'Fashioning' Swadeshi: Clothing Women in Colonial North India

Author(s): CHARU GUPTA

Source: Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 47, No. 42 (OCTOBER 20, 2012), pp. 76-84
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly
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'Fashioning' Swadeshi
Clothing Women in Colonial North India

CHARU GUPTA

This article explor

first time controlled access of women torhetoric
swadeshi a political-public
The first sphere. swadeshi
sphere. Thistimeundermined
This controlled
the neatundermined movement
divide between the access in of the many women neat ways divide to a marked political-public between for the the
was creatively ap
private and the public, making customary demarcation of
of colonial
gendered spaces untenable, while simultaneously conjectur- United
middle-class,
ing women as motherland and mother-goddess. There were upp
Thishadother gendered connotations of the language and symbols of
implicatio
swadeshi. This essay studies one important strand of this by
morality, for mode
focusing on its meanings for women's fashion in colonial
Hindu revivalism.
United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh; henceforth up),
were also
where swadeshi rhetoric was appropriated in innovative ways embedd
by Hindu nationalists and caste ideologues to dress up Hindu
hierarchies, sexual
women (and men), largely middle-class and upper-caste, in
exposing various t
particular ways. These writers wrote in the vernacular, making
universalising claims about women's clothing in relation to
swadeshi habits and enterprise. This had implications for a
new language of sartorial morality, for modern bourgeois
values of thrift, for caricaturing western women and for Hindu
revivalism. There were exclusions to this rhetoric, where a
section of dalits revealed not only an unconcern for the
swadeshi clothing discourse and were non-participants, but
also implicitly turned it upside down. The essay thus explores
the contradictory gendered meanings of swadeshi clothing. In
the process, it endorses and strengthens one of Sumit Sarkar's
central arguments in his landmark work on swadeshi - that
its history cannot be collapsed into narratives of anti-colonial
nationalism alone, and that the struggle within was equally
significant (Sarkar 2010: xv).
Clothes veil the body. They are part of a cultural politics by
which nations are actively produced (Ross 2008). They encode
a game of modesty and sexual explicitness, of a denial and
celebration of pleasure. They are a form of social control, a
mechanism of inclusion and exclusion, mirroring social hier-
archies and moral boundaries (Davis 1992; Gaines and Herzog
1990; Tseelon 1995: 14, 125). They serve as a discursive daily
practice of gender (Huisman and Hondagneu-Sotelo 2005),
simultaneously communicating and constituting gender, caste,
religious and national identities (Eicher and Roach-Higgins
1992; Fair 1998). Feminists are divided on the meanings of
clothing for women. . Some contend that its opulent and highly
cultivated forms indicate women's slavish submission to fash-
I am thankful to Monika
ion and consumerism (Felski 1995: 63; Greer 1999). A different
from the Nagari Pracha
viewpoint posits that the meanings of women's clothing are
Charu Gupta (charugup
fluid and often empowering (Chan 2000: 303). While the first
History, University of D
perspective misses the connotations people attach to their dress,

