Kantha provide a rich material archive to probe women’s engagement with contemporary social, political, economic and religious concerns during the tumultuous decades of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Bengal. This article gathers a set of stitched vignettes of the 1873 Tarakeshwar affair, involving the seduction and/or rape and murder of a young woman Elokeshi, resulting in sensational court cases. It examines the choices in visualising the events alongside versions in other visual, literary and performative media to ask how their makers may have participated. Did kantha-making offer women space to process this shocking event, as well as many others that went unaddressed in their daily lives? Could these practices foster informal and fleeting sites of support or quiet resistance to dominant narratives? This imagery allows us to ask if pictures in coloured threads served to bear witness to events, experiences and emotions that may have been difficult to verbalise.
BhattacharyaE. (2024, December5). Kanthar Ghor: A house draped in stories, woven by neighborhood women in Santiniketan. Times of India.
7.
BhattacharyaR. (2020). Public women in British India: Icons and the urban stage. Routledge.
8.
ButlerJ. (2004). Precarious life: The power of mourning and violence. Verso Books.
9.
ChakravartiS. (Ed.). (2001). Kalighat Paintings in the Gurusaday Museum. Gurusaday Museum.
10.
CohenS., & RosemaryC. (2020). Catalogue entry 128: Half of a coverlet (kantha). In ThakarK., CrillR., FotheringhamA., HoughtelingS., & CohenS. (Eds.), Indian textiles. 1,000 years of art and design (pp. 342–344). The George Washington University Museum, The Textile Museum, Karun.
11.
ForbesG. (2017). In search of Elokeshi: The death of a young wife in colonial India. In NayeemA. I. & IlamA. (Eds.), Readings in Bengal history: Identity formation and colonial legacy (pp. 139–162). Bangladesh Itihash Samiti.
12.
GellA. (1992). The technology of enchantment and the enchantment of technology. In CooteJ. & SheltonA. (Eds.), Anthropology, art, and aesthetics (pp. 40–63). Oxford University Press.
13.
GhoseA. (1926). Old Bengal paintings. Rupam, 27–28, 98–104.
14.
GhoshP. (2003). Space and the new temple vernacular of seventeenth-century Bengal. In MeisterM. W. & KrishnaswamyS. (Eds.), Traditional and vernacular architecture (pp. 16–30.) Madras Craft Foundation.
15.
GhoshP. (2020). Making kantha, making home: Women at work in colonial Bengal. University of Washington Press.
16.
GhoshP. (2024). Stitching spectacles: A visual culture of bodily prowess and muscular nationalism in colonial Bengal. In GhoshP. & SohoniP. (Eds.), Chakshudana or opening the eyes: Seeing South Asian art anew (pp. 206–230). Routledge.
17.
JainJ. (1999). Kalighat paintings. Images from a changing world. Mapin Publishing Pvt Ltd.
18.
JainJ. (2022). The saga of Elokeshi’s murder: A unique embroidery from Bengal. Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya Research Journal, Centenary Issue, 55–67.
19.
Jasimuddin. (1939). Nakshi Kanthar Maath (MilfordE. M., Trans.). The field of the embroidered quilt: A tale of two Indian villages. Oxford University Press.
20.
KramrischS. (1939). Kantha. Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art, 7, 141–167.
21.
KramrischS. (1968). Unknown India: Ritual art in tribe and village. Philadelphia Museum of Art.
22.
MorinisE. A. (1984). Pilgrimage in the Hindu tradition: A case study in West Bengal. Oxford University Press.
23.
MuseumV&A. (1840). Painting [Painting]. Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O71332/painting-unknown/
24.
MuseumV&A. (1875a). Elokeshi and the Mahant [Painting]. Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O72156/elokeshi-and-the-mahant-painting-unknown/
25.
MuseumV&A. (1875b). Nabin and Elokeshi [Painting]. Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O71452/nabin-and-elokeshi-painting-unknown/
26.
MuseumV&A. (1875c). Madhavchandra Giri (The Mahant) [Painting]. Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O100916/madhavchandr-giri-the-mahant-painting-unknown/
27.
MuseumV&A. (1880a). Elokeshi and Madhavchandra Giri (the Mahant) [Painting]. Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70777/elokeshi-and-madhavchandra-giri-the-painting-unknown/
28.
MuseumV&A. (1880b). Madhavchandra Giri [Painting]. Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O71397/madhavchandra-giri-painting-unknown/
29.
MuseumV&A. (1880c). Madhavchandra Giri (the Mahant) [Painting]. Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O71394/madhavchandra-giri-the-mahant-painting-unknown/
30.
MuseumV&A. (1880d). Madhavchandra Giri [Painting]. Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O71356/madhavchandra-giri-painting-unknown/
31.
MuseumV&A. (1890a). Elokeshi [Painting]. Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O71297/elokeshi-painting-unknown
32.
MuseumV&A. (1890b). Painting [Painting]. Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections. https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O71391/painting-unknown/
33.
ParkerR. (1984). The subversive stitch: Embroidery and the making of the feminine. Women’s Press.
34.
PaulA. (Ed.). (1983). Woodcut prints of nineteenth century. Seagull Books.
35.
SarkarT. (2001). Talking about scandals: Religion, law and love in late nineteenth-century Bengal. In SarkarT. (Ed.), Hindu wife, Hindu nation: Community, religion and cultural nationalism (pp. 53–94). Indiana University Press.
36.
SinhaS., & PandaC. (Eds.). (2011). Kalighat paintings from the collections of Victoria and Albert Museum and Victoria Memorial Hall. Mapin Publishing in association with Victoria and Albert Museum.
37.
TedeschiR. G., & CalhounL. G. (1995). Trauma and transformation: Growing in the aftermath of suffering. Sage Publications.
38.
WardwellA. E. (1984). Material matters: Fifty years of gifts from the textile arts club, 1934 –1984 [Exhibition], 21 November–30 December. The Cleveland Museum of Art.
39.
YoungA. (1996). Bodily memory and traumatic memory. In AnzeP. & LambekM. (Eds.), Tense past: Cultural essays in trauma and memory (pp. 89–102). Routledge.
40.
ZamanN. (2003). Kantha. In MillsM. A., KlausP. J., & DiamondS. (Eds.), South Asian folklore: An encyclopedia (pp. 321–322). Routledge.
