The history of clothing and why it matters

At a time when history is increasingly being defined as a moral science, and where its sole purpose is to list the ‘villains’ and ‘heroes’ of the past, to identify and characterize large sections of our society today to be defamed. Cultural history must be restored to the center stage. Now more than ever, children need to learn ways of thinking historically, allowing some understanding, some tolerance, and hopefully, new forms of civilization to emerge. This is the most urgent need of our time.

For example, how will clothing history be of any value at a time when young women are being denied education and there is a heated debate about whether the hijab has any meaning and place in the classroom? Since academic endeavors take a long time to bear fruit, this suggestion may seem trivial. Nevertheless, such a chapter on the complex history of clothing over the past two centuries was actually a part of the revised NCERT books of 2005-06 (Standard 9) before it was finally withdrawn in 2019.

indicating power structures

Clothing history can do many things: it will introduce students to ‘dress codes’, and their opposition, to think more about what has been done in the past, and what they represent. For one, dress codes symbolize and affirm power structures – be it colonial, upper caste, religious or patriarchal power structures. By using their power and even violence, states, religious officials, upper castes, or even male heads of families can insist that people conform to prescribed ways of dressing. Thus social hierarchies were sustained and sustained.

But this is where the history of the last 200 years is important, as it equally reveals the many and continued efforts made to challenge these hierarchies and adopt new codes of clothing. We need to understand both of these processes to make sense of an almost irreversible situation: a ban on the hijab when a specific community is under siege, and the language of homogeneity is used to naturalize majoritarian choices. Enforces the choice of the majority community. on the minority. We also know from history that wearing the hijab has not always been favored by young Muslim women, who have spent a good part of the 20th century in their rejection of patriarchal community authority. Thinking historically allows us to see the subversiveness of both these types of actions, that is, adopting and throwing off the hijab, depending on the context in which the woman chooses. Thinking historically allows us to understand what is disturbing when women, who are considered only ‘culture’, the bearers of tradition and honor (since honor is always the property of men), in defiance of those Wears or sheds clothes that ‘protect’ or ‘protect’ them.

The history of clothing will allow students to understand how such debates arose in the past and how they were resolved. Consider the issues that arose regarding headgear and footwear. In the early 19th century, it was customary for British officers to observe Indian etiquette and to remove their shoes in the court of ruling kings or chiefs. There were some British officers who were comfortable in Indian clothes. But in 1830, Europeans were forbidden from wearing Indian clothes in official ceremonies. Meanwhile, Indians were required to respect their own customs and take off their shoes when entering a government institution. This was seen as disrespectful to the colonial elite, and was challenged by Parsi Manokji Kowasji Anti, who refused to take off his shoes in court, saying, ‘In our social intercourse [we] Never take off our shoes in front of any Parsi…’. It took 20 years to file a petition to change the strict ‘shoe respect’ rules.

debate in india

They were colonial orders that were disregarded by disgraced, usually aristocratic Indians. Meanwhile, the debate about dress reform among the Indians themselves reached a climax in places such as Travancore in southern Kerala, where women and men traditionally did not wear their upper bodies, especially when presented to gods or upper castes. There were Partly as a result of missionary work, there was an uproar for dress reform, and in 1822, women of the ‘Shanar’ (later called Nadar) caste were banned by upper caste Nairs from wearing a cloth over their breasts in public places. was attacked. This disturbance, referred to by historians as the ‘distress of breast cloth’, was successfully ended when in 1859 the Travancore government passed an order allowing Nadar women (who belonged to a community engaged in coconut farming) to cover their breasts. . Thus they gained the self-respect which they had been deprived of for a long time.

These processes of dress reform were far from uniform in Kerala in the late 19th century, where it was a practice for women, including upper caste women, to keep the upper body bare. There is a famous recollection of a married woman who wanted to wear a blouse only for her husband, but was scolded and beaten up by her mother for looking like a Muslim. Conversely, in Bengal, sore screams were heard from as early as 1872 to reform the scandalously fine and transparent clothing of women who were worn without petticoats and underwear, and to immediately produce a more moral and civilized dress. Gyandanandini Devi Tagore is credited with bringing into widespread subcontinental use the Parsi style of sari wearing, which includes a draped sari, a blouse and a skirt, as well as shoes and socks.

There is, therefore, the power to think historically, and to understand the great deliberation that has gone into producing and disregarding styles of dress only in the last two centuries. Shouldn’t our students know and understand the symbolic power of MK Gandhi’s experiments with clothing and adopting peasant dress after more than 20 years of dressing like his colonial masters? He came across a long line of Indians who experimented with styles of self-representation, from Ramakrishna (who adopted Mohammedan clothing to better understand Islam) to Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghosh and Rabindranath Tagore, who had experimented with forms of communication. Very different but deliberate methods were chosen. Their spirituality or Indianness through their religious preferences. Shouldn’t our students also learn why BR Ambedkar decided to follow the three-piece (Western) suit as a sign of social mobility, modernity and in defiance of upper caste taboos on lower caste dress? did, as did many self-assertive miners. At the Kolar Gold Field in the early 1920s?

These rich, varied, and conflicting pasts, which are our heritage, must be brought back into the classroom, for discussion, debate, and above all to build greater civilization, and respect for difference.

Janaki Nair retires as Professor at the Center for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University