76 OCTOBER 20, 2012 VOL XLVII NO 42 E22J Economic & Political weekly

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the second marginalises the structural constraints and historical
contexts in which clothing is selected. In this essay, I explore
the precedents of some of these views in colonial north India.
Clothing played an active role in the construction of identities,
families, castes, classes, regions and the nation in colonial
India (Cohn 1989: 106-62, 312-13; Tarlo 1996: 23-127). C A Bayly
(1986: 285-322) reveals the power of cloth in the period, where
it was inscribed with new meanings by the nationalists and
became a key visual symbol of the freedom struggle against
British rule. Later adaptation of swadeshi by M K Gandhi
imparted new meanings to practices of clothing. Khadi became
a critical marker of swadeshi and national identity. Susan Bean
(1989) refers to khadi as the "fabric of Indian independence"
and ascribes a singular meaning to its use, by portraying it as a
symbol of India's challenge to British rule. Lisa Trivedi (2007: xx)
contends that khadi became a visual symbol of moral purity,
marking individual bodies as distinctly Indian in relation to
other visual symbols of regional, religious, caste and class
identification. Rahul Ramagundam (2008) emphasises that
khadi was fundamentally an attempt to dent the "drain", as it
was a distinctively "third world" commodity of resistance
against colonial exploitation. However, it is Emma Tarlo's work
(1996) that complicates the grids of use of swadeshi khadi by
showing that there were no singular, homogenised and stable
meanings to clothing choices. Feminist historians posit that
attempts at redressing women had a distinct relationship to
the idealised upper-caste, middle-class wife and mother, to a
sartorial morality, arid to a denigration of sexuality (Bannerji
2003: 99-134; Gupta 2001). For women, the charkha (spinning
wheel) neatly fitted into patriarchal discourses around woman-
hood, self-denial, domestic labour and controls over consumption
(Sangari 2001: 344-49).
There were differences over time, space and region in the
flowering of the vocabulary of swadeshi. Key features of its
repertoire were forged in up in the 1910S-20S, particularly with
the emergence of Gandhi and non-cooperation, when the
message of swadeshi captured the Hindu popular imagination.
As Manu Goswami (2004: 242-43) shows, the broad socio-
aesthêtic complex of the movement's range included the
reconstitution of taste from Manchester cloth to coarse swadeshi,
the boycott of foreign commodities in marketplaces, the social
ostracism of consumers of foreign goods, the valorisation of
indigenous cloth as a symbol of past glory of the nation, and
the social scrutiny of consumption practices as indicators of
authenticity and patriotism. In up, all this was visible in
various shades, as swadeshi idioms particularly became popular
among urban high-caste Hindus, composed largely of the pro-
fessional service gentry as well as the trading, shopkeeping
and moneylending groups in the region. A section of popular
Hindi literature, including didactic manuals, nationalist
pamphlets, journals, newspaper articles and cartoons, rever-
berated with swadeshi messages. These publications, penned
by a powerful section of the Hindu elite, upper caste and
middle class (Dalmia 1997; Gupta 2001; Orsini 2002; Rai
2001), articulated, worked on, transformed, elaborated and
popularised ideas of swadeshi in a vivid vernacular. They
Economic & Political weekly EEE3 october 20, 2012 vol xlvii no 42 77
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SWADESHI IN THE TIME OF NATIONS
commonly discussed the identification of swadeshi goods with
the nation, linking consumption to the self-conscious expression
of national identity (Duara 1995: 71).
Gendered dress discourses were particularly intertwined
with such histories of the nation. The use of swadeshi signalled
that everyone could be transformed into firm nationalists,
including ordinary women. In the 1920s, on Gandhi's call,
many women from up, previously alienated from mainstream
movements, lent their support to the khadi campaign, taking
vows of swadeshi and donating their jewellery for social and
political causes (Menon 2003; Rao and Devi 1984). Swadeshi
clothing further created a feeling of solidarity among nationalist
women, as they were called to weave their clothes and boycott
British imports (Ulrich 2001). This became a common trope,
with various exemplary songs and poems composed around it.
Wrote the women's journal Grihalakshmi ,
Jeeyen to swadeshi badan par basan ho,
Maren agar to swadeshi kafan ho.
(While we live our apparel be of swadeshi, when we die our shroud be
of swadeshi.)1
The semiotics of dressing became not only a powerful counter-
point to foreign consumer items but also a way to challenge
internal and external hierarchies. In this fashioning of swadeshi,
however, women were particularly singled out, with their
clothing coming under special scrutiny. The visual rhetoric,
cartoons and poems composed during the period, while rein-
forcing the power of swadeshi, saw women to be both its active
proponents and one of its chief adversaries.
Modern Bourgeois Value of Thrift
Swadeshi language persuasively popularised a common eco-
nomic collective, favouring thrift as a modern bourgeois value.
It specifically appealed to middle classes to instil in them an
urban sense of economic responsibility and frugality. This sig-
nified critical transitions in the meanings of middle-class
women's clothing, fashion and jewellery, as these were linked
to wasteful expenditure. Cartoons were published, which drew
a straight line between uneconomical living and women's
fashion.2 Caste associations and their manuals launched a
general diatribe against wasteful expenditure, linking it to
Kaliyug (in Hindu mythology the fourth and most degenerate
age of human history), or the present modern/colonial world,
which was depicted as a world of calamity. At such times,
women's overindulgence in her body was declared clearly
"stupid" and foolhardy (Ghisaram 1920: 83-97; Lai 1916: 11-15;
Yadav 1927: 6, 10-13).
Swadeshi ideologues turned the argument that Manchester
cloth was cheaper upside down and instead showed that fashion
and foreign goods increased household expenditure tenfold.
In contrast, swadeshi clothing was geared at asceticism and
utilitarian fashion that ensured controlled domestic expenses.
Shorn of ornamentation and ostentatious display, swadeshi
attire was based on simplicity. Replacing linen and silk with
cheap, coarse fabrics, it signalled a thrifty household (Behan
1924: 2-3). For example, a cartoon explicitly directed at women
and printed in a booklet of cartoons on swadeshi, published
SWADESHI IN THE TIME OF NATIONS =

