Bagh print

What is Bagh print?

Bagh print is a hand block printing craft from Bagh, a village in Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh, named after the river beside it. Printers of the Muslim Khatri community press carved teak or sheesham blocks dipped in natural dyes onto cloth, most often in red and black on an off-white ground. The motifs are usually geometric, paisley or floral. Cotton is the fabric printed most, but the work also reaches kosa and mulberry silk, tussar, chiffon, crepe and georgette, and appears on sarees, stoles, scarves and dress lengths. The water of the Bagh river is credited with giving the dyes a luminous quality that sets these prints apart from others of the region.

Where does Bagh print come from?

No one knows quite when Bagh printing began, though it is thought to be more than a thousand years old and has passed down within families. One account brings settlers from Jawad in Madhya Pradesh, another printers from Rajasthan. A third credits the Chhipas of the Muslim Khatri community, printers by trade, who are said to have come some four hundred years ago from Larkana in Sindh, now in Pakistan, a region known for the Ajrak style of block printing. They settled by the Bagh river, whose water suited the washing of cloth and the making of vegetable dyes. In the 1960s many craftsmen abandoned the old methods for synthetic fabrics; Ismail Sulemanji Khatri and a few others kept the tradition alive and carried it to international prominence.

How is Bagh print made?

Work moves through three stages: washing and pre-dyeing, printing, and finishing. Cloth is first washed for two hours in flowing water and beaten on river stones to strip its starch, then soaked in castor oil, rock salt and goat dung, pressed and dried three times over, and pre-dyed with harara for an off-white base. Black dye comes from ferrous sulfate and red from alum, boiled with tamarind seed powder; indigo leaves, dhavdi leaves and pomegranate rinds give other shades. Carved teak or sheesham blocks, some centuries old, take dye from a wooden trough through a wool-wrapped bamboo mesh. A skilled printer covers about five yards in two or three hours. The cloth then rests for up to a fortnight, is beaten clean at the river, and is boiled with alizarin and dhavda flowers before a final bleaching.

Colours, motifs and borders

Red and black on a white ground remain the classic look, with indigo, mustard and khaki also in use. Designs are stamped as geometric forms, paisleys and florals: jasmine, mushroom, mango and small dots across the field, alongside patterns such as jaali drawn from the Taj Mahal and local forts, and motifs echoing the fifteen-hundred-year-old paintings of the Bagh Caves. The blocks, called bilals and bibas, are carved in deep relief; some carry names of their own. Families hold libraries of thousands of designs, and new blocks, cut roughly twice a year, stay within traditionally accepted patterns.

How Bagh print is worn

The printing serves cloth of many kinds: sarees in silk and tussar, stoles, scarves, shalwar kameez lengths and furnishings. In and around Bagh, the Khatri families long printed dresses for the different caste groups of the tribal Bhil and Bhilala communities, each recognised by its own identifying marks. At the Republic Day parade in New Delhi in 2011, a Shalbhanjika, an eleventh-century celestial apsara, appeared in Madhya Pradesh's tableau draped in Bagh-printed clothing.

When Bagh print is worn

Bagh printed cloth has been everyday dress more than ceremony. The Khatri printers once made dresses for each caste group of Bagh's tribal region, with patterns that identified the wearer's family and community. From the late 1980s they also geared designs to urban tastes, in sarees, stoles and scarves. A Bagh design featured in Madhya Pradesh's Republic Day tableau in 2011.

Styles of Bagh print

Cotton is the standard base, but printers also work on Maheshwari suit material, kosa and mulberry silk, tussar, chiffon, crepe, georgette tissue and bamboo chiks, and have tried leather and jute as well. Vegetable yellow and green dyes were developed alongside the older alum red and iron black. One bed cover, printed with 1,200 different blocks, won a National Award in 1984. The Bagh river's water is said to lend the colours a luminosity that sets these prints apart from others of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

What Bagh print means

Bagh prints are a geographically tagged handicraft, registered in 2008 under India's GI Act as Bagh Prints of Madhya Pradesh, with a separate logo approved in 2015. Quality is overseen by the Development Commissioner for Handicrafts and the Textiles Committee, together with master artisans in the workshops themselves. The craft supports the Muslim Khatri printing families of Bagh, who have kept it through decline and renewal; Ismail Sulemanji Khatri's persistence after the 1960s brought the work international recognition, and a National Award followed in 1984.

Questions people ask about Bagh print

Good reading and sources

• Bagh print on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data