By Roy Lie Atjam
Dr Shahana Siddiqui from the University of Amsterdam and BRAC University delivered a comprehensive lecture on the saree at the Embassy of Bangladesh in The Hague on July 18, 2024. She emphasized that the saree is a women’s garment, consisting of unstitched fabric of about 6 yards or more. The beauty of ancient India was that of a woman’s small waist, large bust, and hips. The saree seems to be the perfect dress to accentuate those proportions. Here are excerpts of Dr Shahana Siddiqui’s extensive lecture.
Dr Shahana Siddiqui, a Medical Anthropologist is affiliated with the University of Amsterdam and the BRAC James P. Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University.
Saree, this ancient clothing practice that has survived the test of time, is rich with history of the different regions, their unique design, fabric, handloom, and craftsmanship.
“Poro poro chaitali shaaje
Kushmi shari
Aaji tomar rooper shathe
Cha(n)der aari”
The national poet of Bangladesh, Kazi Nazrul Islam, known for his passionate prose and poems, in this song, invokes sensual imageries of his lover draped in soft yellow summer saree, in which her beauty overshadows the brilliance of the moon. Like Nazrul, Tagore, Shorotchindro, Jibanandu, Buddhadev, and many other writers, poets, musicians, filmmakers, have immortalized the saree and all that it represents as feminine beauty and grace in their art and expressions.
To think that a single continuous fabric, a long cloth if you will, tells countless stories of people and places, their pasts, present, and possible futures, all weaved together in intricate designs and motifs. And when draped around the female form, this single cloth transforms into the site of engendered identity, sensuality, beauty, strength, resistance, empowerment, history, and politics.
Thanks to popular culture, especially Bollywood and its extensive reach, the saree is almost always associated with India. While there is much truth in that association, saree is worn in various ways across the South Asian region, namely, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and of course, Bangladesh. As Indian sari historian Rta Kapur Chisti wrote in her seminal book, “Sari: Tradition and Beyond”, there are 108 known ways to wear the fabric, and that in India alone. One can imagine how many different types of draping there are in other countries. Again, to quote Rta Kapur Chisti, there is just no one saree. And like the saree, there is no one South Asia, but a region of multiples and multiplicities.
Designers, weavers, and of course the consumers, have kept sarees alive and thriving, from simple affordable cotton ones to elaborate embroidered, bejeweled bespoke ones – sarees are worn and celebrated by millions of women across the Indian sub-continent and the diaspora alike. Sarees are not some remnants of the yesteryears but worn regularly in both urban and rural areas, with some styles retaining their age-old motifs and draping techniques, while others are constantly changing with the fast world of fashion and glamor.
Bangladeshi saree
While many of our Indian, Pakistani, and Sri Lankan friends have curated the histories of the different forms of sarees found in the region, the history and evolution of Bangladeshi sarees, while well curated, remain widely unknown.
Yet, undivided Bengal and later on, Bangladesh, was the original home of the jamdani saree, the only existing weaving craftsmanship of the muslin. Layers of Bengal’s history, its upheavals, struggles, survival, resistance, and resilience are weaved into jamdani.
Today, I wanted to bring to you the story of Bengal or Bangladeshi sarees or shari, as we pronounce the word in Bengali. I am no historian but an amateur enthusiast who has been in love with sarees since the age of three, and have been regularly wearing and collecting sarees since 18. As a friend said the other day, one cannot imagine Shahana in anything other than a saree in Dhaka.
History of Bengali Saree
Historians have well established that the origins of drape-like clothing in the Indian subcontinent can be traced back to the Indus Valley civilization, dating to that of 2800 – 1800 BCE. Given the rich waterways of the Indian sub-continent, wild cotton and silk were found in abundance with weaving techniques dating back to ancient times.
In general, the saree is a three-or four-part ensemble, including a skirt, and a blouse, and one long cloth or two pieces of shorter cloth. As Indian researcher Kaamya Sharma stated, that “the sari’s elemental structure is considered to be determined by its woven form” which consists of the body or in Bengali, jomin, borders or paar running along the length, and the end part, called pallu or a(n)chal.
The historical trajectory and come to that of the Mughal era of the Indian subcontinent. It is important to note that, much of what we understand as undivided India, started to come into shape or coherence during the time of the Mughal empire which expanded from the borders of what is now Afghanistan to the borderlands of Bengal and what was then called Burma.
It would be in these times that the jamdani motif would start appearing on muslin cloths. Along with the Mughals came their architectural and design motifs which can be found across South Asia from mosques, to gardens, to administrative buildings, and of course clothes and carpets. Jam, Persian for flowers, and dani, for vase, together, Jamdani, became a much-loved weaving technique by the Mughals, with the weavers moving with their patrons across Bengal.
Sari Politics, Political Saree. The saree therefore, especially in the region of Bengal, becomes a site for national politics and freedom movements. It also becomes a fusion of ancient Indian handloom with Mughal motifs, and British blouse and petticoat.
Pre and post-Independence Bangladesh
Much of the saree wearing traditions I personally learnt were from my grandmother, my Nani, and my mother. My Nani were four sisters and three brothers who were born in various parts of Bengal but grew up mainly in the Hooghly and Kolkata areas of what is now known as West Bengal of India. To me, personally, my three Nanis were the epitome of Bengali Muslim propriety and grace. They always wore sarees, with long sleeved blouses, and when in front of unknown men (or even women), they would quietly pull their a(n)chol over their heads.
By March of 1971,after months of political unrest between the central government in West Pakistan and political uprisings in East Pakistan, a full-fledged war broke out.
Politics and nation building happened on women’s bodies, with images of the war heroines, or Birongonas as they were called, becoming a part of our national imagery.
I heard stories from my mother and paternal aunts who all had to stop their education and flee to various parts of the country, that after independence, once they resumed college and university, there was a national rejection of outfits such as Shalwar Kameez. It was viewed as a Pakistani attire and with fervent nationalism, the kameez went away for some time.
Other sarees, but there are so many other sarees in Bangladesh. The nakshikantha or designed quilt, sarees that are found across the Bengals. Nakshikatha stitch can be traced back to indigenous rural women’s craftsmanship where they would stitch together old sarees into a quilt. And in that stitch, they told stories of their everyday lives. Sometimes they are just animals or trees or people and sometimes simple design motifs, and at other times, they are intricate flowers. Nakshikantha is both a patchwork and a story in its entirety.
In conclusion, the sarees of Bangladesh are as much a display of local crafting excellence, they are also the continuing narratives of the manifold histories of the Bengal region. I always find it to be fascinating that in this drive for hyper capitalistic ways of living, that South Asia has held on to its saree wearing ways, not only to retain a connection with the past, but as a way of reinventing, reimagining a future of fusions and colours. In the case of jamdani, like its people, it is a testament to resistance and resilience. A simple one continuous cloth, yet draped with centuries of epics and sagas and so much more in the future.
The informative morning culminated in an engaging question-and-answer session, followed by a delightful buffet lunch.
