Why the homegrown fragrance has a fascinating past and a controversial present
Home, besides being a place, is a tangle of emotions, sounds and smells. “Smells like home” is among the most overused colloquialisms, and with good reason. Places are bound by smells—homes, lanes, even cities that become synonymous to certain scents. New York largely has a sanitised “non smell”; Paris floats on the aromas of fresh bread and cheese, while London smells of fog and ash.
Meanwhile, Indian cities are a headier mix of scents—more heterogeneous and diverse, even though one might argue that Mumbai does smell of fish, and Delhi of unsettled dust, especially in the past decade. But tucked away in the recesses of these burgs are lanes that smell of a time left behind, of decadence reminiscent of Mughal gardens, and that’s no coincidence. From Delhi’s Chandni Chowk to Mumbai’s Attar Gulli in Mandvi, and all the way to the city of Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh, attar—or perfumed oils derived from botanical or natural sources—has lined Indian cities, their histories and economies for centuries.
In popular imagination, Mughal queen Noor Jehan (1577-1645 CE), wife of Jahangir, is credited with the widespread popularisation of attar, which the Mughals were renowned patrons and users of. Their rule was marked with opulence and a generosity towards the arts and finer things in life, including perfumes.
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In popular imagination, Mughal queen Noor Jehan, wife of Jahangir, is credited with the widespread popularisation of attar. Image: Pexels
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The tradition of perfumery predates the Mughals and finds mentions in literature from the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. Image: Pexels
But the tradition of perfumery predates the Mughals and finds mentions in literature from the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, when gandhis (not to be confused with the last name ‘Gandhi’), a tribe of travelling perfumers, would sell their offerings across the country, in exchange for “seals” or the currency in use.
“Before the Mughals, traders would sell their perfumes to Central Asia so the perfume trade roots were much, much deeper. However, Mughals became influential in this trade because they were among the biggest buyers, along with the nawabs (of the east and south) back in the day, when perfumes were sold only to the royals since they were the only ones who could afford them,” says Anshuman Tiwari, veteran journalist hailing from Kannauj, and author of Laxminama: Monks, Merchants, Money and Mantra (2018), a book that illustrates how India’s open market and religious outlooks have buttressed each other across centuries.
“A RICH TRADITION OF PERFUMES CAN BE SEEN EXTENSIVELY IN SANSKRIT TEXTS AS WELL. SO BY THE TIME YOU ARRIVE IN THE 16TH-17TH CENTURIES, PERFUMES ARE A THING OF THE INDO-ISLAMIC CULTURE”
Amrita Chattopadhyay
As it is distilled from natural sources like flowers, herbs and spices, attar is a key non-alcoholic substitute in perfumery that finds extensive use in food and beverages, as well as for meditation. For the Muslim community, attar is “halal”, or permissible under Islamic law for being non alcohol, as alcohol is prohibited or considered “haram” in the religion. This makes the Muslim community a primary buyer of attar across the world, with the month of Ramzan being a busy one for attar makers and traders.
Kannauj—the perfume capital of India
If you’ve ever rubbed a fragrant oil on your wrist or sprayed some to spruce up your bath water, you’ve most likely borrowed a whiff of Kannauj. Kannauj is to India what Grasse is to France, especially since it received the coveted Geographical Indication (GI) tag for attar in 2014. A Fragrance and Flavour Development Centre was set up in the city in 1991 by the Government of India, with aid from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)/United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and the Uttar Pradesh government, to “serve, sustain and upgrade the status of farmers and industry engaged in the aromatic cultivation and its processing,” so they could make and sell both locally and internationally.
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Kannauj is to India what Grasse is to France, especially since it received the coveted Geographical Indication (GI) tag for attar in 2014. Image: Pexels
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Until the 1990s, there were over 700 attar distilleries in Kannauj, a figure that witnessed a sharp dip in the early 2000s, by which less than 200 units survived. Image: Amrita Chattopadhyay
Kannauj is where Mohammad Alam, 52, has been running his 250-year-old family business of attar, by the name “Perfume Square”. When Alam picks up the phone, he sounds out of breath. “I am on my way to my prayers,” he says, “and the shop was buzzing with customers,” who often buy in bulk during the holy month of Ramzan.
