(Inspired by flowlines designed mainly from an economist's point of view once mapped out with D.R. on a scrap of paper, now lingering only at the fringes of memory. Short descriptions of most of the sarees referred to here can be found at sareesearch.blogspot.com. Much of the text in this piece relies not on academic research but on conversations over the years, and therefore lacks citation; where research has been merged with experience, that has been marked, as far as possible. The text is still a work in progress but, it's gone as far as it will for now, and has been shared as it is; it has decidedly not been written from an economist's perspective.)
“Legal arguments do not suit beautiful women,” Draupadi is told in Pratibha Ray’s ‘Yajnaseni’ when she verbally challenges her enslavement upon having been staked, and lost, in a game of dice while another man comments: “The greatest offence a woman commits is to try to be learned.”[1] Far from being spared by the force of legal argument, in what has become one of the most well-known scenes in the Mahabharata, divine intervention saved Draupadi which could remind one of Hegel saying, millennia later, that ‘the State is the march of God[2] on Earth’ in secular terms.
At the time of the Mahabharata, Draupadi’s logic and learning, as formidable as they may have been, would never have won her liberty by themselves. She was not free to speak as a man might have been; she was, in fact, not free at all, being unequal to all men as a woman and, in particular, being subject to her husbands as a wife. It took at least two thousand years to formally change that equation in theory if not in practice.
Interpretations vary, and it appears that the text of the epic has itself not remained stable over time. Early versions seem to have indicated that Draupadi’s garments were replenished spontaneously giving rise to the proposition that the replenishment was ‘dharma’ or divine justice at work. Metaphors heavily embedded in nature may have also been at play, as Hiltebeitel has suggested: Karna, the sun’s son directed that Draupadi, named Krsnā at birth and identified with the Earth, be disrobed only to be later killed by Arjuna, son of the rain god Indra who helps cover the Earth with greenery each monsoon after the scorching sun has laid her bare.[3] Rebutting this theory, Mehendale has pointed out that the ‘disrobing’ may simply have been the attempted removal of an upper garment in line with social practices of the time: during the Gupta period, when the scene is believed to have been firmly introduced to the epic, only noble women wore upper garments and Draupadi, supposedly enslaved, would no longer have been one.[4]
Whether it was actually true that many women did not then wear upper garments is unclear: in an unconnected work, speaking of the period which ran from 320 B.C. to 320 A.D. (just prior to the Gupta period), Kamala Dongerkery, who along with her mother helped keep Kasuti embroidery alive in the 20th century notes: “While it would seem that in the sculptures there are a large number of female figures the upper parts of whose body are decorated only with ornaments, it would be wrong to make a generalization in this respect and conclude that it was usual for women to dress in this manner. A closer study of many of these sculptures often indicates a close-fitting bodice or a coatee type of garment and a diaphanous apparel drawn over the body. The arm decoration on the sculptures was not always an ornament but a decorated sleeve.”[5]
Whatever the intention underlying the attempt to remove Draupadi's garment may have been, it is clear that a greater power acted to shield Draupadi from what is likely to have been the predatory male gaze. The dynamic between the vulnerable, the powerful, and the protective aligns neatly with independent India's constitutional philosophy which recognises that liberty requires equality to be meaningful and that the interaction between the two may require intervention to ensure that liberty does not become oppression and that equality does not become complacence. The possible need for intervention is so deeply embedded in Indian consciousness that, in independent India, it has easily led to the acceptance of a protective (and somewhat interfering) state not just for the perceived good of the individual but also for the greater good of society. The role of state has, however, played out alongside that of the divine.
Later versions of the Mahabharata which prominently linger in public consciousness tend to agree that Draupadi surrendered herself to Lord Krishna and that it was He who foiled the attempt to disrobe her by ensuring that her garment, understood to be a saree, never ended. Whether or not it was actually a saree isn't entirely clear; Raja Ravi Varma had ‘invented the sārī as the national epic dress for women’ in the late 19th century,[6] and the visual has since held fast. It is the interpretation of Draupadi's garment which was portrayed by B R Chopra’s serialisation of the epic, a cultural phenomenon first telecast in the late 1980s; she wore a yellow saree with a red border in the televised serial. Suresh, of the Dresswala family fame (their being the oldest costumiers in Bollywood), was approached with a technical issue: the saree was supposed to unfold endlessly, and creating a looped shot was proving to be a struggle. “Just use the entire bale of saffron cloth,” he suggested. “And so,” as the Ahmedabad Mirror reported decades later, “it came to be that the actress had the bale draped around her only to be twirled out of it for the scene.”[7]
Soon after the episode was telecast, the market was all but flooded with red-bordered yellow sarees. Materials differed, as did price points. There was a yellow saree with a red border which every woman could buy, and buy such sarees is exactly what women did in droves. Draupadi's virtue had been proved by the attempt to disrobe her having failed quite as spectacularly as it did, and many women wanted to don the garment she had worn.
The sequence of events demonstrated how sarees are not simply a matter of convenience or commerce to Indian women; they are a potent mix of culture, convenience, commerce which, in modern India, all operate beside constitutionalism. They are steeped in history, spiritual and personal: sarees connect mythology and memory to the material world where they engage with the patriarchal and the legal, neither of which manages to assert unchallenged dominion over either women or their textiles. Banarasi sarees, for example, are chosen by women ‘from within the confines shaped by male taste’, male weavers and merchants and, yet, each of them has a sense of their own power: the weaver as ‘the owner of his tradition’, the merchant ‘within the commercial realm, asserting his control over his suppliers, workers, and customers’ and the customer over ‘her own self-presentation’ which influences what's woven and sold. Their concerns are more complementary than conflicting: the weaver prioritises design and motif, the merchant craftsmanship, and the customer practicalities (such as whether a fabric will dry under a fan during the monsoons) and aesthetics.[8] None of their concerns exist entirely independently of the law which, rarely knowing exactly what to do, tends to provide protection to both weaves and weavers with indifferent efficacy.
