The Great Indian Sartorial Diaspora

Sunanda K Datta Ray explains as to why Atal Bihari Vajpayee can wear the dhoti with pride during his US visit

Atal Behari Vajpayee and P.V. Narasimha Rao notwithstanding, the dhoti, the subject of argument at a college near Thiruvananthapuram, is today a humble garment, beyond the pale of power or money.

Indeed, the two prime ministers must bear some responsibility for this decline, for no sooner do they go abroad than they climb out of dhotis and into pants. Nothing could more clearly proclaim that they look on the dhoti as a second class garment for second class desis at home.

 

What compounds their folly is that neither man cuts a dashing figure in prince coat and trousers. The prince coat is not even Indian, as J.B.S. Haldane pointed out about the sherwani, but a bastard copy of Mughal attire, as much a conqueror