It’s only in the past three years or so that sales have picked up again, according to Alam, after witnessing a sharp decline in the decade preceding that, owing to adulteration of attar with diluents, synthetics, even alcohol.
“WHEN BJP’S SUBRAT PATHAK BECAME THE MP OF KANNAUJ, WE LOST A LOT OF AUTONOMY AND DIRECT CONTACT WITH OUR CONSUMERS LOCALLY”
Saad Siddiqui
Saad Siddiqui, who owns an attar-manufacturing unit in Kannauj with retail outlets in Mumbai, corroborates the claim. “It put a question mark on the credibility of the entire perfume-making community of Kannauj. People like us wouldn’t adulterate our attar, but we bore the brunt of it too,” he says.
Kannauj, attar, and the Muslim identity
Until the 1990s, there were over 700 attar distilleries in Kannauj, a figure that witnessed a sharp dip in the early 2000s, by when less than 200 units survived. The reasons were many: From easier availability of cheaper alternatives to Indians aspiring for expensive foreign labels, owning attar became a thing of the past. Making the fragrance was also an expensive and laborious affair, where four tonnes of hand-picked roses produce only one kilo of attar. The flowers, plucked by hand before dawn, have to be sent for processing the same day in order to extract the most potent version of the oil. As a result, the industry adapted to selling their wares to the food and beverages industry, including manufacturers of tobacco and paan masala.
But for as long as the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) were in power in the state of Uttar Pradesh, the market was more independent and free to find its own feet, notes Siddiqui. “Akhilesh Yadav [of the Samajwadi Party] had even suggested a perfume or attar park to be made in Kannauj,” he adds.
In 2015, Yadav, the then-chief minister of the state belonging to the SP, had announced a twin-city project with Grasse to resuscitate the perfume industry in Kannauj, which was represented in the Lok Sabha by his wife Dimple Yadav. In 2024, seven years since the reins went to the Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state, conversations around any such endeavours have entirely disappeared. “It might not be an overt attempt, but it definitely is a covert one to further marginalise the Muslim community who, at least prior to the last decade, held most stakes in the perfumery industry of Kannauj,” states Siddiqui.
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From Muslims owning 60 per cent of attar businesses in Kannauj, and Hindus owning the remaining 40 in the pre-BJP decades, Muslims now own only 30 per cent of the pie. Image: Pexels
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The flowers, plucked by hand before dawn, have to be sent for processing the same day in order to extract the most potent version of the oil. Image: Pexels
Siddiqui’s family has been in the attar business since the 1960s, even though they started with tobacco. As per his estimates, the shift has been slow but significant—from Muslims owning 60 per cent of attar businesses in Kannauj, and Hindus owning the remaining 40 in the pre-BJP decades, to Muslims now owning only 30 per cent of the pie.
“When BJP’s Subrat Pathak became the MP of Kannauj, we lost a lot of autonomy and direct contact with our consumers locally,” explains Siddiqui. Pathak’s family has been dealing in attar since 1911, and his father, Om Prakash, served as the president of Kannauj’s Attar and Perfumers’ Association for a while. Upon Subrat’s appointment as Kannauj’s representative in the Lok Sabha, beating Dimple in 2019, an informal syndicate system was put in place, where a bulk of the distribution of essential oils to the cosmetic as well as food and beverage industries within the state now happens only through Pathak’s firm.
“When there is an involvement of a middleman, there will obviously be losses incurred, isn’t it?” says Siddiqui. “You can’t sell perfumes just as perfumes in bulk or online. The money comes from selling to bulk buyers like the F&B industry and the tobacco industry, and that’s where our profit margins have drastically reduced. These minute shifts have happened and affected different communities differently. Today, I cannot help but admit that the Muslim identity does get in the way of the business,” says Siddiqui.
