Textiles for Export: Orientalism, Weaver Rebellion and Archives
Edited version of a research paper I wrote for a class on Indian textiles in the 16th to 19th centuries, about a textile in the Brooklyn Museum and its history in relation to British Orientalism and textile worker organizing, and now you can know about it all of this too.
Through the information provided in the Brooklyn Museum catalog and independent research on palampore production and the colonial trade, this paper attempts to analyze not only the history of the Brooklyn Museum palampore, but also the economic, political and cultural contexts that allowed for its creation. The first section of this paper is concerned with the details and origins of the palampore’s design as they relate to Orientalist views of India and ‘eastern’ art, and how demand on European markets influenced its aesthetic. I propose that the palampore in the Brooklyn Museum archive, which was produced in India for export to Europe and most likely used as a wall hanging, is an example of Orientalism’s influence on material culture, and the effects of changes in production brought on by the colonial trade in India. The second section attempts to decenter colonial narratives on Indian textile producers, focusing on the lives, histories, and agency of Indian textile producers making objects like the palampore for export during the colonial trade. I argue that counter to the dominant framing of pre-modern India, textile workers on the Coromandel Coast where the palampore was made were not passive or static people without history, but had agency, deep ties of solidarity, and actively resisted harsh treatment from European companies. Tied to the historiography of textile producer’s lives, the last section of this paper addresses problems of the colonial archive and the difficulty I first experienced looking for indigenous Indian perspectives during my research, and brings up larger questions on the archive, the study of history, and discursive power.
PART I: BACKGROUND
The Brooklyn Museum catalog listed the palampore as being designed by the United East India Company in 1800. Although there is no specific location listed, it is likely that the palampore was produced on the Coromandel Coast, which was known for the high quality painted fabrics produced there, and had significant textile trade with European colonial powers through various ports along the coast. Many other palampores with similar designs have been sourced to the Coromandel Coast. However, I question how accurate the designer and date listed are, given that the United East India Company, which is generally used to refer to the Dutch East India Company was nonexistent by the year 1799. Although the palampore may have been designed by the Dutch, the British East India Company also had significant influence on the Coromandel Coast during the same time period, and was exporting similar palampores and chintz. Demand for imported Indian cotton in Europe, specifically among British and Dutch consumers, began in the mid 1600’s and grew enormously. Between 1664 and 1678 alone, the British EIC became the largest importer of cotton textiles in Europe, with Indian cotton making up 49 percent to 60–70 percent of imports. Demand for palampores and chintz was well in decline by 1800, and the British government banned Indian cotton imports in 1700, and sale of cotton altogether in 1721, although many were smuggled in despite this. While it is not clear whether the palampore was designed by the Dutch or British, the time frame of the growth and decline of demand for palampores leads me to believe that it was designed and produced significantly earlier than 1800.
The palampore was printed onto a large panel of woven cotton in the tradition of kalamkari, meaning pen work. Kalamkari technique consists of an extensive series of steps, bleaching and treating the cotton and using mordants to bind the dye, which was hand painted onto the cotton. The technique involved in order to produce bright and lasting color developed over hundreds of years, and painted textiles produced on the Coromandel Coast were renowned for their especially high quality. Palampores and chintz patterns similar to the Brooklyn Museum palampore were most likely done by stencil. In Master Dyers to the West, Gittinger proposes that a similar chintz fragment made on the Coromandel Coast was created by the artist first drawing the pattern on to paper, then piercing the outline onto the fabric with pins, dusting the stencil with charcoal, and then painting the design by hand onto the cotton. In The Chintz Book, published in Britain in 1923, Percival describes the process of transferring the pattern onto the fabric through stencils and pins similarly, as does Morris in Indian Textiles in the Exhibition of Painted and Printed Fabrics. Exported palampores were generally used as wall hangings or bedspreads, mainly for upper class consumers. Because of the dimensions of the palampore and the intricacy of its design, I think it was likely intended for use as a wall hanging, and almost certainly made for wealthy buyers.