from Allahabad, made this connection clear. Titled "Avoid It has been asserted that in colonial India, women's bodies
became a metaphor for an unviolated, chaste space and the
Wasteful Expenditure", on the one hand, it illustrated a Hindu
"Mother", a simple woman who used indigenous items like last arefuge of freedom (Chatterjee 1994). It can further be con-
tended that domestic space was central to the construction of
handwoven sari, jacket, petticoat, shawl, open-heeled sandals,
coconut oil, cloth bag, nut, gram flour and twig of neem thetopublic as well. This had implications for women's clothing,
clean teeth, and her monthly expenditure was Rs 7.70.asOn it became representative of both traditional culture and of
the other hand, the Hindu "Lady's" or "Memsahib's" monthly national identity (Banet-Weiser 1999; Wilson 1985). It was
repeatedly claimed that while men had abandoned their pagri
expenditure on sari, blouse, petticoat, wristwatch, fur, fountain
(turban) and dhoti and adopted themselves to European and
pen, handbag with make-up case, scent, gloves, lipstick, soap,
socks, toothbrush, powder, hair spray and haircut waswestern
a attire, it was their duty to see that their women did
not follow suit. Dressed in traditional and indigenous styles to
whooping Rs 120.80, signifying a 15-fold increase. The cartoon
rhetorically asked: Who is happy?3 an extent, women were seen as having retained the customs,
Many cosmetic advertisements in newspapers of the period manners and prestige of the Hindus (Kannomal 1923: 31-32).
Hindustani Shishtachar ; a manual on Indian manners and
started laying emphasis on swadeshi brands like oriental soaps
etiquette, argued that imitating a foreign way of dressing
and hair oils as more viable and cheaper options for women's
beauty. Yashoda Devi, a leading ayurvedic practitioner anddestroyed
a the pride of ancientness, led to a loss of independence,
and exemplified succumbing to false flattery. Wearing Indian
commercial sensation from Allahabad in the early 20th century,
clothes was a national duty, as it was a sign of pride to show
manufactured many such products. They were cheaper than their
independence even in a state of dependency. And women were
foreign counterparts and were also promoted as indigenous
and healthier choices. the main exemplifiers of this (Guru 1927: 45, 139). Swadeshi
Women were constantly urged to weave themselves into clothing
the was shown to be not only economically more feasible,
swadeshi economy of the nation. A reformist tract stated, but also signified a return to past glory and freedom through
In the past, many women used the charkha regularly for spinning the
and bodies of Hindu women (Behan 1924: 8).
Women's clothing
even earned a small living from it. However, even this small occupa- was also a cultural message and a weapon
tion has now dwindled amidst women. Thus almost half of our popu-
against the "evils" of the west. Hindu nationalists thus had to
lation, that is, about 15 crore women are there amidst us, who do no
introduce changes and new norms of dress, by making them
occupation and earn not a single paisa to increase the wealth of the
longer and thicker, leaving no parts of the body, including
nation. We urge women to adopt swadeshi, earn a living and contrib-
ute to the nation's wealth (Dwivedi 1924: 105). the navel, exposed. These, however, immediately became
"indigenous" and "traditional".5 It has been claimed that hem-
Another article argued that weaving swadeshi cloth pre-
vented women from indulging in fashion, gossip, fun lines
and started dropping with the fervour of the nationalist
movement (Davis 1992: 81). Hindu reformers attached a moral
fights, enabled the productive use of time, solved the problem
of unemployment and increased household savings.4 To quality
woo to modest clothing. The moralism of dress and fashion
reform was no less than an attempt to abolish fashion itself.
middle-class women away from their fashionable desires,
Swadeshi, symbolised in khadi, was not just a cloth, it was a
concerted attempts were made to tutor them in ways that
would promote swadeshi, thrift and philanthropy (Sharma principle, an ideal, a symbol of a highest societal order
1921: 77, 84). Simplicity in clothing was not just linked(Upadhyaya
to 1935: 224). Swadeshi, simple, plain, thick and
durable clothes became the new mantra (Dwivedi 1924: 103).
thrift. It was further tied to the crucial component of happi-
Such
ness and spiritual bliss. Plain, unadorned and simple dress, it clothes represented a form of social control, effacing
was claimed, brought contentment of body, peace of heart, rather than enhancing the body, and by implication, the self.
enhancement of natural beauty and a civilisational ethos It was a clarion call for the principles of concealment and
sexless propriety (Gupta 2001: 140-51). Dressed simply, women
(Gupt 1906; Shukl 1937: 90-94). This brings me to the new
could ensure regeneration of the home and by extension of
language of nationalist and domestic morality that swadeshi
clothing signified, especially for women. the nation by practising swadeshi. While explicating the ideals
of swadeshi, a leading writer went on to explain the relationship
New Language of Nationalist and Domestic Morality between beauty and good conduct.
Recently, Sara Friedman has proposed that reformers in Maoist
Some argue that there is no relationship between beauty and good
China constantly strove to simplify female dress, which wasconduct. They just crave for beauty: in forest and at home, in society
seen as unnecessarily extravagant and as an obstacle to
and while alone, in temple and at whorehouse, in milk and in wine, in
sacrifice and in lust, in Sita and in Rambha. ... However, I have a seri-
productivity and conjugal intimacy (Friedman 2006: 6). In
ous objection to such uncontrolled power of beauty. ... A woman's
colonial India too, the discourse of swadeshi was geared towards
beauty is not in colours, not in jewellery, not in fashion, and not in
economic self-sufficiency, spirituality and domestic bliss, and
makeup, but in good conduct, in swadeshi, in simplicity. It is that
internalised through women's clothing. The reformers and
which provides us with wholesome and pure joy. . . . Thus we rate Sita,
Savitri, Ahilya and Mira above Rati, Rambha, Menaka and Urvashi
nationalists attempted to organise the wardrobe of middle-
(Upadhyaya 1935: 231-35).
class Hindu women, reworking the right clothes, make-up
and accessories for them, also revealing their moralisingSwadeshi ideologues took on the mantle of code enforcers
tones and anxieties. through internalised mechanisms of self-discipline and through

