The German Connection

Small, traditional workshops in Lower Saxony are keeping alive the Indian craft of indigo dyeing.

- Amrita Das

Tucked away behind a pedestrian street in the city of Jever, Lower Saxony in Germany, is Blaudruckerei im Kattrepel, the workshop of Georg Stark. Tall, and in his 60s, Stark stands behind the counter of his dimply lit store, dressed in a blue-red checkered shirt and grey trousers, his deep voice blending in with the earthy ambience. For the last 35 years, he has been resist printing and indigo dyeing. His eyes widen when he hears I am from India. “The origin of taste, of fabric printing is India,” he says.

The relation of indigo and the Indian subcontinent goes back hundreds of years, with the Indigofera tinctoria species of the plant, also called true indigo, widely available in the region. Traditional forms of textile dyeing and printing extensively used this natural dye.

In the 19th century, indigo was cultivated primarily in Bengal, with India being its largest exporter to European markets. The dye was immensely profitable to the East India Company, with British planters ruthlessly forcing farmers to cultivate more indigo by imposing strict and exploitative laws. Not only was indigo difficult to grow, but also very expensive; farmers were not allowed to grow food or other crops for which the soil was naturally fertile. In the 1820s, the British imposed tinkathia, a law that legally bound farmers to grow indigo in every three out of 20 parts of his land. The oppressive rules and regulations resulted in the Blue Mutiny of 1859-60, which was brutally suppressed.

It was only in 1917 that the Champaran Satyagraha marked the end of this exploitation. This resistance movement was ignited by Mahatma Gandhi, who gave it a direction and escalated its prominence by travelling around the villages of Champaran district in Bihar and encouraging civil disobedience. The tinkathia law was eventually abolished in 1919.