There is a reason the saree keeps turning up at the most consequential moments in Indian public life. It is not an accident of habit. A handloom saree carries information — where it was woven, by whose hands, on what kind of loom, at what cost — and anyone who understands cloth can read it across a room. For more than a century, Indians who wanted to say something without speaking have said it in six yards.
This is a story about that. Not about politics, but about textiles that were chosen on purpose.
Before 1947: the loom as resistance
The first great statement made with Indian cloth was a refusal. When the Swadeshi movement took hold in 1905, the act of rejecting imported mill cloth in favour of hand-spun, handwoven fabric turned a wardrobe decision into a political position. Mahatma Gandhi later built an entire philosophy around it. The charkha — the spinning wheel — became the most recognisable symbol of the freedom movement precisely because it was so ordinary. Khadi stood for self-reliance and dignity, and the point was that anyone could participate simply by choosing what they wore.
Women carried this further than is often remembered. Sarojini Naidu, poet and the first Indian woman to preside over the Indian National Congress, wore khadi sarees as a matter of conviction, aligning herself unmistakably with the Swadeshi cause. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay went further still — for her, wearing handloom was not symbolism but practical activism, and she spent her life rebuilding India's crafts economy from the ground up. Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, independent India's first Health Minister, treated fine handloom sarees as a cultural assertion in their own right.
What these women understood is something we still tell customers at our Abids counter: a handwoven saree is not just prettier than a machine-made one. It is an entire economy, held in the hand.
The Republic: Indira Gandhi and the quiet weave
India's first and only woman Prime Minister built a public image in which the saree did significant work. Indira Gandhi's wardrobe leaned consistently on handloom — regional cotton and silk weaves drawn from every corner of the country, worn in restrained patterns rather than ornate ones. For state occasions she turned to pure silk, most often understated Banarasi. For everyday politics, the cotton handloom.
The effect was deliberate. By wearing weaves from across India rather than a single signature style, she made herself legible to every region she travelled through. She worked with the handloom scholar Pupul Jayakar in building that collection, and the result arguably did more for Indian handloom's prestige than any government scheme of the period. Whatever one makes of her politics, the textile argument was made and won.
The signature drape
Some leaders went the opposite way — one weave, worn relentlessly, until it became shorthand for the person.
Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal, has worn the same thing for decades: a white cotton handloom saree with a narrow single-colour border. It is the Dhaniakhali, a handwoven cotton from Hooghly district, and her association with it is now so complete that the trade itself refers to that style as the Mamata saree. One weave, one silhouette, no deviation — and a message about austerity that needs no press release.
The late J. Jayalalithaa of Tamil Nadu took a different route. Her cape-like drape over the shoulder became instantly identifiable, and her personal collection of sarees ran to many thousands. Where Mamata Banerjee's statement was restraint, hers was permanence and authority.
Budget Day: the most-watched saree in India
This is the part that fascinates us most, because it happens on a fixed date every year and almost nobody talks about the cloth itself.
Since 2019, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has worn a different Indian handloom to present each Union Budget, and the choice is reported nationally every 1st of February. Her first Budget was presented in a bright pink Mangalagiri silk saree with a gold border — a weave from Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. She also replaced the colonial-era briefcase with a cloth-wrapped bahi-khata that year, so the textile statement was made twice in one morning.
The sequence since then reads like a tour of Indian looms:
- 2019 — Mangalagiri, Andhra Pradesh. Bright pink handloom silk with a gold border.
- 2020 — yellow silk with contrasting bordering, worn for the longest Budget speech on record.
- 2021 — Pochampally ikat, Telangana. Red and off-white silk with ikat motifs on the pallu and a green border.
- 2022 — Bomkai, Odisha. Rust and maroon handloom from Ganjam district, with silver zari detailing.
- 2023 — temple-border silk with Kasuti threadwork, red and black, referencing Karnataka's embroidery tradition.
- 2024 (interim) — blue Tussar with Kantha embroidery, West Bengal.
