Risa

CULTURE  ·  CRAFT  ·  HERITAGE

Tripura’s Cultural Heritage

By Aichuk Debbarma

At around the age of twelve, a girl in a Tripuri family is given a length of handwoven cloth and shown how to wrap it across her chest. The occasion is called Risa Sormani, and the cloth is her first Risa. It will stay with her for years. She will wear it at festivals and family occasions, and one day she may use it to carry her own child on her back while she works.

In Agartala, where I live, Risa is hard to miss. It is placed over the shoulders of guests at public functions, tied as a turban by men at weddings, and worn by women at festivals. It is one of the things that makes me proud to be from Tripura.

Nearly all of the state’s 19 indigenous communities weave it, and each has its own designs. The motifs work as a marker, so a woman’s Risa can tell others which community she comes from. In March 2024 the cloth received a Geographical Indication tag, which gives its name legal protection. The tag is recent, but women in Tripura have woven Risa at home for generations.

RISA AT A GLANCE

TOPIC	KEY FACTS
Who weaves it	Nearly all of Tripura’s 19 indigenous communities, each with its own designs
The women’s dress	Rignai (lower body), Rikutu (wrap or shawl) and Risa (upper body)
The loom	Loin loom, also called a backstrap or waist loom, held in tension by the weaver’s own body
Weaving season	Traditionally Kartik and Agrahayana, after the rice harvest
GI registration	1 March 2024 (application filed May 2022)
Applicant	Killa Mahila Cluster Bahumukhi Samabaya Samity Limited, a women’s cooperative in Killa, Gomati district
Backed by	TRLM supported the effort and NABARD paid the fees
Where it is sold	TRLM’s Villmart online store, with listings started on Amazon and Flipkart

01  One cloth, many jobs

Traditional women’s dress in Tripura has three pieces. The Rignai is wrapped around the lower body, the Rikutu is worn as a wrap or shawl, and the Risa covers the upper body. Its use goes well past women’s clothing. Men knot it at the waist over a dhoti. Young people wear it as a headscarf, and in winter it doubles as a muffler. It has a place in Garia Puja.

02  Woven on the body

Risa is woven on a loin loom, also called a backstrap or waist loom. There is no wooden frame. The weaver sits on the floor with a strap behind her back and her feet braced against a footrest, and she leans back to keep the warp threads tight. Her own body holds the loom in tension. When she stops for the day, the whole thing can be rolled up and put away.

“Her own body holds the loom in tension.”

That is why the work fits into a corner of the house, between other chores. Much of it was traditionally done in the months of Kartik and Agrahayana, after the rice harvest, when the fields need less attention. To open the threads, the weaver lifts one bar with her left hand while pressing another down with her right. She passes the weft through and beats it into place. Coloured bands and motifs must be planned as the weaving begins, because the pattern builds up thread by thread.

03  Learned by watching

Few weavers learned this in a classroom. In 2022 the Tripura news site ENewsTime reported on Mangal Kumari Hrangkwal of Babumani Para, who had watched her mother and grandmother weave Risa and Pachra on a waist loom. Her account shows how the skill usually passes down, inside the home.

The same report was about a problem. Waist-loom weavers were asking the government for help because the price of thread had gone up.

04  What the GI tag changed

Tripura Risa Textile was registered as a Geographical Indication on 1 March 2024. The application, filed in May 2022, came from the Killa Mahila Cluster Bahumukhi Samabaya Samity Limited, a women’s cooperative in Killa, Gomati district. The Tripura Rural Livelihood Mission (TRLM) backed the effort, and NABARD paid the fees.

Before registration, the Killa weavers had little way to show buyers that their cloth was genuine, or to act when others used the name. A GI tag links a product’s name to its place of origin. Only registered producers from the region may sell cloth under the name, and copies can be challenged in law. TRLM now sells GI-tagged Risa through its Villmart online store and has started listing it on Amazon and Flipkart.

05  The harder part

Registration protects the name. It does not pay for thread or find buyers. Waist-loom weaving is slow, and handwoven Risa has to compete with cheaper machine-made copies of its patterns. The state government has promoted Risa as Tripura’s signature garment, branded it under India Handloom, and issued Risa uniforms to anganwadi and ASHA workers, which gives weavers some steady demand.

Much of what happens next depends on buyers. A person who knows that a Risa was woven by hand, on a loom held taut by the weaver’s own body, is more likely to pay a fair price for it. New designs can draw younger customers too, provided the weavers have a say in how their patterns are used.

THE NEXT RISA

The next time a Risa is placed over my shoulders at a function in Agartala, I will think about the woman who leaned back against her loom to make it. At the next Risa Sormani, another girl will be wrapped in her first Risa. Whether that cloth comes from a neighbour’s loom or a distant factory will depend, in large part, on whether weaving at home still earns a living.