Bagh print

What it is

Bagh print is a textile printing craft from the village of Bagh in Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh, India. The name comes from the village, which sits beside the Bagh River. Cloth is printed by hand with carved wooden relief blocks and colours obtained from natural sources. The usual pattern is red and black on a white or off-white background, in geometric, paisley or floral shapes. Cotton is the most common cloth, and silk, tussar, chiffon, crepe, georgette, tissue, bamboo mats, jute and leather have also been printed. The craft is listed under India's Geographical Indications law as Bagh Prints of Madhya Pradesh.

Origins and history

The beginnings of Bagh print are not certain. One account says the practice is more than a thousand years old, passed down in families. Another suggests printers came from Jawad in Madhya Pradesh, or from Rajasthan. A third holds that Chhipas, traditional cloth printers of the Muslim Khatri community who work the craft today, arrived about 400 years ago from Larkana in Sindh, in what is now Pakistan, a place known for Ajrak block printing. The Bagh River is thought to have drawn them, because its water is needed for washing cloth and preparing vegetable dyes, and because its minerals are said to give the colours a particular glow.

Dyes and blocks

Colours come from plants, fruits, flowers and minerals. Ferrous sulfate boiled with tamarind seed powder gives black, and alum gives red. Indigo leaves, dhavdi leaves or pomegranate rind make indigo, mustard and khaki. Blocks are carved from teak or sheesham wood with deep, fine patterns, and are often bought from Pethapur, Gandhinagar or Jaipur. A block may be used for two or three hundred years, and some family collections hold thousands of designs, each with its own name. Motifs include jasmine, mushroom, mango, small dots, and shapes taken from the old paintings at Bagh Caves.

How cloth is printed

The work runs in three stages. First the cloth is washed in running water and beaten on river stones, then soaked with rock salt, goat dung and castor oil and dried, then given an off-white base with harara. Printing comes next. A wooden reservoir called a palea holds the dye, with a wool-wrapped bamboo mesh floating in it to feed the block. The cloth lies on a red sandstone table, the farsi, padded with old cloth. An expert can print five yards in two to three hours. The printed cloth rests for eight to fourteen days.

Today and change

In the 1960s many craftspeople left the traditional method and turned to synthetic cloth. Ismail Sulemanji Khatri and others kept the old process going and brought the prints to wider notice. Later members of the Khatri family made designs for city buyers: sarees, shalwar kameez, cushion and table covers, silk stoles and scarves. They printed on bamboo mats, leather and jute as well as cloth. Mohammed Yusuf Khatri's bed cover using 1,200 different blocks won a National Award in 1984. In 2011 a Bagh print design appeared in the Madhya Pradesh tableau at the Republic Day parade in New Delhi.

How Bagh print is kept

The printing is done by hand by craftspeople of the Khatri community, working in family workshops in Bagh. Cloth is first washed and beaten, treated with salt, goat dung and castor oil, and given an off-white base. Dyes are prepared from plants and minerals. A carver cuts the design into a teak or sheesham block. The printer presses the block onto cloth spread on a padded stone table, colour by colour. The cloth then rests for one to two weeks. After that it is washed in the river, boiled with alizarin and dhavda flowers, bleached and washed again.

When and where

Bagh print belongs to Bagh, a village on the Bagh River in Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh, India, about 30 kilometres from the Narmada River. The craft is strongest there, in the workshops of Khatri families. Blocks for printing are commonly bought from Pethapur and Gandhinagar in Gujarat and from Jaipur in Rajasthan. The Geographical Indication registration covers Bagh Prints of Madhya Pradesh.

What Bagh print means

The prints carry the name of the village and its river. For the Khatri families who make them, the craft is a family inheritance: blocks pass down through generations and some are still in use after two or three centuries, known by name. The Bagh River is central to the work, because the water is used to wash cloth and prepare dyes. Designs also draw on the region's older art, including motifs taken from the paintings in the Bagh Caves.

Questions people ask about Bagh print

See also

Kolhapuri chappalHandcrafted braided leather slip-on sandals from western IndiaIkatA resist-dyeing craft from Southeast Asia, where yarns are tied and dyed before weavingSouth Asian truck artThe craft of painting and adorning cargo trucks and buses across India and Pakistan.PhulkariGeometric and floral threadwork embroidered by Punjabi women on handwoven cotton.

Good reading and sources

• Bagh print on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-10.