- 2024 (full) — off-white Mangalagiri with magenta and gold borders.
- 2025 — off-white handloom silk gifted by Padma Shri awardee Dulari Devi, the Madhubani artist, who asked that it be worn on Budget Day.
- 2026 — magenta checked Kanjeevaram from Kanchipuram, with a coffee-brown bordered edge.
The year Telangana's weave presented the Budget
We want to dwell on 2021 for a moment, because it is our own backyard. Pochampally ikat is woven in Bhoodan Pochampally, about an hour and a half from where you are reading this if you are in Hyderabad. It was the first Indian handloom to receive a Geographical Indication tag. The technique — resist-dyeing the yarn before it ever reaches the loom, so the pattern emerges as the cloth is woven — is among the most demanding in the world, and a double-ikat silk saree can take weeks on a single loom.
On 1 February 2021, that weave was worn to present the national Budget. Telangana's weavers did not get a mention in the speech. They did not need one.
If you want to understand what makes that cloth worth the attention, our guide on how to identify authentic Pochampally ikat silk goes through it thread by thread.
Rashtrapati Bhavan, 2022
When Droupadi Murmu took the oath as India's fifteenth President in July 2022 — the first person from a Scheduled Tribe to hold the office — she did it in an Odisha handloom. Reporting at the time anticipated a Santhali saree; what she actually wore was a Sonepuri silk with Bomkai and bandha ikat work on the anchal, white with coloured borders. She is known for wearing handlooms from her home state at official functions, and the choice placed Odisha's weavers at the centre of the most-photographed moment of that year.
What this means if you are buying a saree
You are not presenting a Budget. But the underlying logic holds for any occasion that matters.
A handwoven saree says something a printed copy cannot, because the information is in the construction. The slight irregularity where a weaver changed shifts. The way a korvai border is interlocked by hand rather than woven continuous. The weight of real mulberry silk in the hand. Zari with an actual silver core rather than a coated polyester thread. People who know cloth notice all of it, and people who do not know cloth still feel the difference without being able to name it.
The weaves that have carried these statements are, for the most part, weaves we stock and have stocked since 1997:
- Pochampally ikat — in both pure silk and pure cotton, direct from the weavers.
- Gadwal and Narayanpet — Telangana's own, and still the most undervalued silks in the country. See our pure Gadwal silk guide.
- Banarasi handloom and Katan silk — the state-occasion weave, then and now.
- Kanchipattu — in semi pattu, and in our pure pattu ikkat fusion, where a pure mulberry silk ikat body meets Kanchipuram-style zari borders.
- Mangalagiri, Uppada jamdani, Kalamkari — the quieter weaves that read as considered rather than loud.
- Handloom cotton — the Swadeshi inheritance, and still the most honest thing you can wear in a Hyderabad summer.
For the longer view of how the saree got here, read the saree's untold story, and our weave map of India for where each tradition comes from.
Frequently asked questions
Which saree did Nirmala Sitharaman wear to present the 2021 Budget?
A red and off-white Pochampally ikat silk saree from Telangana, with ikat motifs on the pallu and a green border.
Why do Indian leaders wear handloom rather than mill-made sarees?
The tradition traces back to the Swadeshi movement and Gandhi's promotion of khadi, where hand-spun and handwoven cloth stood for self-reliance. Wearing a regional handloom today is widely read as support for that craft and the weaving community behind it.
What is the Mamata saree?
It is the Dhaniakhali — a handwoven white cotton saree from Hooghly district in West Bengal with a narrow coloured border, so closely associated with the West Bengal Chief Minister that the trade now uses her name for the style.
Can I buy these weaves in Hyderabad?
Yes. We carry Pochampally ikat, Gadwal, Narayanpet, Banarasi, Kanchipattu, Mangalagiri, Uppada jamdani and Kalamkari at our Chapel Road store in Abids, and ship across India.
Browse & order online
Every weave mentioned here can be seen in person at Sri Manisha Sarees, Chapel Road, Abids, Hyderabad — or over a live video call if you are not in the city.
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