# Tangail Saree

Tangail saree or sari is a traditional handwoven sari of Bangladesh. It originated in the Tangail district of the country. A completely different kind of saree is produced in the Purba Bardhaman and Nadia districts of West Bengal. It is a simplified Jamdani textile which is a hybrid of Shantipuri saree with saree desighns and handloom techniques of Tangail.

## History

At the end of the 19th century, the handloom industry of Tangail in Bengal flourished. Tangail sari weavers of Bangladesh are descendants of traditional muslin weavers. Dhamrai and Chauhatta of Dhaka district were the original residence of Tangail Saree weavers of Bangladesh. Later settled in Tangail and in the beginning they made cloth without designs.
At one time, cotton weaving was a very important industry in Nadia district. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, Shantipur was the center of a large and prosperous weaving industry. In 1898 AD, almost all the villages in this district had a few weavers. The weaving industry of Shantipur faced a major threat in the late nineteenth century due to the introduction of cloth from England. The weavers found the trade unprofitable and switched to other professions, resulting in a gradual decline in the number of weavers in the industry. However, according to a survey conducted in 1940 by the Department of Industries, Bengal, 10,000 out of a total of 27,000 people in Shantipur were reported to be members of weaving families.
Every member of the weaver's family was involved in the weaving of Tangail sarees produced in undivided Bengal i.e. East-Bengal of British India. No weavers or laborers were hired, which was the practice of not letting the weaving technique go outside the weaver's family. The Basak families were the original saree weaving families of Tangail. These weavers were mainly from the Hindu "Basak" community. After the partition of the country in 1947, most of the traditional weavers, including most of the Basak weavers community, of this region started migrated to West Bengal from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The process of migration intensified in 1965, and reached its peak in 1971 during the Indo-Pak War and the Bangladesh Liberation War. Due to the fear of communal violence, cost of raw materials increasing several times, non-availability of loans from the government, crisis in transportation of goods, lack of business security Hindu weavers gradually migrated from Bangladesh to India, which was mentioned in a research paper published in a journal in 2014.
At present, Muslim weavers also weave this saree along with the weavers of the "Basak" community in Tangail.

### Origin of the saree in West Bengal

Traditionally, Shantipur of Nadia and Kalna City of Purba Bardhaman districts are famous centers for handwoven fabrics, hence basak weavers settled in these places and surrounding areas. However, the Basak community maintained their weaving technique through many adversities. Most of the weavers with the help of looms brought with them from East Pakistan (East Bengal, now Bangladesh) and Others with the help of looms provided by the Government of India and Government of West Bengal continued to weave sarees even in refugee camps; many weavers joined the weaving industry of West Bengal as workers in looms owned by local weavers in santipur, Dhatrigram and Samudragarh.
With government encouragement and assistance, weavers from East Bengal soon revived their ancestral profession and the weaving industry flourished again. The weavers of the Basak community of East-Bengal mastered the technique of weaving and designing the Shantipuri loom saree while employed as laborers in the weaving centers of the local weavers of West Bengal and with the help of the local weavers. Later, the weavers of the Basak community were able to mixing the Dhaka-Tangail style with the Shantipuri loom sari. In this mixing a new sari is produced; this new saree produced in West Bengal came to be known as "Tangail saree", which was different from the Tangail saree produced in East-Bengal. Like the Bangladeshi Tangail saree, it is also a simplified version of the famous Jamdani technique.