TIME was when India clothed much of the world.
The story of its textiles is the story of a civilisational discourse, when cloth was the currency of trade as much as that of culture and art.
Seldom has a single item influenced the lives of people for so long, so deeply.
Cotton cultivation and turning it into fabric were the vogue when the Indus Valley civilisation flourished, as evident from the findings of terracotta and bronze needles in the ruins of Mohenjo-daro That began a long journey and a multiple and multiroute interaction for over two millennia.
But, it is also the story of decline of these millennia followed by two centuries of decline and of colonisation when borders, and barriers, were created across Asia.
Arguably, India was the worst sufferer.
Textiles have been the binding factor in the cultural history of India and Southeast Asia.
They were the foremost currency carried by the traders who travelled east and west, but specially to the fertile areas around the river Mekong and to the rich spice islands of Suvarnadwipa, Indonesia.
Actually, when India clothed the world, Indonesia added spice to food, fulfilling like cloth, another basic human need.
Trade in textile, a seemingly fragile item, provided long and sustained communication links between India and Southeast Asia, says Hema Devare in her book, Ganga to Mekong: A Cultural Voyage Through Textiles.
Although her book talks about Ganga, the reference would seem symbolic in keeping with the river’s dominant presence in India’s cultural lore.
Much of the textile trade was conducted from peninsula India, especially Coromandal (Portuguese for the original Cholamandalam, the realm of Cholas in Tamil) by people living along the Krishna and Cauvery rivers.
Southeast Asia also attracted princes of Gujarat (in AD 75 and the sixth century) from the western flank of the Indian peninsula, and from Kalinga — klinga is the word used for Indians by Malays and Indonesians.
Some 20,000 families settled in Java in AD 1,000 and Champa, the present-day Funan in southwest Vietnam.
Centuries later, the kings and queens of Ayutthaya wore Indian brocades in the same kachha or dhoti style as men in ancient India did.
And, the Mughal kings of India wore the same zari and buta.
There was remarkable continuity, yet the style evolved with local touch.
An Indian garment was very uniquely Thai or Malay or Indonesian, and there was a fair amount of exchange.
Among many fabrics rooted in a variety of folk arts and promoted by artisans over the centuries, the patola from Patan in Gujarat on India’s west coast travelled to Southeast Asia and became the favourite ofthe royalty and the commoner alike.
The oldest Chinese source Hanshu, authored by Ban Gu (AD 32-92), lists cloth among the goods from India presented to Emperor Wadi.
Chinese pilgrim Fa Xien (4th century) and later Arab scholar Ibn Batuta have recorded the role Indian textiles played in the lives of the Arabs.
According to Marco Polo, Khambhat (Cambay) on the Gujarat coast was the midway hub for seafaring merchants from the Mediterranean to South and Southeast Asia and beyond, long before the Europeans entered.
Over centuries, these textiles had turned into vehicles of culture that built the foundation for an enduring multilayered and multicoloured relationship.
The language of trade in Southeast Asia was a mix of Tamil, Persian and Malay.
There were numerous trading posts from Aden to Malacca.
It was from Khambhat that the Arab and Indian Muslims took trade, and Islam, to much of Southeast Asia .That explains how Ganesha’s figure was found from Fustat in Egypt to Bara in east Java (AD 1239).
The painted textiles from the Coromandel coast, the block-printed fabrics and the double ikat patola from Gujarat enticed Southeast Asian royalty and masses alike during religious and social occasions.
These textiles, considered ritually powerful and imbued with magical qualities, played an integral role in binding India with Southeast Asia while becoming a part of the regional folklore.
Over time, they were seamlessly assimilated into the local cultures.
Devare opens a new facet ofIndiaSoutheast Asia relations: Chintz that covered all printed and kalamkari fabrics, be it silk for the royalty or cotton for the commoners.
Alas, once the Europeans came in, the rules of the game changed.
They used firepower on a relatively peaceful sea and divided the Asian people.
The 18th century was the turning point.
At its beginning, India dominated the world of textiles.
But by its end, the textile production and trade fell completely into European hands.
The British, French, Dutch and Portuguese killed the Indian and Southeast Asian textiles with their machine-made cloth.
Unable to conceive and compete with what had been in vogue for centuries ,they even changed the designs, making them lifelessly geometrical.
India became a supplier of raw cotton for British mills in Lancashire.
Like other Europeans, the British accumulated so much wealth from textiles to fund their industrial revolution.
The global scene changed forever.
India invited some of its own misfortune when the eighth-century Brahmins declared that crossing the sea was a sin.
Visiting Indonesia in 1927, Rabindranath Tagore wrote: “I see India everywhere, but I don’t recognise it.”
Devare says: “To my mind, that is the essence of India’s cultural saga in Southeast Asia.” The cultural amalgam, Devare avers, “is here to stay, as solid as rocks of Borobudur and Konarak, and as intricately woven as the double ikat patola.” Wife of ambassador Sudhir Devare, the author is an accomplished scholar.
It is possible to visualise the sari-clad lady visiting markets and textile hubs, meeting weavers, spinners and dyers and historians, and visiting museums and libraries.
Her deep involvement shows in the book.
The book’s recall of a colourful past is also a poser for the globalised present, characterised by factory made textiles and garments.
Can some of that past find a place in India’s Look/Act East policy and the “Look West” response of some of the Asean members?
Mahendra Ved, is NST's New Delhi correspondent. He is a vice-president of the Commonwealth Journalists Association and a consultant with the ‘Power Politics’ monthly magazine