For instance, the uproar on social media following the GI recognition awarded to the Tangail. In January, a Facebook post by the Ministry of Culture said, “The Tangail saree, originating from West Bengal, is a traditional handwoven masterpiece. Renowned for its fine texture, vibrant colours, and intricate Jamdani motifs, it epitomises the region’s rich cultural heritage.”

The post, which was deleted later, ruffled feathers in neighbouring Bangladesh, where social media users took offence at the use of the phrase “Tangail saree, originating from West Bengal”. A report in the Dhaka Tribune said, “The Ministry of Culture of India has asserted that the famous Tangail saree, a symbol of Bangladesh’s rich cultural heritage, actually originates from West Bengal, India.”

Sources say the cause behind the backlash was a result of the phrasing of the social media post and a lack of effective communication to assuage hurt sentiments following the uproar.

“Nobody can dispute the origins of Tangail in Bangladesh,” says Nilay Kumar Basak, an educator and researcher based in Phulia, who is among the few people to have conducted extensive research on this specific textile. “The GI application that was submitted to the government is very detailed and nowhere does it dismiss Tangail’s origins.”

While the GI tag is the cause of fury, the story of the Tangail textile and its ownership is slightly more complex. It is one about the impact of colonialism, religious conflict and forced migration.

The origins of the Tangail saree can be traced to the second half of the 19th century when the community of Basak weavers — who had been experts in creating muslin — migrated from Dhamrai and Chowhat villages near Dhaka to Tangail subdivision in the greater Mymensingh district, in what is now modern-day Bangladesh, at the invitation of the zamindars.

By the 20th century, approximately 22 villages were involved in weaving fine handloom sarees with designed borders, which soon became popular as the Tangail saree and were sold in local markets or haat.

However, between 1947-1971, almost 95 per cent of weavers who were the main inhabitants of these villages, with the exception of some families in two of these villages — Pathrail and Chandi — fled to India following violence against Hindus in Bangladesh.

Undivided Bengal had faced severe polarisation on religious grounds and its impact was witnessed in the Basak community as well. “They were persecuted and discriminated against in many ways on the basis of religion post-1947, even if widespread open violence did not occur,” says Nilay.

“When my father came to West Bengal, I was nine years old. We came from Tangail and everyone knew us there. Those were terrible times,” says 71-year-old Gourango Basak.

The memories are painful for him to recall. “People were selling their homes overnight and leaving and nobody would find out till they left. If any Hindu or Muslim family would have found out we were leaving, they would take everything from us. So we had to leave in secret. There were many empty houses but no people living in them. There were many evil people back then,” he says of the communal tension.

Sometime in 1962, when it became impossible for Gourango’s father to continue living in Tangail, he secretly sold his home one day and took his family to a relative’s home nearby. “He arranged a horse-drawn carriage, it was called a tomtom in our village, because it was the only means of transport. The next night he came at 3 am and took us away. My younger sister was only six-month-old. We got onto a launch boat and came to this side (India) by crossing the Hili border,” says Gourango about their journey that ended in Phulia. “We had no money but somehow managed a meal.”

Most Hindus from the weavers community who fled Bangladesh ended up in refugee camps that the Indian government had set up in Phulia in Nadia district in the 1950s, says Nilay. Refugees also settled in Dhatrigram and Samudragarh villages in Purba Bardhaman district.

These two districts became a settlement for refugees because they had well-established saree markets, along with having an ecosystem of handloom weavers.

When the refugees from Bangladesh settled in the new land, they got down to doing what they knew best — weaving. Back in Tangail, the demand for the kind of sarees that they were making was so great that the weavers rarely had to worry about clearing their stock or selling enough. But it was a different game here.

“The weavers who migrated here really struggled to establish themselves. To do that, they had to modify the sarees in terms of designs,” explains Nilay.

Thus, the Tangail of West Bengal, was born.

It was in the 1950s when weavers in West Bengal began experimenting with the traditional Tangail, setting off on a path that completely changed the textile and created the form that is now sold in India. The pioneers who brought about this change were Biren Basak and Suren Basak, the master weavers in Phulia.

“When weavers moved to this side of the border, they wanted to carry that legacy but also create their own identity,” says Pritha Dasmahapatra, a doctor and an independent researcher on South Asian textiles. “The original Tangail is different. In any textile, there are two kinds of yarns. One yarn lengthwise and one widthwise. For the original Tangail, the designs were made at the border and ran lengthwise. For the Tangail made in West Bengal, the threads run widthwise like a Jamdani,” she says.

A traditional Tangail will comprise colourful plain or designed borders on both sides with a white main body and few butis or motifs on the aanchal. Some common motifs found on Tangail can include what are locally called machi buti (fish motif), chatai buti (woven mat motif), chimta buti (tongs motif), tinkathi buti (a trident motif), and trishul buti (a variation of the trident motif), but it underwent several transformations when it began to be produced in India.

The change in the design of Tangail saree in West Bengal started with the change in the style of these butis, says Nilay.