“EVERY SINGLE SECTOR IN KANNAUJ HAS A SYNDICATE AND NOT JUST ATTAR. THE SECOND-MOST IMPORTANT INDUSTRY IN THE CITY—THAT OF COLD STORAGE—ALSO HAS ITS SYNDICATES”
Raghuraj Samvedi
In 2021, Wali Irshad (name changed on request), who owns a 70-year-old attar firm in Kannauj, suffered a huge blow. When he tried selling his offerings directly to a tobacco firm in Uttar Pradesh, the local syndicate clamped down on him. “Pathak’s men found out about it, and the deal went to a firm run by a Hindu guy instead. Subsequently, I lost out on more business from old buyers. Ultimately, I had to go through Pathak because he is an important man everyone defers to, and I need to pay my bills,” says Irshad.
Attar’s chequered and diverse history
Raghuraj Samvedi, 30, is the co-owner of the Kannauj-based attar firm Prem & Co. Established in 1930 by his ancestors, the enterprise also took a hit during the onslaught of synthetic adulterants, from 2005 till around 2020. “It eroded the trust between sellers and consumers, and the whole blame of this dip in quality fell on the Muslim community,” remarks Samvedi, alluding to the craft’s conventional association with Islam.
While the perfumer does believe that shifting political biases with the rise of anti-Muslim sentiments in India has had certain “minor” impacts, he does not support claims of Hindus having an upper hand over Muslims in trade matters in the current scenario. “If a firm run by a Muslim person does not find a buyer within the state, they can get in touch with whoever they want outside of it; no one is stopping them. If someone is telling you that the nature of the attar trade in Kannauj has changed in this manner, I will ask what their political loyalties are,” he thinks out loud. “Every single sector in Kannauj has a syndicate and not just attar. The second-most important industry in the city—that of cold storage—also has its syndicates,” adds Samvedi.
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The industry is heavily dependent on the agrarian sector—so farmers, pickers, even the gardeners tending to these flowers, and people doing these jobs belong to different communities. Image: Pexels
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"Today, I cannot help but admit that the Muslim identity does get in the way of the business," says Saad Siddiqui. Image: Pexels
The existence of crony capitalism, positioned at the loopholes of plutocratic structures, is not novel to Kannauj by any stretch of imagination. It’s a byproduct of a system rigged in favour of the wealthy to get wealthier, by forming leaks in the pipeline that allow middlemen to syphon off resources. “A government can’t encourage the sale of tobacco openly, so such systems have to be installed by local authority figures. It aids attar manufacturers to sell in bulk to buyers, who are tobacco and paan masala makers. How will they do it otherwise? In the process, the local MP takes a cut,” says Tiwari.
He goes on to dispute Siddiqui’s claim of Hindus overtaking Muslims in the ownership of attar businesses. “In fact, historically, attar firms have mostly been owned by the Khatri community. Muslims, however, have constituted a large section of the blue-collared jobs in this sector,” points out Tiwari.
The intimate connection between the Muslim community and attar—whether through its production or consumption—is undeniable. But Indic religions of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism also show strong evidence of a culture of perfumery through their scriptures, according to historian Amrita Chattopadhyay, whose research is centred on Mughal material culture with a focus on sensory objects, including attar.
“A rich tradition of perfumes can be seen extensively in Sanskrit texts as well. So by the time you arrive in the 16th-17th centuries, perfumes are a thing of the Indo-Islamic culture. In the modern context, the trade network is very interesting,” observes Chattopadhyay. “It does not have just one community involved. It’s heavily dependent on the agrarian sector—so farmers, pickers, even the gardeners tending to these flowers, and people doing these jobs belong to different communities. Then there are manufacturers and distillers. Historically, along with the gandhis, there were also the itr-saaz perfumers—this means there has been a constant interaction between the Hindus and Muslims over attar. But today, this perfume is an exports-driven business, mostly selling to the Middle East,” she says, underlining the fact that the essence of the craft, after all, cannot be distilled to a lone communal identity, robbing it of its rich legacy chequered by the rise and fall of several kingdoms.
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