Conventional IP Laws
The law interacts directly with textiles primarily through intellectual property rights which include patents, trade marks, copyrights, designs, and geographical indications. The trouble has generally been that none of these forms of rights are especially well suited to protecting sarees: each one is capable of protecting various aspects of production and commerce but they cannot be relied upon to gel with each other. Broadly, geographical indications and trade marks are both markers of origin while, with reference to sarees, copyrights and designs can often be employed to protect visual presentation.
As their name suggests, geographical indications may protect sarees from specific regions whether they are heritage handlooms such as Banarasi sarees or distinctive contemporary sarees. For example, Gollabama sarees from Andhra Pradesh are protected even though their history appears to date back less than a hundred years. They were developed and gained popularity following the production of a 1940s film depicting the legend of a queen named Gollabama who is believed to have been married to the legendary King Vikramaditya.[9] The couple was separated for a while during which time the queen lived as a milkmaid, an image which finds itself repeatedly rendered on Gollabama sarees as a woman in profile carrying a pot on her head and, sometimes, carrying a second pot in the crook of her arm too. The motif is unmistakable, and it is all but impossible to confuse Gollabama sarees with other kinds of sarees.
In contrast to geographical indications, trade marks usually distinguish the sarees of one brand from another, and in general, sarees are not sold with trade marks of any kind printed all over their body (as some handbags are). There are exceptions to this general rule; in cities like Delhi, it is not entirely surprising to walk past a woman wearing a saree with the Facebook logo or what was the Twitter logo printed all over its body. These trade marks, however, have little to do with the origin of the sarees themselves, and there seems to be no indication in any literature that such seemingly arbitrary use of corporate logos is ordinarily licensed by major technology companies. In all probability, the use of trade marks in such a manner does not indicate any connection to the relevant trade mark owner. That said, it appears that trade mark owners whose logos are so used are usually willing to turn a blind eye; it is possible that the likelihood of ‘fair use’ being argued in support of the unlicensed use of trade marks has been taken into account, and it is also possible that the benefits of having a human being essentially act as an unpaid billboard for a company in a manner which does the company no harm far exceeds the potential reputational and legal costs of initiating formal countermeasures through the judicial system even if it were likely that the trade mark owner would technically ‘win’ in court.
Closer to their conventional use, trade marks tend to be visible as labels affixed to sarees, inspiring consumer confidence by indicating who makes, curates or sells them. Although they may include ‘the shape of goods, their packaging and combination of colours’,[10] it is unlikely that an entire saree could be a trade mark. In some cases, labels aside, to those familiar with the market, specific colour combinations or styles could provide a sense of the origin of a saree but such recognition would not be due to a trade mark. For example, perhaps till about 2015, it was often not especially difficult to make an educated guess as to a saree being a Byloom saree[11] or a Fabindia saree.[12] However, with the growth of interest in handloom sarees, and newer brands like Suta[13] and Taneira[14] having been established to cater to what appears to be virtually the same segment of consumers, telling saree brands apart at first sight has become increasingly difficult.
Further, quite apart from brand-associated trade marks, the industry also relies on certification trade marks[15] which distinguish sarees based on their materials and the techniques used to weave them. In India, Silkmark, Woolmark, Handloom Mark, Jute Mark, Cotton Mark, and Khadi Mark are all certification marks. Their proprietors do not directly trade in products bearing the certification marks they themselves own; the proprietors merely certify the products. For example, the Silk Mark Organisation of India which introduced the Silk Mark label to guarantee the authenticity of silk is a 2004 initiative of the Central Silk Board under the Government of India's Ministry of Textiles.[16] It does not manufacture or sell sarees itself but it does organise expos.
Thus, both geographical indications and trade marks help consumers identify the provenance of sarees but do not protect the designs of sarees. That task tends to fall to copyright law which can, in theory, be used to protect sarees as a whole, possibly by treating them as works of artistic craftsmanship especially if they are handwoven, or, alternatively by concentrating on the protection of artwork featured on sarees regardless of whether the designs have been printed, painted, embroidered or woven; the 1957 Copyright Act which governs the field protects works which have been fixed without reference to the manner of fixation. Amongst the works which copyright law protects are ‘artistic works’, defined such that paintings, drawings, and works of artistic craftsmanship all, amongst other specified manifestations of art, fall within its ambit.[17] However, to actually merit copyright protection under copyright law, an artistic work must be original,[18] and therein lies the rub.
Although art which satisfies the originality requirements of copyright law can undoubtedly be reproduced on sarees and although sarees can be designed so that they are, as a whole, ‘original’ and protectable, the vast majority of sarees made in India are not original in the sense that copyright law would require them to be to merit protection. Their makers do not plagiarise each other's ideas in the way that Western paradigms imagine plagiarism but they do tend to draw upon inherited community motifs to design contemporary sarees.