78 OCTOBER 20, 2012 vol XLVii no 42 GEES Economic & Political weekly

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 = SWADESHI IN THE TIME OF NATIONS

threats of social sanctions, ostracism and public ridicule for Swadeshi campaigners and reformers joined together in
dress deviations. Addressing himself to women, Gandhi wrote, enacting the transitions from foreign cloth to swadeshi
Boycott is impossible unless you will surrender the whole of your through the bodies of Hindu women, removing what they
foreign clothing. So long as the taste persists, so long is complete perceived as the vestiges of British imperialism. This quest to
renunciation impossible. And boycott means complete renunciation. chisel out a distinct swadeshi identity required a regulation of
We must be prepared to be satisfied with such cloth as India can women's fashion and a critical transformation in their sartorial
produce, even as we are thankfully content with such children as
God gives us. I have not known a mother throwing away her baby
patterns. Swadeshi pamphlets, books and articles espoused
even though it may appear ugly to an outsider. So should it be with the need to educate women about the benefits of adopting
the patriotic women of India about Indian manufacturers. ... The swadeshi and eliminating wasteful ornamentation, and they
spinning-wheel... is presented as a duty, as dharma (Gandhi (1958-84), called on volunteers to teach women a sartorial reform, which
Vol 20: 495-97).
would liberate women and bring about a wholesale elimina-
Swadeshi clothing particularly carried an edifying tone for tion of British rule. This, however, also meant caricaturing and
women because they were not only forced to dress in fastidious demonising the perceived anti-swadeshi woman, the "bad"
ways if they wished to participate in any nationalist protest, housewife and the modern, "Western" memsahib.
but also to ensure reform of male members of their households
The 'Bad7 Housewife and the 'Western' Woman
to swadeshi ways. Many poems, stories and novels written at
this time entrusted daughters, wives and mothers with theThe process of preservation went hand in hand with condem-
responsibility of persuading their fathers, husbands and sons nation. A section of middle-class, upper-caste women, after
to wear swadeshi. A poem titled Veer Nari ka Pati se Vinay all, was also identified as one of the biggest culprits in the use
(Request of a Brave Woman to her Husband) not only urgedof foreign brands. They were believed to be susceptible to
him to adopt swadeshi clothes, but also linked the use of foreign new fashions, dressing in thin, fancy and tight clothes, leav-
cloth to a discourse of "shame". ing their bodies exposed (Sehgal 1921: 49; Thakur 1935: 14).
An article "Humari Striyon ka Rahan Sahan" (Lifestyle of Our
Manga do ai mere pritam, mujhe charkha chalana hai.
Muft mein baithne ka ab nahinpyare zamana hai. Women), forcefully stated that powder from Paris, soap from
Videshi vastrajo rakhe unhein ab phunk dalo tum. Italy, toothpaste from London and thin saris from Manchester
Bane kapde swadeshi abyahi dil mein šamana hai. were the items found in many women's wardrobes. It went on
Mujhe to laaj aati hai , videshi ab na pehnungi. to condemn women for their love of jewellery and fashion,
Banu voluntiyarni main, mujhe jhanda uthana hai.
which was seen as evidence of their inherent frivolity and
(My dear, get me a charkha.
This is no time to twitter. irrational aesthetic creativity, and a marker of their potent
Burn all your foreign cloth. pleasures, passions and desires.6 Fashion became a comment
Cook your own swadeshi broth. on the sexual licentiousness and danger of unbridled women.
I feel ashamed, and will never wear the foreign tag.
A tract Bhishan Bhavishya (Catastrophic Future) equated
I will be a volunteer, and raise the freedom flag) ('Ratn' 1930: 15).
women's fashion with enslavement to western values, leading
A short novel, penned by a woman in 1919 and titled Mem to endless displays of conspicuous consumption, sexual pro-
aur Saheb , was stated to be based on a "true" story and it miscuity and the break-up of joint families (Lakshmanach-
depicted the troubles of an Indian couple who adopt European arya 1909: 2-3, 92). A swadeshi poem narrated,
ways of living and thinking. Based in Allahabad, Narayan Videshi sariyan karep voh adh malmal.
Swarup is very fond of wearing English clothes. He is vocifer- Hind ke log gire dekh unhein munh ke bal.
ously opposed to swadeshi and advocates full freedom in Nariyan laaj se ghunghat najo uthati hain.
Pahan ke in ko saafnangi nazar aati hain.
clothing for women, beginning with his wife Sushila. He asks
Doob maro tumhein laaj na aati,
her to wear mem clothes made of foreign cloth, which she does
Paisa aur izzatganva aati.
with extreme reluctance. They go to a theatre, where they are (Foreign saris of muslin and crepe,
separated, and after great difficulties come together. The wife Make the Indian men gape.
goes on to give a talk to her husband, highlighting the value of Women, who never lifted their veil,
Wear these saris and appear naked.
lajja (sense of decency and modesty) and how not wearing
Drown yourself, you shameless goner,
"traditional" and swadeshi clothes can actually lead to a crisis
You lose both your money and honour) (Vaishya 1931: 12).7
of civilisation. Narayan becomes a changed person (Devi 1919:
1-32). Similarly, in a story called "Patni se Pati" penned by The perception was that women had to change their fashion
Premchand in April 1930, Seth is a government servant and orientation and expunge their wardrobe of all things foreign.
hates swadeshi items. His wife Godavri, however, is inspired Swadeshi advocates were constantly worried about women in
by swadeshi and persuades her husband to follow its path. She middle-class homes corrupting the ideals of swadeshi. One
claims that she has taken the mantle of a husband, to guide the tract stated that women's insatiable craving for foreign goods
household in swadeshi matters (Premchand 1984: 17-29).symbolised the "wiles of women" or her tiriya charitra (liter-
Western dress was no longer a symbol of modernity, civilisa- ally, women's character), as they endlessly pushed their hus-
tion or progress. Rather, it brought alienation and discomfort bands to purchase such ostentatious items (Vajpeyi 1914: 67).
(Shukl 1937: 90-91). Reformist literature established an intricate link between

