Skip to main content

The hegemony of dress


Who should decide what you will wear? India has a Prime Minister whose sartorial elegance is world-famous now. No other Prime Minister of India including the stylish Indira Gandhi – and arguably no other leader of any country in the world – has displayed an ardour for dressing up as Modi has. He has appeared in hundreds of various styles of dresses including something that looked like a sari.


But, ironically, in Modi’s India certain people are denied the freedom to choose their dress. The present controversy about hijab in Karnataka’s colleges is just one example. Why should any political party decide what a community of people will wear especially when that party’s topmost leader keeps changing dresses and colours according to situations?

I am not a supporter of the hijab and the burka. I am of the firm opinion that women should be free to display their identity. Someone who is covered up from top to bottom looks more like a piece of baggage than a human being. Even the hijab, which does not cover the face, is a redundant piece of clothing as far as I am concerned. [My hijab-inspired short story: Shahina lets her hair down] But I will be the last person to impose my likes and dislikes on other people. I can express my opinions. But the choice belongs to them.

The Sikhs can wear turbans and sport long beards. A man who is wearing the garb of a yogi can be the chief minister of a state. The Prime Minister can look like a fancy dress competitor on occasions. But people of one particular community cannot wear the dress of their choice! That’s not fair.

Is it about dress at all? Or is it about hegemony?

Comments

  1. DawnanddewFebruary 9, 2022 at 6:06 PM

    Oppression in any form is condemnable. Freedom is the birth right for everyone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 9, 2022 at 8:00 PM

      Oppression is the norm in India today. How many media agencies have been shut down, how many writers killed, activists arrested, NGOs blocked...?

      Delete
  2. Yamini MacLeanFebruary 9, 2022 at 8:58 PM

    Hari OM
    Well said, sir... While I would not agree with the decree that drives the wearing of the hijab, I have to say that there is something very feminine about it and that (here in the UK at aeast) the Muslim ladies who choose to wear it do so with panache and fashionable style. That is an aside to your point, however. For any ruling authority to order the exclusion of an item of clothing is authoritarian in the extreme. As for Modi's attire... for some reason I cannot help but think about The Emporer's New Clothes... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 9, 2022 at 9:10 PM

      I'm actually looking forward to the day when a child will shout those words to Modi about his inner monstrosity.

      Delete
  3. Rajeev MoothedathFebruary 10, 2022 at 3:10 PM

    On this matter though I beg to disagree. At the school level, it is appropriate that each child wears the school uniform and not religion on their sleeves . By opposing this, I think the others are playing into the hands of the ruling party in Karnataka which wants exactly that with the elections in the state due shortly. In fact, the controversy was triggered by the CM who issued a circular recently to the educational institutions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 10, 2022 at 4:11 PM

      I teach in a school where many Muslim girls come wearing the headgear. I find it rather funny and irritating at the same time. But the school, a Christian institution, respects religious sentiments and lets that be. I would wish that the people realise the absurdity of the practice and change it themselves.

      Delete
  4. Jose D. MaliekalFebruary 15, 2022 at 1:26 PM

    Young friend, I do not agree a wee-bit with any bit of what you say. But I will defend with my blood, your right to say that. - Voltaire

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalFebruary 15, 2022 at 3:57 PM

      Precisely. That's just the point. I don't accept the hijab but i defend the people's right to wear it if it suits them for whatever reason.

      That child who will have to shout out to the naked emperor is inevitable. Time will bring him/her on.

      Delete
  5. Jose D. MaliekalFebruary 15, 2022 at 1:31 PM

    Yaaaa... I am just waiting for the day, when the child in the Body Politic of India will call out. “ The Emperor has no clothes.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more

Mother Mary Comes to Me

Book Review In one of the first pages of this book, the author cautions us to “read this book as you would a novel.” No one can remember the events of their lives accurately. Roy says that “most of us are a living, breathing soup of memory and imagination … and we may not be the best arbiters of which is which.” What you remember may not be what happened exactly. As we get on with the painful process called life, we keep rewriting our own narratives. The book does read like a novel. Not because Roy has fictionalised her and her mother’s lives. The characters of these two women are extremely complex, that’s why. Then there is Roy’s style which transmutes everything including anger and despair into lyrical poetry. There’s a lot of pain and sadness in this book. The way Roy narrates all that makes it quite a classic in the genre of memoirs. The book is not so much about Roy’s mother Mary as about that mother’s impact on the daughter’s very being. Arundhati was born in the undivided ...
14 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more

The Essentials of a Successful Career

Book Review Title: Break Your Barriers: Strategic Career Essentials Author: Anu Sunil Publisher:  Amazon K indle [click to buy]   If you are looking for a concise and pragmatic guide to success in your business career, go no further. Anu Sunil’s Break Your Barriers is one of the best in the genre. This slim volume aims to teach the reader “to learn how to lead with integrity, speak clearly, and progress with confidence” (Introduction). The book is meant not just for beginners in their profession but also for seasoned achievers. The best merit of the book is that its lessons are absolutely actionable and focused, with clear procedures that may be implemented right away. The author’s claim in the introduction that “this is more than just a handbook. It’s an attitude shift” is vindicated on every page. Let us look at just one chapter randomly to understand how the book works. Chapter 3 is titled ‘Express Yourself Confidently and Consistently.’ The chapter begins wi...
8 comments
Read more