The iconic kingkhap motif seen on sarees from Assam,[19] demonstrates this phenomenon. Early renditions of the motif, associated with the Ahoms who ruled the area between the 13th and 19th centuries, are believed to have featured a stylized rendition of the Ngi Ngao Kham, a mythical creature associated with Ahom royalty, which looks like an amalgam of a dragon and a lion. The motif was usually woven into muga silk with extra weft. The muga silk tradition has lived on but, over time, the motif has found its way not only on to paat and eri silk weaves but also on to cotton weaves. Many iterations of the motif, even in times long gone, seem to have portrayed lions leading to the belief, in some quarters, that the original motif itself had always featured lions. Whether the motif initially portrayed a mythical creature or an earthly one, what is indisputable is that over time, it has evolved. Contemporary kingkhap motifs tend to portray a variety of animals including elephants and peacocks in pairs with the only constant being that each animal faces the other within a frame shaped like a peepal leaf. The structure of the kingkhap motif is unmistakable even though there may be significant differences between one rendition of it and the next and, that being the case, it is extremely unlikely that it would be possible to establish a legitimate copyright claim over any one rendition especially if, in doing so, a heritage design would become privatised.
The story of the kingkhap motif is not an isolated one; motifs used across India tend to draw heavily from the past, and to draw from the environments in which weavers find themselves. Architectural design often finds its way into sarees whether it is the stepwells of Western India being echoed in the fiercely geometrical designs of Patan patola sarees or motifs drawn from the fort at Maheshwar being woven into Maheshwari sarees. Having an individual weaver attempt to claim exclusive rights in any heritage motif is all but unheard of, and corporate entities also shy away from doing so either in deference to tradition or recognising the likely futility of making such attempts which would be challengeable and likely, even if rights were asserted, unenforceable. After all, even if a public domain motif or the derivative of one were to be technically privatised by a person, public backlash could be engineered to be swift and uncompromising given that tolerance for cultural appropriation is limited not to mention that it is all but impossible to imagine such legal ‘victory’ having the slightest dampening effect on weavers and others who produce sarees, few of whom work in large cities and many of whom appear to carry on with their work beyond spheres where ‘copyright infringement’ is a meaningful expression.
With the exception of those designer sarees which can, in fact, be attributed directly and clearly to identifiable designers, copyright is not necessarily a suitable mode of protection for sarees. Designer sarees, too, may find it difficult to avail of protection since, even if they appear to step over the originality threshold of copyright law, it is not necessarily the case that their designs are novel. This matters because copyright protection under the 1957 Copyright Act in designs which can be registered under the 2000 Designs Act (but are not) ceases once the saree to which the design has been applied is reproduced more than fifty times using an industrial process either directly by the owner or with the owner's permission.[20]
Although it may seem as if one could simply change the mode of protection from copyright law to designs law once the ‘50 pieces’ mark had been crossed, the definition of a design under the 2000 Designs Act specifically excludes ‘artistic works’ as defined by the Copyright Act from its scope meaning that, technically, a saree as a whole would probably not be treated as a design capable of protection under designs law; the work or imagery on the saree may, however, still be treated as a design. However, in that respect too, a further complication arises: designs which are not new or original cannot be registered, neither can publicly-known designs or those largely indistinguishable from known designs be registered.[21] This gives designs a small leeway: the statute seems to suggest that they may be either new or original.
Nonetheless, given the manner in which sarees tend to be designed, including those at the ‘high fashion’ end of the market, it would be an exceedingly unusual saree, likely one independent of heritage practices, which would be even relatively certain of qualifying for any manner of protection, piecemeal or not, under designs law. While the Designs Act recognises that creativity does not operate in a vacuum, in what appears to be a corollary to its refusal to register known designs, it insists that even if designs are old, to be considered original (and thus satisfying the ‘new or original requirement for registrability), they must not merely originate from their authors but also be new in their application.[22] This is an extremely high threshold to step over and most sarees would likely stumble not quite knowing if they had lost copyright protection and simultaneously not quite knowing if they qualified for designs protection.[23] While it may be possible to sidestep the issue of copyright/design categorisation by producing limited editions with less than fifty articles each, there is no guarantee of such a strategy being commercially viable. The only saving grace seems to be that since copyright, unlike designs protection, does not require registration, should copyright subsist in a saree, the failure to register the copyright would not result in the loss of copyright protection.
As such, not only is Intellectual property protection with reference to origin through trade marks and geographical indications uneven but so too is protection with reference to design uncertain which, for all practical purposes, leaves only patents in the running regardless of the fact that there are not many avenues through which they could be helpful. Patents[24] tend to stand by themselves as rights which protect inventions.[25] As such, they can potentially be used to protect the processes through which sarees are made as well as the products used to make and engage with them.
Generally, in the context of sarees, patent applications at the Indian intellectual property office tend to fall under the heads of applications to protect textile production techniques,[26] applications to protect textile production equipment (such as looms),[27] applications to facilitate draping, handling, and storing sarees (such as pleating and folding machines),[28] and computer science based applications for software programmes to be used at various stages of a saree's life cycle. However, the patent protection route is sometimes of limited utility.
