One of the greatest fashion statements of recent times was made in the Parliament’s winter session by Rahul Gandhi and some opposition colleagues. India’s most news-making politician (since his landmark Bharat Jodo Yatra) gave up his signature white polo T-shirt for a blue one. The colour switch was hardly a fashion mood swing; it signalled Gandhi’s unyielding commitment to India’s dalits and his demand for a national caste census.
Blue has long been associated with Dr B.R. Ambedkar. The economist, social reformer and architect of the Constitution of India was almost always seen in public wearing a three-piece sky-blue suit. It was not just because blue was his favourite colour; the choice of elite western attire signalled his own rising above his social circumstances, empowering India’s ‘lower castes’ to do the same. When Ambedkar launched the Scheduled Castes Federation in 1942, he adopted a blue flag with the Ashok Chakra in it. In 1957, when his followers founded the Republican Party of India, the flag was retained.
Emma Tarlo, professor of anthropology at the University of London and a specialist on clothing, India and Islam, writes in her book Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India, that while Mahatma Gandhi chose to represent the ‘Harijans’ by dressing as a poor man, Ambedkar, himself a Harijan, chose to wear a full set of European clothes. “Coming from a Harijan background, and having felt the full weight of social prejudice, he needed to break with tradition and had no nostalgia for the desi past which summed up centuries of poverty and degradation,” she writes.
Rahul Gandhi dons blue, signalling his commitment to India’s dalits | PTI
Today, blue has become a symbol of dalit consciousness and resistance. Rahul Gandhi and his friends have reinforced this in protest of Home Minister Amit Shah’s alleged insult of Ambedkar.
In the west, blue also symbolises the working class. ‘Blue-collar’ workers are those who perform manual labour. Ambedkar’s politics, and that of Rahul Gandhi today, speak to this group of people. Gandhi’s demands for a caste census has made the government take up the issue this year.
The world of politics relies so much on the symbolism of colour. Rahul Gandhi’s white polo T-shirt, his uniform since the Bharat Jodo Yatra, is a symbol of transparency. He was quoted saying, “I am often asked why I always wear a ‘white T-shirt’. This T-shirt symbolises transparency, solidity and simplicity for me.”
Religious politics in India is often attributed to colours. Saffron is for the Hindus, and green is for the Muslims. The re-emergence of blue heralds a change in attitudes to end religious biases and consider caste and poverty instead.
Interestingly, before Ambedkar, the social reformer associated with a colour was Jyotiba Phule. I had barely heard of him, but a brilliant colleague who grew up in Latur and went to a Marathi school was so inspired by the anti-untouchability activist and his educationist wife Savitribai Phule, she decided to become a journalist, and was the first woman in her family to get an education. Jyotiba always wore a red turban, a colour that would be adopted by communists.
Dalits are a vote bank for India, and Rahul Gandhi was quick to note this. The RSS seems to have understood this, too, as Mohan Bhagwat’s recent statement that parties should not be looking for mandirs under every masjid was a shape-shift.
Another major vote bank that political parties have recently woken up to is women. Many parties are offering cash and free rides on public transport to give women more autonomy. I wonder what colour the women’s vote bank would be? Pink is already taken by the LGBTQ+ activists.
Any suggestions?
X@namratazakaria