By R.G. Singh, Secretary, Ramsons Kala Pratishtana

The World of Textile Tickets. From the late 19th century onwards, thousands of glossy colourful paper labels with striking visuals arrived in India. Known as textile tickets, shippers’ tickets, textile or cotton marks, tika or chaap, they were pasted on millions of packed yards, bundles of British and Indian machine-made cotton fabrics, as well as yarn and dyes. They were many things at one — legally registered trademarks, advertisements and perhaps the earliest forms of branding in India.”

—Excerpts from the book ‘Ticket Tika Chaap – The art of the trademark in the Indo-British textile trade’ by Nathaniel Gaskell & Shrey Maurya published by Niyogi books and MAP, 2025.

The Indian textile traditions had dominated the globe for almost a millennium. In fact, during the Mughal era, textiles were the largest produced items in the manufacturing sector. The bewildering array of textiles mass produced by the mills at Manchester using the raw material sourced from India produced cheap imitations of Indian chintz, jamdani, block prints, etc., sounded a death knell for the highly accomplished and skilful dyeing and weaving masters of India.

Since British India stretched from Afghanistan to Burma, Ceylon and borders of Thailand, marketing  them was a challenge. Hence the British manufacturers and the Indian agents at the importing centres of Bombay and Surat cleverly designed different versions of labels catering to each geographic location of the vast sub-continent. Labels featured archaeological sites, Indian divinity, patriotic themes and secular designs. Further, ruling princes, freedom fighters and influential industrialists were featured for easy recognition.

The label shown here with the image of H.H. Yuvaraja Kanteerava Narasimharaja Wadiyar was used for selling textiles in the Princely State of Mysore. The designer has used a photograph of the Yuvaraja for creating this label which shows him in his usual tied turban with the Gandaberunda sarpech, the GCIE medallion (insignia of a Knight Grand Commander of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire) and pendant (a gold five-petalled rose, enamelled crimson and a green barb between each petal, bust of Queen Victoria in gold in the centre). 

[Size: 16x20cms; Collection: Ramsons Kala Pratishtana]