THE FERGUSON CENTRE FOR
AFRICAN AND ASIAN STUDIES
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THE FERGUSON CENTRE FOR |
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Roehampton Conference Abstracts 14. Vinay Bahl (Pennsylvania College of Technology at Williamsport,
USA): Vinay Bahl is Associate Professor of Sociology. Her
books include the Making of the Indian Working Class: A Case Study of
Tata Iron and Steel Company 1880 to 1945 (1995) and she co-edited History
After the Three Worlds: Post-Eurocentric Historiographies (2000). Moreover, dress gives contradictory messages depending on the gender, age, nationality, ethnicity, and class of the audience. That means Indian women within the adopted country (in UK or in the USA) have to perform a juggling act to please different categories of people all at the same time. The confusion of those Indian women who wear Indian style dress-- meaning various things to various age and regional groups of Indian women-- within the USA/UK is further complicated by the confusion that prevails within the Indian subcontinent about the definition of an “authentic” Indian dress. In the last decade or so within Indian society, the meaning of so called “authentic” Indian dress has also drastically changed. For example, one regional dress called shalwar kameez has acquired a national status and most of the regional ethnic clothes--even when ethnic styles are becoming more fashionable in the designing of shalwar kameez--are abandoned by young Indian girls. Interestingly, it is happening at a time when the focus on local identity, authentic ethnicity, and so on, has increased. This North Indian dress is considered as “progressive” and modern, whereas other regional dresses are seen as “backward” or “exotic”. But at the same time shalwar kameez is treated as less “progressive” than blue jeans or western dresses. Interestingly, while Northern dresses are moved to the status of being “progressive”, the Indian educated elite is pushing the concept of indigenism and “authenticity” through ethnic dresses, which are also different for the elite within the academic world. Mass media especially TV and popular cinema have also contributed in important ways to the imaging of the new “indigenism”, an indigenism that takes up elements from diverse and continually changing folk traditions and presents them as “local” “authentic” and “specific”. The internationalization of markets has played an important role in this as it demands the formation of new identities, which has resulted in the reinvention of all the local dresses according to the new consumerism. Interestingly, new consumerism is presented in the form of “traditional” or “ethnic” clothes, which are mass produced, thus making “indigenousness” a commonplace. Thus a neo-nationalism is being created for multinationals while the struggle to look “modern” and “progressive” is also increasing with two opposite styles: denim jeans, the American style, and salwar kameez, also widely worn in Islamic countries. How these dresses acquired a status of “progressive” even when they represent opposite values? It seems geographically defined regionalist identities are closely linked to geographically defined markets, and related values of the present time. To understand this question and its full implications one needs to look further at the long history of the subcontinent and its interaction with other societies, to find out how various Indian women’s clothes--”traditional” and non-traditional--evolved over the centuries. Moreover, what is an Indian “traditional” dress? This is important to point out because the way we understand India today is a recently constructed entity and there was no such concept before the arrival of the British. How are traditions formed and expressed through different styled of clothes? What forces contribute to these cultural changes manifesting in women’s clothes for different classes and castes? These questions are also closely connected with the issues relating to a large number of Indian women who are settled abroad and are struggling to maintain their distinct style of clothes-- also referred as “ethnic” clothes in those countries. At the same time, denim jeans are seen as a product of America and therefore is not considered as having colonial implications. Thus denim jeans have become more popular in provincial town and cities of India than in cosmopolitan ones. Whereas, in the cosmopolitan areas elite women are showing their anti-colonial attitude by adopting village dresses or exclusive “art wear”. So anti-colonialism has acquired different meaning and expression in clothing in different localities and in different classes within India. Most of the non resident Indians use Bollywood style and fashions for their choice of clothes believing them to be “authentic” Indian. Ironically, Bollywood is increasingly using taller, thinner and more Caucasian looking girls with blue eyes and fair skin in Western style clothes. One wonders, how to define “authentic” Indian dress? The history of the changing forms of South Asian women’s clothes
within India and abroad are not part of established “authentic”
Indian culture but are constructed in the process of the historical development
of Indian society. It means any style of dress is not inherently either
“traditional” or “modern”, but is a product of
the historical process within which these labels are assigned along with
the redefining of social relations and gender roles. In the immigrant
Indian community what Indian women wear is often the site of unresolved
cultural conflict and labels of “modern” or “backward”
are reflections of those conflicts.
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