Question

What efforts were made by different Indians to design a national dress?

Answer 1

Hint: India began devising cultural symbols that would express the unity of the nation by the late nineteenth century. To define the cultural identity of the nation in symbolic ways, the search for the national dress was part of this move.

Complete answer: Tagore family of Bengal experimented with designs for a national dress at the beginning of the 1870s for both men and women in India. Rabindranath Tagore suggested that India’s national dress should combine elements of Hindu and Muslim dress instead of combining Indian and European dress. Thus, a long buttoned coat named Chapkan was considered the most suitable dress for men. In the late 1870s, the first Indian member of the ICS, Jnanadanandini Devi, wife of Satyendranath Tagore, returned from Bombay to Calcutta who adopted the Parsi style of wearing the sari which was pinned to the left shoulder with a brooch. It was worn with a blouse and shoes. The Brahmo Samaj women adopted this style and came to be known as Brahmika sari. However, these attempts of finding a pan-Indian style did not fully succeed. Women of Kerala, Assam, Gujarat, and Kodagu continue to wear different types of saree. The swadeshi movement of Bengal was eventually linked to the politics of clothing. Numerous people began boycotting British cloth and adopting khadi by the middle of the twentieth century, even though it was more expensive and difficult to obtain. The change of dress appealed largely to the upper castes and classes but those who could not afford the new products faced many problems. After a few years, many among the upper classes also returned and started wearing European dress. It was almost impossible for the Indian market to compete with cheap British goods.

Note: Despite the limitations of boycotting British cloth, Mahatma Gandhi got important ideas about using cloth as a symbolic weapon in the British rule by experimenting with Swadeshi.