Although patents could protect products such as dyes, for example, the story was nowhere near as straightforward as patent to package marketed. Traditionally, the making of dyes had relied on secrecy, and early European attempts to learn how to make dyes well known in the East largely failed. However, various scientific breakthroughs helped change this situation; early chemical dyes, such as coal tar dyes discovered in the 1850s,[29] were often not immediately patented but later dyes such as indigo, which was developed in the 1880s, was almost immediately patented. Mendeleev’s development of the periodic table about ten years previously had resulted in secrecy no longer being a viable intellectual property protection strategy for chemical dyes.[30]
Patent protection did not necessarily translate into market share though. In part, that may have been because although natural dyes should theoretically have become obsolete with the introduction of synthetic dyes, that proved not to be the case. In practice, natural dyes were not easily dislodged, not least because traditional dyers did not always know how to use the new dyes well, and because using the old dyes made sense particularly in relation to materials like silk where quality mattered. Also, in markets like India, there was not always much of a price difference between Indian and imported synthetic dyes so continuing to use old methods was not necessarily cost ineffective.[31]
When it comes to aspects of sarees and their making which do not involve inventions, the value of patents is even more uncertain. It does not appear that it would be possible to protect appearance per se using patents (given that the 1970 Patents Act does not recognise aesthetic creations as inventions).[32] Despite this, there are cases in which applications appear to have been filed for that purpose. For example, in May 2024, a patent application was filed in respect of the Kalakshetra Muttukattam Silk Saree (a golden orange saree with green checks in the body, a 10-inch border, and a 39-inch striped end-piece inter alia portraying ‘a row of horse with a rider, muttu kamalam, row of elephants, tiger paws’).[33] As of 8 December 2025, its status appeared to be ‘Awaiting Request for Examination’ meaning that a patent had not (till then) been granted. The specifications seemed to focus on the design of the saree; they went into some detail about how it is woven and what yarn is used in the warp and the weft but the level of detail appeared to be comparable to that which is often expressed in applications for geographical indications. Time will tell if that is also what a successful patent application requires; it remains to be seen whether a patent will ultimately be granted for the Kalakshetra Muttukattam Silk Saree.
The fact that a patent application was filed at all is perhaps indicative of the dilemma which those seeking to protect sarees face: it is rarely the case that any existing form of intellectual property protection fits like a custom-made glove. When it comes to visual appeal, trade marks do not seem to be suitable. Copyright, design, and patent laws (assuming that patents are relevant at all) all rely on some combination of originality and novelty for rights to be granted by any of them, and, although all three understand each term slightly differently, the novelty and originality seen in sarees tends not to clearly align itself with any of the conventional intellectual property law understandings of these terms.
Challenges to Effective Legal Amendment
The question, “If not conventional intellectual property rights, then what?” is not easily answered. Two legalistic options present themselves, neither of them immediately helpful. Firstly, one could attempt to amend intellectual property statutes (or at least to tweak them through subordinate legislation) to have them be more amenable to protecting sarees and other cultural artefacts, or, secondly, one could explore the possibility of bringing into being a sui generis law which would be suitable to protect not just sarees but other heritage artefacts which have, especially in recent times, proven to be vulnerable to cultural and corporate appropriation.
A third option, which would be useful if only in the short term, would be to channel public opinion to convince corporate entities not to engage in glaring acts of cultural appropriation without simultaneously engaging with the communities whose art and know-how they take it upon themselves to draw from in a respectful and mutually beneficial manner. This is a method which has seen some success and, with the proliferation of social media, it is not especially cumbersome to employ but there will probably come a point when communication fatigue and message saturation will overcome the message itself. Till effective legislative and policy frameworks are in place though, channeling public opinion to curb the (mis)appropriation of cultural artefacts has demonstrated its value as a stopgap measure which would likely seamlessly segue into a supplementary measure in a better regulated environment by adding an easily comprehensible emotional element to the black letter of the law.
Ultimately, however, although one may hope that the law would be able to provide reasonably stable safeguards to protect cultural artefacts, the very rigidity of existing intellectual property frameworks could itself prove to be a hindrance to the development of living textile traditions, and ultimately to the protection of sarees and other cultural artefacts which they seek to protect. The Indian copyright statute, for example, recognises authors[34] and the possibility of a work having been jointly authored by more than one author such that their contributions are not distinct from each other.[35] Although the statute itself does not recognise co-authors with distinct contributions to a work, drawing on real estate law and drawing parallels with co-tenancy arrangements, copyright law has (through case law) formed an acquaintance with co-owners of copyrights.
What copyright law has singularly failed to do is recognise community copyrights. The task of protecting rights of groups of people has, in the context of sarees, largely fallen to geographical indications law; although trade marks law can, in theory, protect groups through the issue of collective marks, such marks do not play a prominent role in the protection of sarees. However, even if copyright law were to recognise ‘community copyrights’, the immediate problem would be to determine who would be recognised as belonging to the community. It is difficult to envisage how a community could be recognised without enabling its members to define themselves, an act which would almost inevitably turn into a form of gatekeeping which could potentially enable gatekeepers to police the activities of its members using the threat of derecognition. Even worse, the gatekeeping could easily be executed, if not universally enforced, by members of more privileged groups.
