Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had caused a furore when he called the burqa “a visible statement of separation and of difference” last year. And this week, the UPA’s presidential candidate went on to put her foot in her pallu and urged Hindu women to drop the veil. She said that in her view it was a Mughal-prompted invention. By the way, Pratibhatai, for inexplicable reasons has not dropped the pallu pulled over her head despite a long career in politics (and the fact that the Mughals have been defeated!) This again highlights the significance of garments in Indian politics. It is a fact that you can be who you want to be in public life, but the job does come with a dress code — and mostly out of tune with the times.The starched white kurta pyjama has been reviled enough in popular culture while portraying the corrupt politician, that several have swapped white with colourful prints. The Gandhi topi has been quietly abandoned, though headgear does retain significant symbolic power for some — skull caps at iftaars, or Manavendra Singh’s five metre long rather impressive pagri. The fact that even the finance minister is seen in a veshti, also speaks of nearly a sense of guilt in most mainstream political party leaders, at least among seniors, of donning anything other than what ‘leaders’ — not common janta — wore, more than sixty years ago.That some leaders like Priya Dutt and Supriya Sule have broken the mould is evident. You can catch them in everyday work clothes you would expect women of their age and class to wear to work in the city; casual salwar suits, kurtis, trousers. This is part of a welcome bid to not treat Parliament like a costume party. It is useful to understand the context of why leaders of the freedom movement wore what they did. With an indigenous English speaking middle class emerging in various British presidencies in the 19th century, ‘foreign clothes’ meant what the ruler then wore and stood for. The British at the time were also pushing for their own manufactures, crippling domestic textile industry. The burning of foreign-made goods (clothes included) during the Civil Disobedience and the Non-Cooperation Movements is one of the reasons why ‘foreign clothes’ and all that came from there were shed by the young emerging leadership of the time. Also, the handspun khadi that the Mahatma painstakingly wove and wore remains a quick and cheap symbol of epitomising a ‘nationalism’, which many leaders today lack the guts or imagination to redefine. Or maybe our leaders don’t travel by public transport anymore — where even well inside the heartland, the exhausted and hapless Indian commuter is usually seen in a shirt and a pant, seen as far more practical. The starched white kurta-pyjama is certainly seen as a sign of being very well off, a bara aadmi — with the luxury and ability to maintain it. When Gandhi shed his South African suits and Nehru gave up his classy western wear, it was in keeping with the context and the times. The leaders constructed their politics and symbols around what the aam aadmi was wearing.Even today, clothes are used as a powerful and imaginative way of reflecting your politics and aspirations, as is the case with Mayawati. It is not something that strikes you immediately, but in a state where nearly all women wear a sari, its lady chief minister has never been seen in one. In keeping with her politics, she has chosen to reject the parameters of that social system, which requires women after a certain age to start wearing sarees. The dupatta perfunctorily wrapped around her neck is another slap in the face of those who treat it as a garment which must be used to demurely cover breasts! However, what Maywati has chosen to do, is exactly as Baba Saheb Ambedkar chose to do even at a time when all else (other than the other big dissenter, Saville Row clad M.A. Jinnah) wore khadi. His rejection of the Indian caste system resulted in the rejection of all Indian clothing. He didn’t bother Sankritising himself, he simply wore three-piece suits, signifying his defiance of the Hindu caste plot, which in many cases would go as far as to disallow Dalits from donning certain symbols of wealth, affluence or upper caste fashions.Pratibhatai is unlikely to make another comment on clothing for a while, and will continue to wear her elegant full-sleeves and pull the pallu over her head (wonder what Bahadur Shah Zafar would have made of that). The rest of India, disconnected with its representatives, will continue with what is comfortable and practical — confident in the knowledge that leaders, like the emperor in the fairy tale, don’t really wear clothes worth talking about anymore.
