The wonder that was Amritsar

Strap: It may be the undisputed food capital of North India today, but from Sikh rule to British Raj, the Holy City was a major trading centre

Jasvinder Kaur

Around 200 years ago, as Maharaja Ranjit Singh was consolidating his kingdom armed with his legendary French generals, the latter were also introducing Europe to rich North Indian textiles. At the heart of all this trade was Amritsar, which may today be the undisputed food capital of North India, but in the distant past, it was a major centre for textiles.

Amritsar, for many centuries, has in some way or the other been associated with textiles either as a producer or as a trading center.

It became a centre of production of shawls and was at the forefront of exporting them to Europe during the Ranjit Singh rule. In 1819 Kashmir came under the Sikh kingdom after Ranjit Singh invaded it. Shortly afterwards in 1822 Ranjit Singh hired men from Napoleon’s army — Jean-Francois Allard and Jean-Batiste Ventura — as his generals. These generals by 1835 were exporting shawls to Europe and Amritsar had become the centre of the Kashmiri shawl trade.

Weavers and dyers from Kashmir had settled in the plains and hills of Punjab during this period. One of the factors was famine that pushed them to do so. Kashmiri colonies were established in places like Amritsar, Ludhiana, Nurpur, and Tiloknath in Kangra district.

Shawls made in Amritsar both kani and amli were of a high quality and Baden Powell writing in 1872 mentions that shawls from Amritsar were close in quality to the Kashmiri ones.

What really are jamavar or kani and amli shawls? The striped shawls were called jamavar or kitraz and were popular in Iran and Turkey. Of course these were made by the complicated kani technique. As these were used to make jamas, hence the word jamavar. Amli shawls on the other hand were embroidered Kashmiri shawls.

To understand the complexities of the shawls, it is important to go into its history. Weaving of shawls in the early nineteenth century Kashmir was slow and laborious by kani technique. A single shawl could take upto 18 months or more for weaving. Thus due to high demand of the shawls, a method was devised to weave the shawl in pieces on two or more looms. This way the shawl was made in much less time. After the designs were separately woven they were handed over to the rafugar or the darner. He joined these with such precision that it was hard to make this out by the naked eye. This has also been mentioned by William Moorcroft in 1821 who calls this a recent innovation. He had undertaken a detailed study of the shawl industry between 1820 and 1823 and wrote an account which has been preserved at the India Office Library, now part of the British Library, London.

Early 19th century was also the beginning of the amli or embroidered shawls. These were introduced in Kashmir at the instigation of Khwaja Yusaf, an Armenian, who came to Kashmir in 1803 as an agent of the Constantinople Trading Company. He saw a chance to produce embroidered shawls in much shorter time than the kani or jamavar ones and also escape the duties on shawls levied on woven ones. His company thus made huge profits and ushered in the style of embroidered shawls. This also pushed the demand of plain pashmina that were then used as a base for amli shawls.

By the third quarter of the nineteenth century important centers of weaving plain Pashmina were not only in Kashmir but also in Amritsar and Ludhiana. In the art exhibition held in 1864 Pashmina shawls both amlikar and kani or jamavar were exhibited from Kashmir, Amritsar and Delhi. Amritsar had become an important manufacturer of Pashmina shawls that were used as a base for Kashmiri type of embroidery.

With time the shawl industry declined and the carpet industry developed to fill the gap. Trade in carpets rose partly on the ruins of the Pashmina shawl trade. By 1911, Amritsar was exporting carpets worth 5 lakh and picked up a steady pace after the economic depression of 1931.

Among other things made at Amritsar were different styles of embroideries. Baden Powell, in 1872, writes about Lahore and Amritsar as centres for gold embroidery or salma work. Here some of the finest Phulkaris were also made out of which some were even exported to America.

Amritsar became an important center of trade in silk and woollen cloth. During British Raj, the most important item of import were the piece – goods. Silk trade centre was located at Batti Hattan which later shifted to katra ‘Ahluwalia’ which in turn became the centre of trading in piece goods. Sant Ram Reshamwala was one of the importers of silk from Europe.

The kind of fabric that was imported in early 20th century included not only pure silk but also artificial silk that made inroads from Japan, Italy and France. These were cheaper and had attractive colours. In the 1930s, majority of silk imported was from Japan, so much so that many firms from Amritsar opened offices in Japan from where they procured the fabrics. From Europe the fabrics that came here were the cottons with European motifs like roses.

From Amritsar, the fabrics made inroads into other parts of Punjab. They became popular with women as they made them into their suits and dupattas. The designs, patterns and textures were separate from what was available or made here. Women knew them by various names like Lady Minton (probably Lady Hamilton), Malaysia, Dil-ki-pyas, Aap-ka-nasha, do-khorae-di-boski (probably from China), Shangai (probably from Shanghai). The most famous among these was the do-khorae-di boski or double horse boski from China. This brand is still sold on the Alibaba website.

In Punjab another interesting fabric that came from abroad and became very popular amongst women for their suits and salwars was the cloth used for making parachutes. Known as ‘parachute cloth’, it was not sold as a continuous yardage but was in pieces. The stitched parachute had probably been opened up and sold in triangular pieces or chattrian (umbrellas) about 6-7 feet wide and about 10 feet long.

These were probably surplus parachutes, which were only allowed to be sold after World War II was over in 1945. In the initial years of the war, the material used for parachute making was silk. After America joined the war by the end of 1941, the Allies used parachutes made of nylon as they were unable to import silk from Japan.

In Britain there are many stories of women making their wedding dresses, blouses, petticoats with the RAF parachute material. The colours of these were white, lime green or sometimes orange. It was, however, not an easy material to get as it was illegal to obtain it while the war was on. Even the used parachute had to be turned in to the authorities for investigation. Women in England used any material available to them during the war for their wedding dresses whether it was parachute silk or blackout material, which had been bleached.

Many of the fashion fabrics that were used by women in Punjab before India got its independence were used as a base for doing salma or gota work. Velvet, another popular fabric was used not only for garments but for palangposh (bedcover) or other household articles like cushions.

All the fabric sold during the British Raj was available at shops in the big cities. Amritsar being a trading centre played an important part in the textile trade and in distributing it to other parts of Punjab.