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SWADESHI IN THE TIME OF NATIONS =

economy. Constructing a nostalgic golden past, a swadeshi

luxury and laziness. It lampooned the spendthrift "bad"
housewife who wiled away her time, indulged herself and
poem went thus,
brought financial ruin (Tripathi 1934: 231-33). She was also
There was no household in the past where charkha was not run.
These charkhas produced yarn in ton.
often equated with a caricature of the modern, westernised
woman, the immoral, hedonist memsahib.8 Remorse wasGifting charkha in dowry was widespread.
Hindu women considered themselves auspiciously wed ('foishya 1931: 12).
expressed over the loss of true ideals, following the influence of
A Hindu vocabulary was often deployed for shaping swadeshi
western manners, as they cultivated irreligious and immoral
tendencies in women (Kannomal 1923: 22). Argued Ramnathsartorial decisions. Ramrakh Singh Sehgal,11 editor of the
leading journal Chand , a relatively "progressive" person and
"Sumen", reformer and author of many didactic books centred
on women, a staunch supporter of non-cooperation and swadeshi, also
implicitly used such idioms,
Girls of today are being swayed by fashion and artificiality. The disease of
aping the West in clothing, food and day-to-day living is increasing. Swadeshi
In is a religious act, a natural duty. ... It has no relationship to
comparison to the girls of our ancient times, present day girls lack
outside, material matters. Boycott, on the other hand, is only a mate-
mental strength and get tired soon. It is a cataclysmic situation
rial and political weapon ... And when women will firmly state that
(Sumen 1948: 11-12).
they will keep pure, swadeshi fasts and only adorn that much swadeshi
clothes as are required to cover their modesty, then only we can claim
Educated modern Indian woman came to be regarded as
that we have been successful in achieving our mighty swadeshi rite
particularly susceptible to such tendencies. Such a woman and vow (1921: 53, 57).
apparently used her "Western" education to dress tartly, act
At a meeting at Allahabad in November 1920, Gandhi told
shamelessly and acquire fancy habits. This fashionable woman
spoke English and spent an inordinate amount of time dress- that in the days of Ravana's government, even Sita
women
Devi had to wear for 14 years a rough garment made from the
ing herself, which included bathing with Pears soap, applying
make-up, sporting fancy hairstyles, and using glasses.barks
She of trees (Gandhi, Vol 19: 44-45). Wearing swadeshi was
thus a pious duty of women for the liberation of the country.
played tennis and visited the theatre, and was a spendthrift
who made a fool of her husband. Thus modern spaces On likethe insistence of upper-caste Hindu women, even deities in
tennis clubs, parties, cinemas and theatres too came to be temples
seen of Allahabad and Agra began to be dressed in khadi.12
A swadeshi poem implored,
as threats to the nation and to the swadeshi ideals of simplicity
and service.9 A series of cartoons, published in the famous
Fashion of India has been swept away.
magazine Chand , caricatured the daily routine of a modern
It is khadi and simplicity that hold sway. . .
woman. She took a bath at 7 am, dressed her hair at 8, fash-
Do not buy colours of Holi from abroad.
They are deeply flawed.
ioned herself at 9, went to college at 10, took a joy ride at 5 pm,
listened to the radio at 8 and read a novel at 12 am. The lastRub camphor, saffron and sandal.
Light a swadeshi candle (Vinod 1922: 5, 14).
cartoon ended with a question mark on time for household
While encompassing the language of a self-sufficient nation
chores. It is significant that the charkha was the image of the
in the
last cartoon, tying the prolonged labour of weaving cloth to making, the imagined nation with its swadeshi cloth-
women's diligent work in the home and the nation.10 ing was often upper-caste and Hindu.13 The use of foreign
goods was equated with the murder of cows. A swadeshi
Swadeshi created a new language of distinction. The opulent
"bad" housewife, the westernised Indian memsahib pamphlet
was stated,
contrasted to the dependable, sensible and perfect "swadeshi"
Joote aadi khaal ke barite, khoon mein kapde de rangwaye.
woman that the nation required and indeed fashioned
Gau khoon mein range vastra ko bharat mein de bhijvaye...
Chikna chamkila kapdajo bahar se bharat mein aye.
(Vinod 1922). These efforts at cultivating a new nationalist
Charbi ki maandi lagti hai tumko sach-sach diya bataye.
woman marked an intricate link between citizenship, nation-
(Shoes made of hide and clothes dyed in blood.
alism, gender formation and clothing. Such assertions, how-
Garments soaked in cow blood make India flood . . .
ever, became not only a form of social control and social organi-
Smooth and glossy cloth comes to India from outside,
To tell you truthfully, product of wholesale market of cow hide)
sation; codes of dressing also became a vehicle to maintain
(Vidyarthi 1930: 3-4).14
collective identities of groups, a mechanism of inclusion and
Occasionally, an anti-Muslim rhetoric accompanied this.
exclusion, a marker to differentiate between Hindus, Muslims
and Europeans, and between castes. Hanuman Prasad Poddar, the son of a Marwari business family
and associated with the famous Gita Press of Gorakhpur,
Hinduisation of Swadeshi Dressing called for social reforms by promoting swadeshi amongst
Chakrabarty (1999) argues that the symbolism of swadeshi
Marwari women. He urged them to wear swadeshi glass bangles,
epitomised Hindu ideas of purity, simplicity, poverty, while
tyag simultaneously advocating a boycott of lac bangles made
(sacrifice) and renunciation of material well-being, all forby
theMuslim manihars (bangle sellers), which were seen as
service of the nation. Manu Goswami (2004: 257-58) too foreign and alien. He stated,
states that swadeshi invoked a mythical sense of historical In our society, women wear bangles made of lac. I think this is
time and religious imaginaries, with a particularised space very bad. Women become impure by wearing them. Most of the lac
of Bharat as a pure container of national culture and manihars are Muslims. The money earned by selling these bangles