PART II: ORIENTALISM, COLONIAL TRADE, AND MATERIAL CULTURE
The palampore features a large ‘tree of life’ motif in the center, a motif significant in Muslim religious iconography. The Coromandel Coast was primarily under Mughal rule until the decline of the Mughal Empire in the 1730’s, but most likely influenced by the growing Maratha control of South India as well. Because of the Muslim Mughal influence and diverse religious background of the Maratha empire, it is not unlikely that textiles featuring the tree of life were influenced by Muslim religious iconography. This motif more closely resembles Muslim and Persian tree iconography, “rather than the concepts of kalpa vriksha, kalpa lata, and bodhi tree depicted in Indian sculpture.” However, although I believe Muslim iconographic depictions of the ‘tree of life’ may been the inspiration for the tree of life motifs found in many palampores, there are significant differences between the depiction of the ‘tree of life’ in Muslim iconography and as it is depicted in palampores and chintz intended for export to Europe. Looking at the economic and political history surrounding textile production on the Coromandel Coast in the 17th to mid 18th centuries, I’m inclined to believe that the the ‘tree of life’ as depicted in this palampore, as well as other aspects of the design, were influenced by the colonial trade and the intended consumers. Because the ‘tree of life’ in the palampore does not bear much resemblance to traditional Indian tree motifs, and incorporates a variety of styles from different areas across the Asian continent, I think the Brooklyn Museum palampore’s design is a result of European influence on production and European imaginings of what ‘oriental’ textiles should look like- essentially a creation of the East by the West.
In Orientalism, Edward Said articulated how the constructed image of the Orient in Western culture “has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience.” This symbolic image of the Orient however, is not “merely imaginative. The Orient is an integral of European material civilization and culture. Orientalism expresses and represents that part culturally and even ideologically as a mode of discourse with supporting institutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, even colonial bureaucracies and colonial styles.” Using Said’s analysis of the Orient as a figure that creates Western identity in opposition to itself, I want to view the palampore with its fictionalized ‘oriental’ design, produced to be consumed by wealthy Europeans, as an example of the ways in which Orientalism can influence material culture and cultural production.
Many other academic sources on palampore production in the early colonial period describe the typical design as a ‘hybrid,’ drawing on Persian and Chinese artists influences rather than strictly Indian ones, and go so far as to say the tree of life as commonly shown in these palampores has not been found in indigenous Indian art at all. In addition to this compilation of various ‘oriental’ aesthetics, the ribbons on the bouquets of flowers along the border of the palampore struck me as distinctly Victorian, and scholars mentions that the bouquet design found in many palampores and chintz may have originated from European engravings. Because trade was highly globalized, it’s possible that Indian textile producers were shown art samples from China and the Persian empire and instructed to replicate them while making the palampore, and scholars have “suggested the Chinese influence in these designs came to India via Europe,” not directly from trade with China. In fact, Indian records confirm that Indian trade with China was primarily limited to exports of chinoiserie for Chinese consumers. That Indian textile producers were simultaneously making textiles for export to China that would appeal to Chinese artistic tastes gives even more weight to the notion that the palampore’s design was intended to appeal to a certain audience. In fact, even the white background of the palampore reflects the intent for sale on the European market. Earlier palampores intended for consumers in India generally have the traditional dark red background, and scholars have proposed that the white undyed backgrounds first surfaced in 1643, based on a letter sent from the British EIC to their employees in India instructing, “Those [palampores] hereafter you shall send we desire maybe with more white ground and the flowers and branches in the middle of the quilt.” Furthermore, traditional Indian art never appealed to the English and Dutch, and was “met with a positive distaste” at first. The British EIC in particular initially viewed painted fabrics as worthless on the European market, but realized that “if the Indian designers could be persuaded to adapt their motifs to suit European taste,” they would be able to produce a profitable product, and began hiring Indian textile workers to produce European designed textiles.
The history of European companies in India commissioning textiles designed to cater to Western tastes further alludes to the Orientalism behind the palampore’s iconography. Rather than being reflective of indigenous Indian art, I believe that the palampore was intended to display a fictitious Western image of the Orient, one that would incorporate an exotified sense of otherness, while still remaining within the bounds of acceptability in order to appeal to its upper class European consumers. Through these designs combining various ‘oriental’ styles, the East India Companies created an easily digestible image of the East for consumers in the West. Palampores made for export created the identity of the West in their opposition to it, through a mythicized and all encompassing image of the East. They functioned as objects at once somewhat exotic, and therefore fetishizable, and somewhat familiar, and therefore acceptable for wealthy Europeans to furnish their homes with.
Hypocritically, while the West denigrated indigenous Indian art and held racist beliefs about Indian culture and existence, British and Dutch textile producers were never able to rival the skill and technique of Indian textile producers. Indian cotton textiles were highly desired in Europe because of their lasting color, detailed patterns and lightweight material, which European manufactures unsuccessfully attempted to imitate. The superior quality of Indian textiles led to such high demand in Europe that cotton imports were eventually banned out of fear of the growing economic power of Indian artisans and the effect it would have on the home economy. Even after the bans, Western textile producers tried to replicate Indian textiles, unsuccessful until the advent of chemical dyes and mechanization. European producers triumphed only in quantity not quality, out-producing the Indian workers who used longer, more labour intensive, and less mechanized techniques. Historically, Western companies and consumers wanted Indian artistic skill without Indians present, and the manufactured ‘oriental’ style of the palampore exemplified the lengths they went to in order to separate the desired exotified image of the Orient from the real Indian artisans producing their goods.
