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| Sunanda K Datta-Ray: Sartorial politics | | A thick skin is a great asset, but the correct livery is mandatory |
| Sunanda K Datta-Ray / New Delhi Feb 28, 2009, 00:09 IST |
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A thick skin is a great asset, but the correct livery is mandatory.
Why did gossip describe Shivraj Patil as being dressed to kill when Natwar Singh should, by his own admission, be the fop for all seasons? He doesn’t use those words about himself — who would? — but the acute sartorial sense that enlivens his books must be unique in the rough and tumble of politics. Now, with elections looming ahead, even fops know that coats must be cut not according to the cloth but the colour.
Kunwar Sahib’s dress consciousness emerged in Profiles and Letters when he told Indira Gandhi he was ordering “a new wardrobe — khadi kurta-pyjama, Jawahar jacket, the Congress livery” to celebrate his political debut. Despite her reply that “a thicker skin would be more useful”, the livery is mandatory. As this column has mentioned before, a 1930s newspaper cartoon showed Deshapriya Jatindra Mohan Sengupta sipping scotch and soda in immaculate white tie and tails while a bearer held out his dhoti-kurta ensemble. The caption read, “Bearer, meeting ka kapra lao!”
Khadi proclaims patriotism. It also inhibits individualism. I once asked a dhoti-clad juice-swilling Biju Patnaik at a cocktail party if he was teetotal. “In this uniform!” he snapped. As he demonstrated, no uniform is permanent of course. Madhavsinh Solanki’s disgruntled sneer about Rajiv Gandhi’s safari-suited brigade overlooked the alacrity with which leading members of Sanjay’s kurta-pyjama gang changed dress, style and loyalty. A Bengali fictional character wore trousers under his dhoti as he waited to see whether the British or Indians emerged victorious in 1857.
Bengali hackles will rise at gibes about dhotis in Natwar Singh’s new book, My China Diary. I wouldn’t go so far as former Lok Sabha speaker Ananthasayyam Ayyangar’s demand that MPs wear dhotis and Gandhi caps “to look Indian”. But Natwar wouldn’t have been so contemptuous (“Down with the Dhoti”) if he had seen Siddhartha Shankar Ray’s flamboyantly flowing pleats and the Kashmiri dorokha shawl that charmed George Bush, Sr. when he presented ambassadorial credentials. Natwar’s dhotiwala politicians belch in public and can’t be trusted to return the fur-lined coats their hosts lent them in China. He probably associates dhotis with the likes of Lalu Prasad.
Much can be forgiven someone who notices Mao’s crumpled suit when seeing off the Soviet president but resists the temptation to add fuel to Sino-Soviet fire by accusing the Great Helmsman of slighting Moscow. On the contrary, Natwar quickly adds “not that it matters”. But he wouldn’t have noted the crumpled suit if it didn’t. A few pages later, Mao leaves for Moscow in the sola hat “of his Yenan days”. Mercifully, Natwar doesn’t make the common error of saying “solar”. The topee derived it’s name from sola (pith) though its purpose was to keep out the sun’s rays. He doesn’t say whether the Yenan relic was to warn Soviet revisionists that the guerrilla struggle for liberation continues.
Since politicians never retire and therefore cannot afford to burn their boats, others must draw the conclusions. But Kunwar Sahib’s observations are graphic enough. Rajiv Gandhi breezing through the Forbidden City in fur-collared leather jacket is the no-nonsense can-do young spark cocking a snook at tradition. “Sonia in sari — no gloves, no socks” in late December is being ostentatiously Indian. The Chinese ambassador’s tropical white suit in below freezing temperature flaunts the immunity to climate that comes of studying Mao’s Little Red Book which also persuaded hens to lay bigger eggs during the Cultural Revolution.
Natwar Singh was present at the creation. “Host Wu” (whoever he might be) gave him a sneak preview of history by changing his Mao tunic to lounge suit and tie between 1984 and 1988. Zhao Ziyang capitalised on the revolution by drawing the Western media’s attention to his lounge suit at his party’s 13th National Congress and offering to tailor the world. It was as momentous a break with orthodoxy as Ataturk’s abolition of the fez.
If clothes are symbol and substance, their absence is equally meaningful, witness Gandhi’s famous retort — “His Majesty wore enough for both of us!” — when asked if he had called on George V so scantily attired. Semi-nudity might again be the answer for people wondering which party to put their shirt on. “Hitler with his brownshirts riding for a fall/ Mussolini with his blackshirts back against the wall/ De Valera with his greenshirts caring not at all/ Three cheers for Mahatma Gandhi with no shirt at all.”
Like the Emperor’s clothes, “no shirt” can be saffron, Marxist red or even Congress tricolour. Keeping everyone guessing is the ultimate in sartorial politics.
sunandadr@yahoo.co.in
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