Such a phenomenon could be considered to have occurred in relation to phulkari embroidery originating in Punjab and now often seen on sarees in urban markets. Under the colonial gaze which had once privileged phulkari work undertaken by rural women at home for non-commercial purposes and derided work undertaken by both male Kashmiri migrants (already skilled at darning using the very stitch phulkari demanded) and urban women for commercial purposes, the embroidery had tended to occupy the rather bizarre position of being a marker of femininity despite the fact that men also acted as embroiderers, of being an authentic artefact of material culture completely ignoring its role as a commercial commodity, and of being the product of domestic leisure oblivious to patriarchal and economic forces which could force women into embroidering to earn money. Although traces of it remain, that worldview and its insistence on a single, debatable narrative was challenged soon enough: speaking of phulkari work as far back as 1911, Alma Latifi pointed out: "The patient needlewomen who make them must suit their market. It is impossible to live on unremunerated art and everybody, except the art connoisseur, will agree that it is better to be well fed yourself than merely interesting to well-meaning strangers,” with ‘strangers’ presumably including British proponents of cultural narratives who ignored commercial narratives.[36]
Today, the fabric on which it is undertaken is rarely the khadi or thick cotton of yore nor is silk necessarily used for the embroidery itself as it once was. On the contrary, phulkari sarees (relatively new artefacts in themselves) tend to range from chiffon to silk, their colours are not always as vibrant as they once used to be, and they are often machine-stitched rather than being hand-embroidered. Many contemporary sarees would probably not be considered to be ‘traditional’ although the import of that term, which could be considered to be a Western conception born of a creationist or Platonic worldview which treats the world as being largely unchangeable and tends to freeze indigenous practices to what they were at the moment of first contact with Western peoples,[37] could easily deny indigenous peoples dynamism and agency in their own lives particularly as they adapt to technological and social change, a thesis borne out by the colonial inclination to simply treat newer or ‘non-traditional’ forms of phulkari work as bastadised work.
Whatever the underlying philosophy may be, policing who actually belongs to a community or what qualifies as authentic art could easily take the form of insisting that, when it comes to sarees, production techniques and designs remain true to their roots, obliterating all possibility of their thriving as living traditions capable of evolution and creative response to changing contemporary environs.
Living Traditions
Sarees are, of course, easily available but that, by itself, means little. The handwoven sarees of yore were supplemented by sarees woven in bulk in powerlooms and mills decades ago, and the rejection of mill woven sarees was one of the prongs of action during the independence movement which steered women towards using khadi.
In independent India, there has been a push towards reinvigorating the handloom sector. Some traditional weaves, however, seem to have been either lost forever or revived in forms fundamentally different from what they once were. Baluchari sarees from Bengal which feature scenes ranging from those one might encounter in everyday life to those drawn from mythology and scripture, for example, once often displayed a different scene in every frame, narrating a story as a graphic novel might do; these frames were placed side-by-side within the end-pieces of the sarees. Although the frames remain, in their contemporary form, Baluchari sarees tend to repeat the same image in each frame, and it is said that the weavers no longer know how to weave the old designs.
Not all women can afford handloom sarees, not even those who weave them. The rot began to set in long before independence, likely when the textile industry began to shift towards mechanisation not just to weave cloth but to accomplish ancillary tasks; weaving had hitherto been a family activity in largely agrarian settings with women often handling tasks such as warping and spinning. With the use of machines, however, their labour was the first to be replaced.[38] (It is perhaps unsurprising that, today, women involved in the weaving of intricate traditional sarees are themselves often photographed wearing inexpensive synthetic sarees.)
Further complicating weavers’ circumstances was a combination of colonial greed and indifference. By the fag end of 19th century, anticipating Gandhi, Fakir Mohan (a poet and social reformer) pointed out that weavers in Orissa had abandoned weaving to engage in wage labour.[39] Many common people lived in poverty; the early 19th century saw land settlements through Regulation VII of 1822, increased indebtedness, dispossession, pauperisation, and government interest in issues like public health extending no farther than was necessary for administration.[40] The poor made peace with their lot as best they could, encouraged to lay all at the feet of the Lord, sometimes supposedly with gratitude for being spared the burdens of wealth. Sambalpuri weavers, Pratima Panda pointed out, were inspired by the saint-poet Bhima Bhoi[41] who wrote: “The twins of happiness and misery, bondage and freedom, are all your creation. [....] As for me, I would prefer to stay in hell forever, if that would save the world.”[42] This is a pattern which has continued to be recognisable, and it is not only weavers who are affected by it.
Lifestyles were often guided by religion and philosophy and, even today, such beliefs and practices may underlie not just the weaving of sarees but encompass all aspects of their journey from design to sale; specific procedures which span laying the warp on the loom to determining when the loom should be ritually avoided may be followed all to enhance their auspiciousness. Once a saree is sold, it is considered to be old and impure; if at all it is taken back by a merchant, it will likely be kept aside and sold with a heavy discount possibly during the month of Ashadha or Aadi, coinciding with the beginning of the sun's journey South and considered inauspicious for ceremonies such as weddings, on the understanding that the saree is flawed in some way.[43]
Commerce, however, occurs not only in the rarified environs of handloom emporia and well-established shops but also through unexpected channels with women making best of their circumstances, supported by spirituality and pragmatism. A story published by the Sahitya Akademi narrates how women in a village were sold sarees which, unbeknownst to them, had been taken off the dead by a hospital and piled up to be thrown away; a man saw a business opportunity in the pile and sold the sarees after washing them. He led his buyers to believe that they were castoffs from wealthy urban women who exchanged them for sundry household items. Although they weren't pleased when they learnt the truth, the women made peace with the practice (and the seller!) because they needed clothing.[44]
The story may not be far from the truth; local markets often sell extraordinary sarees at throwaway prices, and it is probably best not to think too deeply about their provenance — many are damaged, and well worn treasures may be buried in piles of indifferent textiles. Given the condition in which they tend to be sold, the likelihood of their having been stolen is low. It is far more likely that they are indeed castoffs or, as is whispered in some markets, the clothes of the dead sold by their families, not quite as dark a tale as the story but one which can be unsettling nonetheless.
