ and dani a ‘vase’. The motifs are in a delicate floral or creeper pattern. The intricate patterns are created on the finest muslin fabric, where the motifs are interlaced with the weft threads using a supplementary weft technique.

Today, Kalna, Katwa and Musthuli in Bardwan district and Habibpur near Phulia are famous for jamdani weaving. Not so long ago, there were around 30,000 weavers in and around Kalna. Today this number has decreased to less than 300. However, the craft survives mainly on local consumption, although there is now a growing demand for jamdani fabrics, stoles, dupattas and sarees by high-end retailers and designers. This market needs to expand to encourage next generation of artisans to continue this tradition. In 2013, UNESCO declared the craft of making jamdani saris an ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity’.