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goes to their homes and can be used against our religion. Further,
women have to touch and be touched by Muslim hands. Thus women
should not allow Muslim bangle sellers inside their homes. They
should abandon wearing lac bangles and adopt the swadeshi glass
bangles instead (Poddar 1929: 25).
The discourse of swadeshi was thus redirected and reformu-
lated to give it a particular Hindu colour. Cartoons depicted
the depraved Muslim manihar.15 There were various meetings
in 1927 at Mathura, Khurja, Kanpur and Tirwa, where Hindu
women were coerced to boycott Muslim bangle sellers and
use swadeshi Hindu bangle sellers and bangles as a part
of their national duty. Gomti Devi of Kanpur, a prominent
member of Arya Samaj, said that in order to prevent this
enticement, she had set up Hindu widows in the business of
selling bangles and established "Hindu Gomti Churi Mandais".16
Successful efforts were made to boycott Muslim manihars in
Agra,17 and as a result, Hindu bangle sellers reported brisk
sales.18 Swadeshi fashion also became an arena to negotiate
and articulate exclusive religious identities. As Sarkar argues
(2010: 344-94), extremist nationalism often merged with
Hindu revivalism.
Lisa Trivedi, in her significant work, upholds a singular
notion of swadeshi national campaign, as she relies on visual
iconography to construct a homogeneous picture of national
reception to swadeshi. However, at times she glosses over
the tensions from within. Roger Chartier, and closer home,
Christopher Pinney (1997) have cautioned against assuming
that visual texts only confirm ideas already expressed in written
form. Sarkar (2010) has highlighted the deep-seated ambiguities
in terms of caste, class and religious paradigms that the
swadeshi movement carried within. In terms of sartorial pref-
erences, Emma Tarlo (1996) labours to show how and why
Gandhi's ambitious vision of a simplified, shared, sacred national
costume was only ever partially achieved, as Indian clothing
practices were highly diversified according to caste, religion,
occupation, education and region as well as politics. Women's
contradictory responses to swadeshi fashion in up strengthen
such arguments.
Swadeshi Fashion and Women's Ambiguous Responses
The proliferation of swadeshi ideals, while supported by
many middle-class urban women, also revealed a tense
relationship in terms of the swadeshi definition of fashion
aesthetics. Women were not just passive victims or unrestricted
agents as they negotiated meanings of swadeshi fashion,
embodying and contesting its ideals through their clothing
practices. At a glance, the dictates of the nationalists were
followed by many middle-class, reformist and nationalist
women. Articles in women's magazines, for example in Stri
Darpan, Prabha, Grihalakshmi and Chand, took up the
refrain of swadeshi, seva and sacrifice, and opposed any kind
of fashionable dressing.19
However, there were fissures from within and a degree of
acrimony between swadeshi reformers and women. Even
while advocating swadeshi, women did it in ways that under-
mined the univocality of its discourse (Bakhtin 1981). Women
Economic & Political WEEKLY
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E SWADESHI IN THE TIME OF NATIONS
writers and journals faced the incongruity of defending the
drab swadeshi attire while also finding it uncomfortable and
undesirable leading to a selective adaptation and subtle
changes. Many women did not want to wear white cloth as it
was associated with widowhood. Some chose to embroider,
fix borders, dye or tailor their khadis to beautify them (Tarlo
1996: 110-14). An element of coercion, often required on the
part of the nationalists, to make women accept the new rules
of clothing, also hints at subtle resistances.20 Women were cru-
cial to the nation but co-option of women's agency symboli-
cally and otherwise also provided spaces for women to trans-
gress certain boundaries.
Politically correct stances clashed with subterranean desires
that pushed women in other directions. Subtly fighting against
attempts to police their dress, women reproduced and adopted
certain modes of clothing to suit their present needs. Moreover,
while a section of women selectively adapted to new swadeshi
gendered dress practices, a large number of them remained
immune to the campaign. Jyotirmai Thakur, writing on beauty
and fashion, proposed an eclectic borrowing between east
and west, and recommended the adoption of fashionable
new clothes (1933: 190, 224-25, 228). The book was anecdotal
and combined letters by her sister-in-law, who attacked
conservative views on dressing (pp 290-95). Stated another
woman writer,
Fashion for me means what makes women comfortable, presentable
and beautiful at the same time. Women need to be aware of various
trends in fashion and beauty and adopt what suits them the best
(Kuntidevi 1921).
The continued attention to bodily adornment was not simply
a rehabilitation of femininity, but was also related to local
sartorial styles, standards of beauty, appropriate expendi-
tures and women's moral and sexual rectitude. Typically the
knack of women to desist from taking on the swadeshi mantra
was shown by writers as women's refusal to give up their
self-indulgence. There was thus a complex interplay between
swadeshi clothing, patriarchy, fashionable desires, carving of
one's spaces, and yearning for a good life. Women's continued
sartorial styles in colonial India can provide us further ground
for debates over both extravagant consumption practices and
potential sexual excesses lurking in women's bodies.
The relationship between swadeshi dress codes and sartorial
styles for women was a complex one, with no linear following.
What appeared instead was an ambiguous mixture. Women
refurbished their selves as they responded to the requirements
of changing times to retain, modify, or indeed forsake the
way they dressed. The "gendering of the national subject"
(Visweswaran 1997: 101-02) remained a contentious project.
This becomes most glaring in discourses around dalit clothing,
which were intricately tied to conversions.
Dalits, Clothing and Conversion
In many ways, swadeshi established certain normative frame-
works that marginalised the lower castes and rendered dalits
invisible.21 Clothing hierarchically distinguished women from
one another. Dalit women had to endure humiliating dress
 SWADESHI IN THE TIME OF NATIONS = =