Debates have raged, primarily in upper-middle class milieus, about the authenticity and acceptability of powerloom sarees which some believe to threaten the handloom saree sector. There does not, however, appear to be clear evidence of this happening across the board. Many handloom sarees are inexpensive and are not considered to be ‘exclusive’; it is primarily at the upper end of the market that handloom sarees tend to be sold at higher prices than their counterparts woven using powerlooms. The markets for the two, however, may be quite different. Paithani sarees woven on powerlooms can be purchased for less than ten thousand rupees each while those woven on handlooms tend to cost about ten times as much, for example. The sarees are distinguishable and, in this case, there is no easily discernible reason to believe that a woman who would ordinarily buy a handloom saree would ‘settle’ for a powerloom one or that one who would ordinarily buy a powerloom saree would reach for a handloom one; personal budgets tend not to be quite so flexible.
However, it would be naïve to think that the proliferation of powerlooms has had no effect on the handloom sector. Powerlooms have tended to emerge through interaction with handlooms, and simple handloom designs can be woven using powerlooms.[45] In Chirala, Andhra Pradesh, the weaving of Telia Rumal handkerchiefs used by labourers has been wiped out despite having been the area’s most prominent product in the 19th century. One of the causes has been the proliferation of powerlooms coupled with powerloom Telia Rumals woven elsewhere being passed off as handlooms in the export market; once this happened around 2000, weaving in Chirala immediately shifted to the production of jacquard sarees.[46] That said, sarees featuring Telia Rumal designs continue to be made in Nalgonda, now in Telangana; such sarees were first made in the 1950s in Chirala and the know-how reached Nalgonda through a weaver who visited Chirala in the 1970s.
A similar situation is also seen in relation to the trend of reproducing the images created by intricate weaves in print. For example, it is possible to buy sarees with printed renditions of designs woven into double ikat Patan patola sarees quite easily. Double Ikat requires dying both the warp and the weft prior to their being woven together into cloth; the process is exacting and the sarees so woven can take months to be made. Unsurprisingly, an authentic double Ikat saree can cost a few hundred thousand rupees in the market while a printed saree with the ‘same’ design usually costs no more than a few hundred rupees. The difference in their workmanship is apparent at first glance to those who are even vaguely familiar with handloom sarees, and it is difficult to lend any credence to the suggestion that printed double Ikat dilutes the market for traditional, handwoven double Ikat not least because it appears that there are two entirely different sets of women buying the two different kinds of sarees.
Where confusion and market dilution can potentially occur is in relation to weaves which are not particularly expensive. For example, single Ikat often seen in Pochampally sarees, Sambalpuri sarees, and Rajkot patola sarees produces blurred designs which are often imitated in printed sarees. These sarees are sometimes sold for similar prices as authentic Ikat weaves. When the sales price of printed imitations is comparable to that of woven originals, it is hard to believe that there exists no intention to pass off printed lookalikes as authentic weaves. To an extent, certification trade marks like the Handloom Mark can help authenticate purported handlooms but it does not appear that the mark is always immediately recognised by lay consumers who would most benefit from it, and it is unclear whether adequate steps are taken to ensure that it is not inappropriately applied to products. Further, although there exist opportunities to use not only trade mark and geographical indications laws but also consumer protection laws to counter what may essentially be deceptive practices that rely on consumer ignorance, it is not immediately apparent what the best legal strategy would be or who should initiate legal proceedings.
Alongside questionable practices are those which simply represent the organic evolution of textiles often with the support of technology. The arts of nomadic tribes which are often printed or embroidered on to sarees tend to reflect the experiences and world views of artisans, for example. Rabari embroidery, often simply referred to as ‘Sindhi taka’ or ‘Kutchi embroidery’ in contemporary urban India, expresses a history closely tied to the women who embroider it; the Rabaris are believed to have fled to Sindh from Jaisalmer where the Sumras sheltered them for a time only to once again flee to Kutch where they sought refuge with the Samma Rajputs and have remained for several centuries. Legend has it that each exodus was due to rulers demanding a Rabari girl; while time has blurred those demands, it is known that the Delhi Sultanate conquered the Sumras in 1315 aligning with the chronology of legend. Although heritage Rabari motifs show clear traces of curvilinear motifs representing nature inherited from Mughal aesthetics through Mochis who were court embroiderers in Kutch since at least the 19th century, later Rabri motifs are more angular and reflect their changing circumstances: the royal elephant of yore could morph into a cupboard, consistent with a more settled lifestyle, while a cycle or aeroplane might be represented in an extremely abstract (and perhaps unrecognisable) form. The designs have often come to be outlined by those who have sewing machines, a time-saving device, and their ownership has tended to be communal rather than individual although how an outline is filled is likely to depend on an individual embroiderer. Traditional colour schemes too have occasionally been adapted to suit urban clientele, and it is possible to find entirely monochrome Rabari embroidery adorning sarees.[47] Once again, these are innovations which conventional intellectual property laws are unequipped to deal with; if not anything else, intellectual property laws do not excel at protecting works or designs of any kind which not only do not have clearly attributable authorship but which also keep changing unpredictably in time and in space.
Public Interest as a Shield
On one hand, it is important that the law not interfere with the natural development of textile arts while, on the other, in an ideal world, it should be able to address the malafide misappropriation of those arts. It is reasonably clear that intellectual property laws are inadequate to simultaneously achieve both these ends by themselves. Or, indeed, either one of them.
The core issue seems to be one of identifying exactly what party one wants the law to take; the answer, if one were not partisan, would likely be: “to satisfy ‘public interest’ factoring in that entrepreneurship and, by extension, corporatisation play a role in public life and, therefore, in determining where public interest lies” regardless of one's own persuasions. Unfortunately, this immediately raises the problem of defining public interest which is infinitely complicated by the fact that there are no clear ‘right’ answers.