“The difference in designs come from religions of the weaver communities. Islam does not permit human figure designs which is not the case for Hindu weavers. The innovation that Phulia weavers brought to the sarees was the introduction of human figures in designs which they call ‘figure jamdani’ which is not found in Bangladesh at all. They also made designs more curvilinear. They don’t follow the original. I think the Phulia weavers have created a distinct identity for themselves. Even though the weave is essentially the same, it’s different,” says Dasmahapatra.

Today in Phulia’s Chatkatala neighbourhood, where many Tangail weavers still live, 73-year-old Biren has seen great upheavals and astonishing success.

At the age of 13, when he fled from what was formerly East Pakistan, he was forced to help out his family in the looms to eke out a living as refugees. That was in 1965. Today, he operates one of the largest textile enterprises in Phulia, employing over 5,000 weavers. In 2021, Biren was conferred with the Padma Shri, India’s fourth-highest civilian honour, for his contribution to Indian textiles.

“While traditional Tangail is still made here in Phulia, I changed the Tangail and introduced designs like buti, and made it into something that resembles a Jamdani,” says Biren.

The famed Jamdani is another textile that originated in undivided Bengal, but it is difficult to ascertain where the etymology of the term ‘jamdani’, says Nilay. He points to an entry on Banglapedia where researcher Tofail Ahmad says ‘Jamdani’ has its roots in a Persian word, where ‘Jama’ means ‘cloth’ and ‘Dana’ means ‘buti’, or ‘butidar cloth’.

In West Bengal, the aesthetic aspects of Jamdani and the technical aspects of Tangail were merged to create a unique textile which is produced only by the Tangail weavers in India.

Biren’s experiments with the traditional Tangail have won him not only awards, but also a long list of prominent customers. At his office in Phulia, the walls are covered with photographs of several leaders, from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who have received and purchased sarees from his retail shop.

In addition to master weavers, Biren says, the key to his success has been in part due to his focus on creating fresh designs. “Many have started copying and incorporating designs into the sarees because the plain Tangail is harder to sell. The tantis or weavers are facing a difficult situation these days because they need good designers which they don’t have. They need a variety of designs and larger numbers of looms. Many are creating saree but not everyone can create a marketable product. Not everyone can master the jamdani technique.”

The socio-cultural factors that contributed to the change in the Tangail is a unique story in the history of South Asian textiles. “They changed the Tangail in West Bengal because they were refugees trying to cater to a new market in the early 1970s. They were trying to cater to the aesthetic sensibilities of the Bengalis of West Bengal, and not people all over India back then. Jamdani was popular but also expensive and Tangail was cheaper and more affordable,” says Dasmahapatra.

The Jamdani was also well-known in comparison to the Tangail, a factor that may have also contributed to the decision of weavers to create an affordable product that was a striking combination of both weaves.

“An authentic Tangail saree with a plain body and no designs or minimal designs on the aanchal can sell for anything between Rs 550-600 in Phulia, while an authentic Tangail saree in cotton with designs can start at Rs 5,000 here,” says Nilay. But at shops in West Bengal and elsewhere in the country, prices for Tangail sarees can range between Rs 800-3,000.

“There are so many varieties of sarees across India. Tangail, Jamdnai, Benarasi etc. are already brand names because customers can easily identify the various kinds of sarees by these names. These names already bring up powerful images and associations so GI tags are useless because all these years, sarees didn’t need any of these things to find customers,” says Nilay.

In Phulia, however, not everyone is excited about the GI tag. The weavers are clear that their product is very different from the textile that had originated in Tangail subdivision, now in Bangladesh, and they would have preferred GI status for what is now called Phulia jamdani.

“I still remember the weekly haat that would happen in Tangail. It was a big village and all the weavers would take a cane basket on their head filled with sarees and sell them there. Traders including those from India would come to the haat and sell sarees once a week,” says Biren.

He still has many relatives in Tangail and knows the status of the market in both countries well. The controversy that arose regarding the ownership of the Tangail is distracting attention from the difficulties that the weavers in India are facing due to government policies, he says.

“Power loom and rapier machines are making 80 per cent of the fabrics being produced all over India, which are mixed with synthetic fibres. In India only 20 per cent of the market share is attributed to handloom weavers. The government gets GST from power looms so it has less incentive to support weavers,” says Biren.

“The GI status is largely for international marketing and to identify that a certain product cannot be produced anywhere else. Essentially, it is similar to a specific brand. But the question is how many people will buy Tangail saree outside West Bengal, let alone overseas. As it is, sarees are being worn in less numbers by women on a daily basis. On top of this now that power looms have come into the manufacturing process, it means the sarees these mechanical looms produce cost less money. If a customer can find a Jamdani saree produced on mechanical looms for Rs 300, but a plain, handloom Jamdani for Rs 3,000, it is obvious which one they would prefer from a monetary perspective. So from that angle, we can say that handloom is anyway finished,” says Nilay.

“My relatives in Tangail are better off than us, because the market is better and they are getting more support from the Hasina government. You can’t have a successful market for handlooms without government support. We have no support here,” he says.