restrictions, jostling went

which wereon between missionaries
to m also and women
a converts,
way
and where desires and ambitions were bound As
sexually
promiscuous. up in dilemmas over
elsewhere
what to wear (Comaroff and
of Lucknow, the women Comaroff 1997: 218-73;
could notHarper wear t
gold ornaments, 2000:
or 139-45;aKent 2004;
nose Tarlo 1996: 23-61).
ring (Crooke
of the subordinated
Swadeshi impliedcastes thus
a fractured modernity. For dalits perhaps wishe
by hoping to dress
it signified an in
antithesis ofparticular
modernity. A section of converted ways
indicator to dalits therefore manipulated
distinguish their material world
dalit of clothing
Christian w
to fabricate their identities and question the
converted counterparts.22 authority of
Pictures ap
their "betters". Clothes
literature portraying on became a the
way to pronounce onetheir hand
unkempt outcaste new upwardly mobile status in and
woman the social hierarchy
on and alsothe othe
clad, "clean" and intricately tied them to modernity.
smiling The converted dalit figure
Christian dalit w
Munro, acting as wasDewan
an internal embarrassment,to an "inappropriate
Rani other" Lakshm
mation way (Prakash 1990),
back in 1812, whose sartorial style defied swadeshi logic.
guaranteeing In
the right to These their
cover women and men literally wore their difference on
bosoms (Kooima
clothing did not their
make bodies, signifying an uncomfortable anomaly
much sense in the to da
use dress as a swadeshito
way discourse.transcend their p
inequality. It was not the simplicity and
Conclusion
cloth that attracted them, but the power
It has It has beenthat
been proposed noted that the dalit
literature on dress makes one feel
culture in
any value on an that women cannot win. If they
indigenist wear concealing outfits
notion ofor "aut
in clothing.23 are veiled, they are seen as icons of tradition; if they adopt
In dalit western dress,
discourses, dress they are described
becameas trapped in an image
a ofsign
Western norms, powerlessness (Bridgwood 1995: 48). Such
participating in binaries however
modern
in the public remain simplistic.
sphere, and The swadeshi sartorial campaign exemplifies
putting the ig
status behind. It that
wasdichotomiesaof empowerment/resistance/agency
material marker versus
and had an aspirational quality
oppression/submission/coercion are not enough to it.
as they fail to Fo
educated, articulate dalits,
provide a nuanced, it In
contextual perspective. was associ
up, the language
and symbols
tion and assertion of adopted by swadeshi had repercussions
manhood in a
(Gupta
Christianity slightly later period. As elsewhere,
particularly allowed its sartorial discourses
them
"free" dress, likewere embedded in social, religious and caste divisions,
head-coverings and
and s
been forbidden from wearing.
exposed various contradictory It
impulses and tensions was
at the
which dalits wereheart of the swadeshi project. themselves
writing Diverse sartorial styles continued int
(Menon 2006). to coexist with swadeshi, though often on a hierarchical
premise. While swadeshi
Reformist iconography toorhetoric recognised
theoretically encompassed d
contesting socialall, relations and
in practice it privileged some over articula
others. While concerning
itself with intimate
identities. Even while and embodied practices, it implicitly
lamenting conver
imagined certainthe
help but acknowledge women and change
men as eligible members inof dem
the campaign, while
that it brought about. excluding others. The bad publish
Cartoons housewife,
the "Westernised"
Samaj publications, and woman,
many and the converted
of dalit were
them
Chitravali, a collection
rebuffed for different of cartoons,25
reasons. The exclusion of such groups
outcaste women or men
from the together,
ideal body politic one
of swadeshi marked the inherently co
unconverted. The ambiguous
