Stuart Hall best described identity as an endless conversation.  

For most of my life, I have lived in the UK. My father came to England in 1963; my mother, my two brothers, and I arrived a year later. I was eight years old, and I have lived in London ever since. For nearly six decades, this city has been the centre of my existence.

Those people of my generation who came to the UK as children or young people, we arrived as East Pakistanis, or as Bangladeshis after 1971. Over the years, we acquired British habits and absorbed a new identity. We loved pop music, television shows, English sweets, some British foods, and adopted current fashions. I lost fluency in Bengali, my mother tongue, but I soon developed a passion for western literature and art. These have been and continue to be my cultural staples.

We also loved our familiar Bengali activities such as food, family gatherings, films, and music. We also hung onto our moral beliefs, our ways of behaving, and how we saw the world. The duality was not always harmonious; we were rejected by the host society on grounds of our race, and later our religion. There was an expectation from British society that we should integrate, that we should westernise. Some of the traditional members of our society criticised us for becoming too western.

For young Bangladeshi girls like myself, life was a continual movement between two worlds. There was no culture clash; it was possible to have two identities that interacted all the time. I loved being a Londoner, but I also loved being a Bangladeshi.

During the 1970s, I had a headful of ideas on how to live but I needed to share them with other South Asian women. I took out a small ad in Spare Rib, a feminist magazine, calling on South Asian women to contact me if they too were facing a crisis. About seven women responded, and for the next two years we met and discussed the challenges facing us. We helped each other to move ahead.

During the final decades of the twentieth century, I worked on my career, I married (my choice), and grew my family. The rampant racism of the seventies seemed to fade. But, after 9/11, the experience of racism and rejection returned. Islamophobia could not accept my Britishness, and, for that injustice, I rejected my British identity. Nowadays, I see myself as an outsider, but with a deep insider knowledge of what it means to be British.

No matter how hard racists and racism tried to make me feel inferior, there has never been a day in my life when I have felt inferior. My mother was a lecturer and taught me the beauty of the Bengali language and literature. My father studied for his PhD in Philosophy in London and attracted respect from both communities. My parents together enjoyed a rich social and cultural circle. Where could any sense of shame or inferiority come from?

I developed an interest in Jamdani, a traditional hand-woven textile that originated in the villages near Dhaka. My grandmother brought me up on wonderful stories of fine Bengal muslin, and I felt this was one of the most exquisite materials ever invented. A product of my own history and culture, Jamdani has endowed me with a proud identity.  

The Jamdani sari has always been a major source of my pride as a Bangladeshi, and it remains for me the sari of saris. I was wearing Jamdani from the age of 14 and every time I wore one, I felt elevated. Jamdani was something for me that proved that you cannot be inferior and belong to a land that created Jamdani.

The more I learned about Jamdani, the more I wore it. I feel nothing but love and pride in wearing this gorgeous fabric because I am wearing a product the history of which dates back almost a thousand years. Also, it has been woven by dedicated, skilled, and talented Bangladeshi hands. When I am wearing a Jamdani, I am instantly linked to its history and to the weavers of Bangladesh. It is so much more than a sari.

There is another factor that comforts me. A large part of British society has always had profound admiration and respect for the Jamdani sari, indeed for any sari. If I am invited to an English gathering, I often choose to wear a Jamdani. It opens conversations because English people get to know that, a long time ago, we were supplying and dressing English women with muslin which came from now Bangladesh.

It is my dream that people from the western world will wear Jamdani, but without the oppression of the East India Company. I want to see Jamdani being used as the fabric of choice for European clothes. How about a wedding dress made of Jamdani? Or a Jamdani coat? There may be interesting results from a survey asking non-Bangladeshis how they would wear Jamdani.

 I have interviewed weavers in the villages near Dhaka and they were keen to diversify, they too want to weave Jamdani meterages so that would reach new audiences. Bangladeshi weavers could be weaving Jamdani meterage, or smaller pieces, not just saris. Some Bangladeshi designers are now using Jamdani to design tunics, jackets and many other garments.

Admittedly, it is difficult to manage a Jamdani sari. My message to younger Bangladeshi women who want to wear a Jamdani sari is to make it your own. Instead of high heels, wear a comfortable pair of shoes or sandals. If the sari blouse presents difficulties, wear a longer fitted or short-sleeved top. Wear it loose, use safety pins, in other words, make Jamdani your own. And when you wear your Jamdani, I hope that, like me, your feet are a few inches off the ground, and you are floating.

N.B Special thanks to the Muslin Trust for allowing us to use photos from their ‘Bringing Jamdani to England’ project. A project that documented the stories of Bangladeshi women residing in the London Borough of Merton who arrived in England in the 1960s and ’70s. Stories explored their sense of self and belonging through the ritual of wearing a Jamdani sari; to reconnect with the culture they left behind, as part of a tradition that extends for over a millennium.
Thumbnail illustration by Limma Ali