PART III: DECENTERING COLONIAL NARRATIVES: WORKER’S LIVES, IDENTITY AND AGENCY
While I think the palampore’s design reflects Orientalist views from Europeans about India and Indian art, and their own projections about what they believed ‘oriental’ art should look like, the Orientalism the palampore may have held hanging in a wealthy European home is only a portion of the object’s history. Although the palampore’s design was probably commissioned by the Dutch or British India Company, it was produced in India by Indian artisans with their own complex histories, social identities and agency. Initially approaching this research project, I had intended to focus a portion of the paper on the social and economic lives of Indian textile producers, providing the context and history of its producers, not just consumers. As I began my research, at first I had difficulty finding material that focused on the lives of Indian textile producers, not the colonial trade and European market. Although I was later able to find valuable resources on weaver history, many of the scholars writing about weaver history also point to the relative lack of resources dedicated to documenting weaver life in pre-colonial India and during the colonial trade, and the dearth of information on the lives of artisans working on other aspects of cotton production, such as finishing. Many of the sources I use on weaver life and social action have been written by the same scholars, who in their work also address their difficulties with the archive and having to work against colonial narratives on Indian artisan life.
Attempting to get a sense of what the lives of those producing objects like the palampore were like, I looked more broadly at the history of weavers in South India and the Coromandel Coast during from the mid 1600’s to the late 1700’s, when it most likely was produced. To make any specific claims about the palampore’s producers would be conjecture, but by outlining the history of weaving communities in the Coromandel region and weaver’s response to economic exploitation from colonial companies, I hope to provide possible context for the palampore’s origins and make visible the history of the people behind the objects we study.
The majority of cotton weavers in South India in the pre-colonial period were professional weavers. Weaving was their primary occupation, and entire families would be involved in the extensive weaving process. Professional weavers produced a large variety of textiles for sale on the local and overseas markets, and were known to adjust their products to fit specific tastes and demands from merchants. Weavers modified their products for different consumers all across the world, although examples of commissions specific to a European market, like the palampore, are more well documented. The ability of weavers to keep up with changing trends in taste and demand, and negotiate with merchants commissioning and selling their products points to a definite degree of agency, knowledge, and flexibility within their work. Dating back to the 15th century at least, many weavers lived in weaving villages, which provided them with a degree of social security and ability to negotiate with merchants and later with European companies. Weaving villages acted not only as mechanisms of resistance against potential coercion, but also as communities that gave weavers social identity in living together, working together, and worshipping together. Along with specific weaving villages, in larger towns in South India weavers lived in certain streets and neighborhoods. Weaving communities often emerged around temples, and through examining records of weaver donations to temples, scholars have been able to trace the social and economic status of weavers throughout different periods in pre-colonial India. Reciprocally, temples gave weavers ritual honors and privileges. Weavers were also spatially mobile, and although the ability for weavers or entire weaving communities to migrate was generally restricted to more economically privileged weavers, as Ramaswamy articulates, the history of weaver migration “cuts through traditional notions of the immobility of craft groups like weavers.” There was a degree of economic stratification among weavers, often along caste lines. This economic differentiation among weavers led to the emergence of the ‘master-weaver’- one who would act as an employer or contractor to poorer weavers, sometimes supplying them payment or raw materials in advance, and sometimes even owning multiple looms. However, Ramaswamy points out that the existence of master-weavers did not significantly change the mode or nature of textile production, and the master-weaver acted more as another middleman in the long production and distribution process.
When Dutch and British East India Company presence first began in India, South Indian weavers had already established networks of solidarity with each other, and used these networks to negotiate with kings, rulers, and merchants. Weaving communities acted as strong forms of organization, and weavers as well as many other Indian artisans had trade guilds that controlled sales. Strong weaver solidarity, which was built off caste identity, cultural and collective memory, ritual and religious life, and the proximity in which they worked and lived together, meant that they would not compete with each other, and instead were able to present a “united front in their dealings with merchants and kings.” As the British EIC and Dutch VOC gained more influence and began taking more control over textile production, imposing laws and regulations on weavers, weavers responded with collective action, drawing on their long history of solidarity and collective identity. Weaver protest and social action in response to company exploitation took on various forms, and they not only drew their tactics from existing Indian cultural and religious practice but also adapted their methods of collection action in order to meet their goals. Although documentation of weaver revolts in South India and the Coromandel region is mostly limited to the second half of the 18th century, the history of weaver action provides important information on the agency and lives of textile producers.