changenature of the campaign.
that From diverse angles, the
conversi
sartorialdress,
dalits, in modes of images of these people failed to conform to style
walking the
expectations
for all to see (Gupta of swadeshi.
2010). One cartoon,
the converted outcaste woman
These unsettled dress walking
questions remind us that the concep-
ing an umbrella, ation purse,
of an ideal swadeshi,wearing
who enacted herself or himself
a hat,
shoes, reflecting through
an certain embodied practices, was
elevated constantly punc-
status. Th
walked behind, head bent,
tured by "intractable" barefooted,
and "inappropriate" figures, who overtly
the converted dalit woman.
or covertly remained outside its It was
ambit. Their lamen
sartorial prac-
See the difference tices further suggest an
between implicit resistance
two women to binary forma-
of the
English madam and tions the
on which the imagined swadeshi
other a community rested. In
servant-unt
walks ahead with an umbrella,
this regard, Michel Foucaulťs notionwhile the
of how bodies, and the lat
her child.26
ways they are dressed and managed through both self-discipline
The clothes of outcaste women did see certain changes on and surveillance and a general panoptic lens, is relevant
conversion. However, it was not just a simple imposition of (1979). However, while the power of the panoptic is directed
western clothes by the missionaries; rather a good deal of towards others, monitoring their dressing, it may not be
82 OCTOBER 20, 2012 vol XLVii no 42 CEC3 Economic & Political weekly

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 = SWADESHI IN THE TIME OF NATIONS

(Danaher et al 2000: 57). The recent sartorial campaigns by

all-encompassing, as its disciplinary strength is often diluted.
The disciplinary gaze of the panoptic may be internalised the Hindu right to dress women in particular ways, and resist-
and become a part of an individual's self-appraisal but it may
ances by different women to such coding, suggest that the ter-
rain continues to remain deeply contested, even though the
also be directed upon oneself to gain a sense of self-empower-
contexts are different.
ment or to reveal an indifference to the power of the gaze

notes 24 In the present context, a similar point has been Tribes and Castes of the North Western Province
1 made regarding Mayawati's sartorial style. See & Oudh ).
Grihalakshm
and Nigam Dalmia, Vasudha
(2010: 254-55). Nigam states that Mayawa-
Devi (1984) (1997): Nationalisation of Hindu
and ti's "ostentatiousness"
published and her sartorial prefer- Traditions: Bharatendu Harischandra and
ample, ences can be read as her symbolic seecounter- Nineteenth Century Vais Bañaras (Delhi: Oxford
move, which mocks Gandhi's attempt at "repre- University Press).
2 Cartoon Book
Cartoonssenting poverty" and mourning through the Danaher, Geoff, Tony on Schirato and Jen Webb (2000)Sw
:
semiotic transformation of his own body. Understanding Foucault (London: Sage).
3 Cartoon Book
25 These cartoons were repeatedly published in Davis, Fred (1992): Fashion, Culture and Identity
4 Krishnanand
(Women
many other newspapers and magazines of (Chicago: and
University of Chicago Press).
P
1937: the time, highlighting a broad consensus and
349-50; Devi, Rukmani (1919): Mem aurSaheb (Madam and G
opposition to conversions of outcastes. See, for Sir), Bañaras.
5 "Vastron ki V
example, various issues of Chand; Vyanga Dixit, Umashankar (1930): Swadeshi Gaan (Swadeshi
tion of Clothes
Chitravali; Abhyudaya, 13 March 1926: 9. Song) (Allahabad: Vijay Press).
"Grhasthcharya
Vol 26 Vyanga
2 Chitravali, 1930.
(4), Duara, Prasenjit (1995):
1916:Rescuing History from the
Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China
6 Babu
Sitaram,
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
(The Living
St
Hitashi,
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