Focussing on temperament rather than on technicality, and drawing on conceptions of the social contract and the work of Rousseau, public interest would seem to align with the interests of all individuals' 'common good' (which tends to be a non-starter when it comes to intellectual property since universal consensus, understandably, does not exist) while Hobbes’ absolutist worldview appears to suggest, despite its emphasis on sovereignty, that public interest could align with the interests of the majority of individuals (ultimately leading, through a convoluted path, to the unreliable calculations of utilitarianism). Both these approaches lean towards objectivity and can trample on minorities and vulnerable sections of society, groups to which the constitution guarantees protection both through universal protection of the right to life and, in some cases, specific protections granted to communities or groups of individuals with reference to factors such as faith, sex, and caste. As such, drawing on the social contract to determine where public interest lies, particularly given that (as Carole Pateman pointed out) it is underlain by a sexual contract subordinating women, does not easily fall within the constitutional scheme of Indian law.
Leaving aside the possible impropriety of coalescing distinctly Western logic with the Indian ethos of life and law, an alternative approach to expressing public interest through law lies in Hegel’s philosophy (which suggests that the state facilitates the pursuit of individual interests while synthesising them into a coherent, ethical whole using its laws and institutions). There are indications that Hegel himself struggled to understand Indian philosophy, his Eurocentric and almost inarguably condescending view seeming to have been primarily through the lens of the Bhagavad Gita. Ironically, his philosophy nonetheless resonated in India. Although they appear to have been primarily influenced by other sources, Gandhi's ‘sarvodaya’ (the good of all) and ‘swarajya’ (self-rule), and Ambedkar’s understanding of fraternity (akin to Sittlichkeit tied to ethical life within society), liberties (facilitating individual choices within a legal framework prohibiting discrimination), and state-mandated equality (ensuring that liberty would not become a privilege of the powerful) gently echo Hegel in hindsight. All of these lines of thought ultimately came to form the warp of the Constitution of independent India most clearly seen in chapters dealing with the fundamental rights[48] and duties[49] of individuals, and the directive principles of state policy.[50]
Pulling this conception of public interest into the realm of sarees would probably take the form of not merely providing intrinsic protections through intellectual property laws but also actively shielding sarees and those who engage with them as makers, merchants, or consumers from active illegitimate interference. Although, by Western standards, this may be seen as unjustifiable protectionism, it could be structured to avoid violating India's international obligations, not an impossible task especially since, internationally, there has been significant effort extended towards creating the means to protect indigenous and cultural artefacts. It would also mirror the mechanism through which Krishna once saved Draupadi. And, that being the case, it is a path India would probably be both culturally and constitutionally comfortable taking.
REFERENCES
[1] Rāẏa, Pratibhā. 1995. Yajnaseni: The Story of Draupadi. Rupa Publications India Pvt Limited. (Shakuni said to Karna, "The greatest offence a woman commits is to try to be learned. It is because she became wise and scholarly that her condition is thus! If she had grovelled at our feet and begged, perhaps she might have escaped such a gross insult. Just as knowledge and power enhance a man's attraction, similarly ignorance and helplessness increase the charm of a woman. However, Draupadi, strengthened by pride in her learning and wisdom, is like a burning tongue of flame. Can anyone have pity on her?”)
[2] Hegel’s conception of God was closer to ‘universal reason’ than to actual divinity.
[3] Hiltebeitel, Alf. “Draupadī’s Garments.” Indo-Iranian Journal 22, no. 2 (1980): 97–112.
[4] Mehendale, M. A. “Once Again ‘Draupadī’s Garments.’” Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute 50 (1990): 285–90.
[5] Dongerkery, Kamala. 1949. The Indian Sari. New Delhi, India: The All India Handicrafts Board, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India.
[6] Venniyoor, E M. J., Raja Ravi Varma. Trivandrum: Museums and Zoos and Art Gallery (1982) quoted in Hiltebeitel, Alf. “Empire, Invasion, and India’s National Epics.” International Journal of Hindu Studies 2, no. 3 (1998): 387–421.
[7] Ahmedabad Mirror, May 10, 2015 07:30 AM, UPDATED: Mar 29, 2021 03:38 PM. 2015. “Players of Dress-up.” https://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/players-of-dress-up/47218060.html.
[8] Shukla, Pravina. “Evaluating Saris: Social Tension and Aesthetic Complexity in the Textile of Modern India.” Western Folklore 67, no. 2/3 (2008): 163–78.
[9] It isn't entirely clear who King Vikramaditya may have been, not least because a number of kings in ancient India appear to have adopted ‘Vikramaditya’ as a title; ‘Vikram’ means ‘valour’ and ‘Aditya’ means ‘sun’.
[10] 1999 Trade Marks Act, Section 2(zb).
[11] https://byloomonline.com
[12] https://www.fabindia.com
[13] https://suta.in
[14] https://www.taneira.com
[15] 1999 Trade Marks Act, Section 2(e).
[16] https://silkmarkindia.com/index.php/smoi/
[17] 1957 Copyright Act, Section 2(c). An “artistic work” means: ‘(i) a painting, a sculpture, a drawing (including a diagram, map, chart or plan), an engraving or a photograph, whether or not any such work possesses artistic quality; (ii) a work of architecture; and (iii) any other work of artistic craftsmanship.”
[18] 1957 Copyright Act, Section 13(1)(a).
