| Tanti (weavers) handloom
manufacturers working at indigenous weaving machines run by hand and foot.
Common tradition says that the tanti community as a functional
group developed under the pressure of the natural demand for woven cloth.
charyapada,
the ancient inscription of Bangla language contains elaborate description
of the lifestyle and nature of work of the weavers indicating that this
artistic occupation existed even in ancient Bengal. The Arthasastra
of Kautilya inscribed some fine fabrics of the earliest
times such as moner mata, snigdha, dukul, patronnada,
khowma etc.
History and archeological discovery suggest that Bengal was famous
in olden times for her textile fabrics. cotton
was the chief material for textile work and was produced abundantly
in Bengal. During the first century AD, Dhaka muslin
became famous in Rome and was highly prized.
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Tanti (weavers) |
The varieties of muslin produced in Bengal were tanzeb,
sarband, badan, khos, elebellay, sharbati, tarangam, kumish, turya, nayansukh,
charkhana, malmal, jamdani, and addi. Besides muslin, weavers
of Bengal produced such other fine fabrics as, shabnam (dewy) and
abe rawan (running water).
These and many other fabrics of Bengal were noted for
their fineness of texture, beauty of design, intricacy of weave, lightness
of weight, and durability. Tantis however, produced many different types
of clothes of daily use and most of them were coarse and cheap. The finer
clothes are now rare in a tanti's workshop and they survive in the profession
by weaving largely the daily wears for the common people.
Once this group of craftsmen was under the domain of
Hindu Caste System. During the late 19th century, a section of this population
called Aswini Tanti ranked much higher than the others and a brahman
would take water from their hands. In Western Bengal the Aswini Tanti
or Asan Tanti claimed to be the original stock, from which the
other sub castes have diverged. Women of this group did not wear nose-rings
and this was regarded as a badge of social distinction. Ordinary tantis
held low esteem. The origin of the caste was said to be from a shudra
father and a ksatriya
mother.
Tantis follow their profession as a hereditary one. In Bengal their popular titles were Barash, Basak, Bhedya-bau, Chand, Das, Datta, Jugi, Kar, Mandal, Mukhim, Nandi, Pal, Pramanik Sadhu, Sarkar, Shil etc each now represents individual family titles. The title Basak was originally taken by rich persons, who had later given up weaving and become cloth merchants. During the early 1920s, a group of tantis distinct from the city weavers and settled in Eastern Bengal claimed to be the descendants of the original tantis of Bengal, who supplied cotton fabrics for ages before the reign of Jahangir. With the passage of time, the rapid growth of tantis in number followed the withering away of its caste character. During the Mughal period both Hindus and Muslims were involved in this occupation. duarte barbosa, a Portuguese traveler visiting Bengal in around 1518 mentioned in his writing some outstanding fabrics like 'memona', 'chowlari', 'cinebafa', and 'balilhar'. In 1670, the east india company delivered a comprehensive detail of weaving in places of Bengal like Dhaka, Chittagong, Laxmipur, Kishoreganj and Bajitpur. Singham, kash, malmal, reshmi, nila and tofeta were the main forms of local fabrics. However, the British colonial rule in Bengal is noted for its grotesque interference in the development of weaving through imposing sanctions on the export of the products of native weavers. According
to the prevailing belief, "weavers are in general timid, helpless people, many of them poor to the utmost degree of wretchedness, incapable of keeping accounts, industrious as they were by instinct, unable to defend themselves if oppressed, and satisfied if with continual labor". Tantis derived a moderate subsistence for their families from the fair dealing and humanity of their employer. About a century back almost every household in Bengal had a weaving machine. During the swadeshi days, when the boycott of foreign goods was a national movement to paralyse British trade, tantis got a chance to flourish. And with the end of British rule in India in 1947, this industry started to regenerate in fuller fashion. Tantis belong to both the Hindu and Muslim communities. But the name given to a Muslim tanti was Jola, which he preferred not to be pronounced for him. Instead he called himself a karigar, a skilled workman. Although tantis admit that weaving is their profession since time immemorial, many of them of late years do not have this as the exclusive occupation. The influx of cheap manufactured clothes forced many tantis to take other livelihoods as secondary sources of subsistence and many others, even to leave the occupation. In the past, the spinning thread for handloom machines was made in the charka (spinning wheel) by means of a spindle. Now that thread is produced abundantly in machines, the charkas have become extinct. The cotton mills have nearly dealt a final blow to the occupation of weaving. Weavers at present produce mainly the coarse and cheap items of day to day use like the gamchhas (bathing towels), gangies (men's undergarment for the upper portion of the body), lungis (men's long skirts for day to day use), and saris.
Tantis live in the rural areas and their business is
almost exclusively a family based one. In a village the tanti community
resides in a demarcated location named Tantipara. Likewise, some
places within the country are specialised in weaving and these are Narsingdi,
Raipura, Demra, Tangail, Shahjadpur, Bera, Kumarkhali, Ruhitpur, Baburhat,
Gouranadi and Nasirnagar. Regional varieties manifest variations in quality
of fabrics produced in different areas. silk
of Rajshahi, cotton sari of Tangail and Pabna, jamdani
and katan of Mirpur, benarashi of Demra, and lungi-gamccha
of Narsingdi earned countrywide reputation. These textiles are also being
exported in large quantities. [Gofran Faroqi]
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