Weaver protests stemmed from their discontent at the European companies reorganizing textile production and putting them at a disadvantage, imposing repressive laws, low wages and poor working conditions, and demanding large quantities of textiles. As the British EIC’s political and economic power grew, weavers protests grew, and changed as they grew. During one rebellion in the 1770’s, weavers collectively abandoned their looms to protest changes in contracts with merchants that decreased their profits. Techniques of insubordination and collective withdrawal were old methods weavers had historically used to protest treatment from kings and rulers, now aimed at the colonial companies. Along with collective withdrawal, weavers announced their grievances with the British IEC in the form of petitions and oral testimonies. Many weaver petitions presented their objection to company policy as an issue of the companies violating mamool, or custom. By framing their protest in this way, weavers “constructed a normative tradition with which they evaluated the present and struggled to shape the future.” Appeals to custom show the political awareness weavers had in relation to the changing economy and growing colonial exploitation, and the mutual solidarity they shared with each other. Although weaver’s collective identity had deep roots, their solidarity was constantly made and remade, and “the act of protest itself and the demands of mobilizing for protest led weavers to explore and create new forms of solidarity.” Weaver petitions drew on Indian culture and custom, but also presented their demands in a form more likely to be met by the British EIC, when other protest methods were met with increasing violence and repression. The use of petitions reflected “their awareness both of new possibilities in the realm of political and legal action and the possible outcome of their collective action.” Weaver solidarity in the face of colonial exploitation often transcended caste, and weavers in the Northern Sarkars formed a samayam, or association, from the four main weaving castes, and other large cross-caste protests took place across India, with thousands of weavers and even other artisans joining. Weavers initiated bonds of solidarity with others by giving food, using “the social power of food to construct solidarity” and building their resistance to colonial power off their social and cultural identities. Weaver response to exploitation and their methods of organizing and building solidarity show not only the political awareness they had, but their ability to resist colonial control through methods that drew on pre-existing shared identity and community.
Documentation of weaver revolts in the Coromandel region is limited, and I’m unsure of exactly where and when the palampore was produced, but nevertheless, the history of weaver social action offers useful context for thinking about the lives of the people producing objects like the palampore. Weaver revolts, collective action and solidarity all show different modes of agency. They demonstrate that weavers had collective identity, were aware of what company control of textile production meant for their livelihood and communities, and acted together to oppose it. Although when used in wealthy European homes, textiles like the palampore may reflect Orientalism and the reduction of India to a symbolic site on to which Europeans could project fantasies of an exotic East, the people doing the labor to produce these items were aware of their positions as weavers, rebellious in the face of colonial exploitation, and had agency. By looking at 17th and 18th century weaver life and social action, I hope counter the still-present colonial narratives where Indian textile producers and artisans are reduced to being portrayed as static, passive, and undifferentiated people without history. Focusing solely on the objects themselves and how they relate to the West reproduces a colonial mode of discourse where items like the palampore can be removed from the production process and the lives of those who produced them and seen as simply an ornament for the West. Especially when approaching textiles made for export to Europe, I think granting discursive space for an object but not its context and producers serves to reinforce Western hegemony, creating objects without people, and people without history.
PROBLEMS AND CONCLUSIONS
While researching the palampore, I was confronted with issues of the archive- what is in archives, what is left out? Who is writing and creating and curating the archive, and how does one work with an archive that often does not have space for indigenous perspectives and knowledge? Thinking of the concept of discourse density, that “the more discursive space an object is given, the more important and unique it becomes. The more important it is deemed to be, the more likely it is that its life story will be told, and the more important the full trajectory from production to consumption will become,” this is certainly relevant to discussion the palampore as an object, but I would like to further apply it to approaching the study of history and use of the archive overall. What histories are told? What histories are valued and given discursive space, and what histories are excluded or condensed? As O’Toole said in The Symbolic Power of Records, “record making is primarily about power.”
Knowing the archive is not neutral, how can we navigate documentations of history and material culture when they have gaps in them, gaps not only created by colonialism and empire but invisibilized by their power? This brings me to other questions I considered while researching the palampore, on what types of information are considered legitimate in academic fields, and how methods of passing down information that do not involve archives or even written history are often excluded. Many of the sources on weaver history I found utilized folk history and myth in conjunction with written trade inscriptions and colonial records. Although folk tradition and oral history are often dismissed as being unreliable or subjective, the colonial archive is just as capable of bias, something even more necessary to address when it is so naturalized as being neutral. Going back to the palampore, issues of the archive are relevant to its categorization in the European Art section of the Brooklyn Museum catalog. I question on what basis it was put there, and if it would have been categorized as such if there were written records on who produced it, not consumed it. Ultimately, the contents of the archive and way the category of knowledge is constructed deeply impact how people study and interpret material culture and history.
