I. Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948) and the Political Semiotics of Khadi

A. Gandhi as sartorial semiotician

1. Used clothes symbolically to convey political messages
2. Were messages correctly interpreted?

B. Gandhi's life through clothes

1. Born in Porbandar, West coast of India
2. Respectable middle-caste merchant family
3. Educated
4. 1888-1891: studies law in London, wears Western clothes
5. 1891: returns to India, urges family to wear Western clothes
6. 1893: moves to South Africa

a. Barrister representing Indian rights
b. Western dress, Bengali turban
c. Turban incident in Durban court, begins using dress to make political statements
d. 1909-10: critique of European clothing

i. Doesn't civilize
ii. Promotes bodily pleasure over spirituality
iii. Manchester mills have impoverished India
iv. Approves swadeshi (home-produced goods) movement among Bengali men

e. 1911: urges Indians to weave, still wearing Western clothes
f. 1913: South African authorities shot Indian coal miners

i. Gandhi appears in white Indian suit
ii. Letter to press explains: symbol of mourning, deny comfort to purge self of wrongs being done to one's people

7. 1915: Returns to India

a. wears outfit of Kathiawad peasant
b. Wears dhoti
c. Encourages swadeshi (home-produced goods), wearing of khadi (home-spun and woven cloth)

8. 1921-1948: Khadi loincloth

a. Intended for five weeks to promote swaraj (self-rule)
b. Sign of mourning for poverty
c. solidarity with poor, symbol of their plight

C. Gandhi's intended messages through khadi

1. Dependence on cheap Manchester cloth made Indians dependent on foreign civilization
2. European civilization = decadent, materialistic, egotistical
3. Because khadi was expensive, poor would have to wear loincloths
4. Remove shame associated with khadi loincloth
5. Revive Indian industry
6. Khadi as key to Indian independence and self-reliance

a. Indians could be employed
b. "Untouchables" would lose stigma
c. Villages would be self-sufficient
d. Indian people united through shared dress
e. Combat British rule non-violently
f. Improve morality

7. Khadi : foreign-made :: good : evil :: purity : defilement
8. Gandhi's goals: "The whole country will be clothed in khadi. That is my dream. This is a fight to finish" (82).

D. Goals never achieved, Gandhi wore khadi loincloth until his death
E. "Discrepancy between intention and interpretation" (64)

1. Need for media statements
2. Close associates simplified dress
3. Others laughed, called loincloth indecent or savage
4. Gandhi's Mahatma-ness

a. Mahatma = Great Soul
b. Saintly religious ascetic
c. Mahatma image normalized his dress
d. Some foreigners called Gandhi "Christ-like"
e. Mahatma-ness: lost specifics of political message, increased number of followers

F. Khadi cap

1. Unify Indian men
2. Simple, made of khadi
3. Just a cap

 

II. Other Anti-Colonial Sartorial Dilemmas

A. Gandhi brought problem of what to wear out of closet, into public politics
B. Coercive side of battle of dress

1. Attacks on those not wearing khadi or cap
2. Women forced by husbands to wear khadi
3. Diffuse moral coercion, khadi = good, pure

C. 1920-1, Congress Party wears khadi, British prohibit civil servants from wearing it
D. Did Khadi unify Indians?

1. Became marker of urban elite status

a. Poor continued to wear more colorful clothes, not white khadi
b. Weave: fine weave = elite, coarse = poor
c. silk khadi raises moral issues, decadent and destroys silk worms

2. Women and khadi

a. Gandhi: white khadi as a-sexual
b. White khadi too simple, not beautiful
c. Denial of self-expression through clothing
d. Can't mark status
e. White symbolizes widowhood
f. Solution: dye khadi to make colored saris and uniforms

3. Religious issues

a. Hindu: dhotis
b. Muslims: kurta pyjamas
c. Sikhs: turbans

4. Did Khadi represent internal values?
5. Khadi shifts problem of what to wear from style to fabric

E. Khadi compromises

1. Imitation khadi appeals to Congress Party members
2. Khadi cap with Western clothes
3. Strategic: Khadi in public, Western clothes at home, popular among politicians today
4. Foreign underwear underneath khadi
5. Khadi underclothes underneath Western suit (civil servants)
6. Khadi Western suits seen by public as loss of Indian-ness

F. Pressure to use khadi, selectivity of individual interpretation
G. Didn't bridge gap between urban elites and villagers
H. Hebdige: problem of semiotic resistance, revisited