Q1.
Indigo is a natural deep blue pigment used in dyeing. Can you think of other natural substances that have been traditionally used in India to dye cloth?
Answer
Yes — India had a whole palette of natural dyes long before chemical dyes existed, drawn from roots, bark, flowers, seeds, insects and minerals. That is precisely why Indian textiles were prized for their bright colours, as the chapter noted a few pages earlier.
| Colour | Natural source | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Blue | Indigo (nīl), from the leaves of the indigo plant | The dye at the centre of the Indigo Revolt (1859–1862) |
| Red | Madder root (manjishtha, ‘Indian madder’); lac (lākhā) from the lac insect | Madder red was the base of the great printed cottons of Gujarat and the Coromandel coast |
| Yellow | Turmeric (haldi); pomegranate rind; myrobalan (harda) | Myrobalan is also used as a mordant, which fixes the colour to the cloth |
| Orange / saffron | Safflower (kusum); saffron (kesar); the flowers of the flame-of-the-forest (palash or tesu) | Palash flowers are still boiled for colour at Holi |
| Brown | Catechu (kattha) from the khair tree; walnut and onion skins; henna (mehndi) | Henna gives an orange-brown on cloth as well as on skin |
| Black / grey | Iron filings soaked in jaggery water (kasim or iron liquor) | The classic outline black of Kalamkari and Ajrakh printing |
| Green | Usually made by dyeing twice — indigo blue over a plant yellow | Very few plants give a fast green directly |
Why it took skill, not just a plant: most natural dyes will not stick to cotton on their own. They need a mordant — a substance such as alum, iron or myrobalan applied first, which binds the colour to the fibre and also changes it (the same madder gives red with alum and a dark purple-black with iron). Indian dyers had worked out these combinations over centuries, which is why Indian cottons kept their colour after washing while European imitations faded. Craft traditions that still use them include Ajrakh (Kachchh), Bagru and Sanganer block printing (Rajasthan), Kalamkari (Andhra Pradesh), and Bandhani tie-dye (Gujarat and Rajasthan).
Check it yourself: boil a handful of onion skins in water for ten minutes and dip a strip of white cotton in it. Now boil turmeric in another pot and dip a second strip. Wash both. The one that fades faster is the one that needed a mordant — that single experiment is the whole reason a dyer’s knowledge was valuable.