Sabarmati Ashram 2019- The Khadi Divide

“Hey, look at those two! What are they even wearing?” “Oh my God! Indeed, they are not wearing the cotton-khadi dresses preferred by our revered Bapu whose simplicity was one of the key tools which he used to great effect during the freedom struggle”.

“Hm..you’re right. What has our once-great country turned into?”, sighed the two people observing the two newly minted MPs Nusrat Jahan and Mimi Chakrabarty.

Well, hello, my dear readers and I wish all of you a very good evening. As you can see, the little snippet above highlights the newest issue our country is indeed dealing with currently.

And like the two people, I too would like to lament the state of our country today, a country whose greatness is overshadowed by the crassness of some exceptionally brainless skeptics and sexists for whom the choice of apparel became a bone to pick with and an issue to make a mountain of a molehill from.

To be very honest, I do not personally see how the apparel of the two MPs, which was nothing unusual and certainly not something which outraged even the barest minimum of decorum.

They had simply chosen to start their first day at Parliament wearing jeans, something which other high-profile MPs too had done before them, such as Gautam Gambhir and Paresh Rawal etc. However, and herein lies the insinuation of sexism that I have mentioned above- the two MPs I have named were males, whereas the two MPs shamed were females.

Isn’t it quite ironic, that today, a woman is judged more for what she wears than for what she is or what she does, and also, today’s atmosphere has become such that what a woman is or what a woman does is intrinsically linked to her attire and as of today’s events have proved, this assumption exists even in politics.

For example, if a woman happens to wear a one-piece party dress which shows a hint of her cleavage, or exposes more skin than the average Indian is accustomed to seeing in real life, then she is deemed to be a vamp or a slut; if a woman wears a sari which is knotted in an unconventional manner, she is considered to be unfit for being considered an Indian; if a woman or a young teen happens to be wearing shorts and a sleeveless top at home when relatives or guests come calling, then she is said to be unfit for marriage because of her ‘bad nature’. I mean, seriously? Where does society find all these labels?

And to think that even women MPs were not spared from their self-righteous tirade is something which is amusing in a degrading manner. When it comes to males, and our skin happens to be seen, it is perfectly acceptable to these self-styles sexist police, but when women or females try to do the same, they cannot do so even in their own homes.

Alas for the misery of these times, when even political leaders are not spared, simply because they chose not to wear rough-homespun cloth.

Anyway, that’s that and I wish all of you a happy weekend!

P.S – if any of you have plans for stepping out, then don’t wear jeans, for the love of K!