From Bondage to Backbone: Bangladeshi Women and Britain’s Shared Story

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From Bondage to Backbone: Bangladeshi Women and Britain’s Shared Story

26/11/2025

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Stitching Light photo by Sean Pollock via BBC

The year was 1757, and British forces had just won a victory of the local people at the Battle of Plassey. A semi-private army, the military wing of the East India Trading Company was the British Government’s business venture, intended to enrich the nation through industrial conquest. The Nawab of Bengal was beaten by superior technology, tactics, and a better understanding of psychology. The enlightenment era had given Western nations like Britain a clear advantage over more tradition-based cultures. This gave them the power to colonise many places around the world to install their ways of thinking and their business interests. Bengal was seen as a lesser nation at the time, with no appreciation for their thought or style, the East India Trading Company just saw a resource with cheap labour.

Under the premise of bringing education, technology, government, and prosperity, the civilians were often subjected to humiliating practices and underpaid hard labour. The exploitation of the area was complete when local leaders became installed as agents of British interests and began to see themselves as separate from those they once served. Within a few generations, through the education system and the legal system, the whole Indian subcontinent had become Anglified. Where the local leaders enjoyed some prosperity, relative to the wealth in the local economy, most of the profit went straight back to Britain where it funded the lavish lifestyles and projects that define the upper class to this day.

The rise of industrial Britain can be directly linked to the wealth brought in by the East India Trading Company, who for a time, exceeded their mandate and created a lot of opportunity for investors. Things didn’t last long, however, and through various poor business decisions, changing moral politics of the time, and a series of unavoidable serendipities, the whole system began to collapse. Corruption and natural resistance combined and with a few acts of nature, the house of cards fell to pieces. What happened next was a horrible period of war and suffering as the subcontinent split at the North to form Pakistan. It didn’t end there, and war continued unto the 1970s until the final creation of a third state, Bangladesh.

Because of the British influence on the area for the past 200 years, the government systems in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh are all mostly British in origin. The education, political, legal, and civic systems in the three nations are all based on the way things are done in Britain. This makes citizens of these nations extremely suitable for cooperation and bridge-building to help all our cultures move into more prosperous and firmly equitable tomorrows. This working together and cooperation began in the 1950s when many families from the Bangladeshi regions, notably Sylhet, immigrated to Britain to help with the post-war effort.

The expert weavers and textile workers were brought in as highly skilled labour and as communities grew, the food industry began to change and offer more even more opportunity. During the 1950s many people from the old Empire, now called the British Commonwealth, answered the call to help rebuild, replace, and refurbish the nation. In return they were offered complete citizenship. Where we’d had handfuls of foreign workers throughout the past few hundred years, and a steady travelling market scene, with so many new residents from different cultures settling, it was a challenging time for everyone.

The story of Bangladeshi women is being told in a new way. Many women from the British Bangladeshi community were invited to contribute their stories for an exhibition by Lou Scholes called Stitching Light. Women from places as far and wide as Tower Hamlets, Middlesbrough, Worcester, Salford, and Bradford have submitted stories. These tales of perseverance, resilience, and optimism have been transformed into pieces of vibrant and richly decorated textile art.  The Bangladeshi folk-art designs were meticulously crafted by Dhaka-based artist. Each piece tells a narrative of struggle, earned prosperity, hard work, and changing times.

The pieces stood for the weekend in the town hall at Middlesbrough, where a large British Bangladeshi community lives. It seems a shame to only have them out for a day or two when so much work was done to create the work. The original article doesn’t even mention the artist’s name, which is regrettable. Let’s hope they get more attention soon and the background to the collection can be put into the public sphere. These things are too valuable to use like flashcards. What are they afraid of?

Enjoy yourself in the kitchen and support this journal at the same time: The Culinary Canvas of Bangladesh: A Chef's Journey - by Arfatul Islam

Make sure to read the latest book from the author of Alternative Fruit: Parenting Superintelligence: From Code to Conscience by Rowan B. Colver

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