[19] Assamese women traditionally wear a two-piece set called a mekhala sador which looks similar to a saree from a distance. However, in response to market demands, Assamese weavers have also begun to make sarees in increasingly large numbers over the last few decades. The same designs which are woven into mekhala sadors are woven into sarees.
[20] 1957 Copyright Act, Section 15(2).
[21] 2000 Designs Act, Section 4.
[22] 2000 Designs Act, Section 2(g).
[23] The 2000 Designs Act uses the term ‘copyright in a design’ to refer to the protection it offers; the term has not been used in this text to avoid confusion with copyright protection under the 1957 Copyright Act. Instead, this text simply refers to designs protection.
[24] This article refers to the Indian Patents Act, 1970, as amended up to 1 October 2025 and accessible at https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/1392/1/A1970-39.pdf
[25] Indian Patents Act (1970}, Sections 2(j), (ja), and (ja) which, read together, stipulate that an ‘invention’ means a new product or process which is ‘capable of being made or used in an industry’ and incorporates an inventive step (meaning a feature involves ‘technical advance’ in comparison to existing knowledge or having ‘economic significance’ or both in a way which keeps the invention itself from being obvious to ‘a person skilled in the art’). Further, Section 2(l) defines a ‘new invention’ as ‘any invention or technology which has not been anticipated by publication in any document or used in the country or elsewhere in the world before the date of filing of patent application with complete specification, i.e., the subject matter has not fallen in public domain or that it does not form part of the state of the art’.
[26] e.g. Application no. 202521100394, Composition and Method for Textile Finishing dated 16 October 2025; Application no. 202441034239, Diversification of Natural Dyed Silk Sari with Innovative Finishes dated 30 April 2024
[27] e.g. Application no. 202241073573, Programmable Electronic Jacquard Machine for Complex Designs in Handloom Sector dated 19 December 2022; Application no. 202221071026, Workstation for Handmade Saree Painting Task dated 9 December 2022
[28] e.g. Application no. 202441088979, Mini Saree Pleating Machine dated 18 November 2024; Application no. 202411022824, Automated Saree Draping Device dated 23 March 2024; Application no. 202341074199, A Modular Apparel dated 30 November 2023
[29] “Dyes from Coal Tar Products.” Scientific American 13, no. 39 (1858): 308–308.
[30] Moser, Petra. “Innovation without Patents: Evidence from World’s Fairs.” The Journal of Law & Economics 55, no. 1 (2012): 43–74.
[31] Roy, Tirthankar. “Acceptance of Innovations in Early Twentieth-Century Indian Weaving.” The Economic History Review 55, no. 3 (2002): 507–32.
[32] Indian Patents Act (1970}, Section 3(l).
[33] e.g. Application no. 202441034876, Kalakshetra Muttukattam Silk Saree dated 2 May 2024
[34] 1957 Copyright Act, Section 2(d).
[35] 1957 Copyright Act, Section 2(z).
[36] Maskiell, Michelle. “Embroidering the Past: Phulkari Textiles and Gendered Work as ‘Tradition’ and ‘Heritage’ in Colonial and Contemporary Punjab.” The Journal of Asian Studies 58, no. 2 (1999): 361–88.
[37] Pierotti, Raymond. “World Views and the Concept of ‘Traditional.’” Ethnobiology Letters 9, no. 2 (2018): 299–304.
[38] Wendt, Ian C. “Four Centuries of Decline?: Understanding the Changing Structure of the South Indian Textile Industry.” In How India Clothed the World: The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500-1850, edited by Giorgio Riello and Tirthankar Roy, 193–216. Brill, 2009.
[39] Satpathy, Sumanyu. “Gandhi before Gandhi: Two Little Prehistories of the Great Soul.” Economic and Political Weekly 49, no. 30 (2014): 171–81.
[40] DAS, BINOD S. “Orissa’s Economy in the Nineteenth Century.” Social Scientist 4, no. 11 (1976): 32–46.
[41] Panda, Pratima. “Sambalpuri Textile of Odisha: An Emblem of Unity in Diversity.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 82 (2023): 1371–78.
[42] Mahapatra, Sitakant. (1983) 2017. Bhima Bhoi. Sahitya Akademi.
[43] Kawlra, Aarti. “Kanchipuram Sari: Design for Auspiciousness.” Design Issues 21, no. 4 (2005): 54–67. (Kawlra discusses this phenomenon with reference to the Padma Saliyar community in Tamil Nadu which weaves Kanchipuram sarees using the Korvai technique that embodies the integration of opposites.)
[44] Narasimhan, Usha, and Preethi Narasimhan. “Saree.” Indian Literature 66, no. 3 (329) (2022): 16–22.
[45] Roy, Tirthankar. “Development or Distortion? ‘Powerlooms’ in India, 1950-1997.” Economic and Political Weekly 33, no. 16 (1998): 897–911.
[46] Niranjana, Seemanthini. “Thinking with Handlooms: Perspectives from Andhra Pradesh.” Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 6 (2004): 553–63.
[47] See: Frater, Judy. “When Parrots Transform to Bikes: Social Change Reflected in Rabari Embroidery Motifs.” Nomadic Peoples 3, no. 1 (1999): 31–49. (The information in this paragraph is drawn both from Frater and the author's own interaction with Rabari embroiderers.)
[48] Constitution of India, Chapter III.
[49] Constitution of India, Chapter IV-A. (This chapter was a later addition into the constitution, introduced only in the 1970s long after Ambedkar's death in 1956. However, it does not disrupt the underlying warp of the constitution.)
[50] Constitution of India, Chapter IV.