Gandhi’s Dhoti

My life is my message!

Gandhi once said: My life is my message. He practised what he preached. In a way, his attire was also his message. His progressive ‘unclothing’ was deliberate, and used as a non-verbal signal to the millions of poor, illiterate men and women of his country whom his written and spoken words could not reach. It was also a symbol to remind the British Empire and the world of the shameless stripping of India by colonialism.

Gandhi at Inner Temple, London

Gandhi was admitted as a student of the Inner Temple on 6 November, 1888. The admission book shows that he paid £140 -1s- 5d in fees. (innertemple.org.uk)

At London, Gandhi was embarrassed by his Bombay ‘cut’ suit and resolved to dress properly.

Gandhi’s Suit tailored in Bond Street

In his Autobiography, Gandhi mentions his expensive suit tailored in Bond Street (a four-minute walk from Saville Row!)

‘…. I undertook the all too impossible task of becoming an English gentleman…… I wasted ten pounds on an evening suit made in Bond Street, the centre of fashionable life in London….’[i]

Gandhi at Piccadilly Circus

“A fellow student, bumping into him near Piccadilly Circus, …. recalled years later, [Gandhi] was wearing a ‘high silk top-hat, brushed, “burnished bright”’, a stiff and starched collar (known at that time as a Gladstone), a fine ‘striped silk shirt’, and dark trousers with a coat to match. On his feet were ‘patent leather boots’.”[ii]

Gandhi in a dhoti

At Madurai on 22nd September 1921, Gandhi took a momentous decision to change his attire, and for the first time appeared in public in a simple dhoti and chaddar. Gandhi himself explained the rationale behind his choice. He had adopted the attire of ‘the millions of compulsorily naked men’ who have no clothing other than ‘their langoti four inches wide and nearly as many feet long.’ 

(Gandhi at Madurai on 22 September, 1921)

(Image Source: Mahatma Gandhi Photo Gallery | Life chronology of Mahatma Gandhi (mkgandhi.org) )

Gandhi in South Africa

Years before that in 1913 at Durban, Gandhi had appeared in a simple cotton kurta and dhoti, the dress of indentured Indian labor as a sign of solidarity with the oppressed and ill-treated laborers in South Africa. However, this was Gandhi’s attire of choice for a specific occasion and upon return to India from South Africa, he appeared in traditional Kathiawadi wear.

Tell Mahatmaji to get me another sari

The Madurai decision was neither ad hoc nor abrupt; but a logical progression of Gandhi’s ‘unclothing.’

During his Champaran inquiry (1917) into the exploitation and oppression of indigo farmers, Gandhi once visited a small village and found some of the women dressed very dirtily. He asked Kasturba to ‘ask them why they did not wash their clothes.’

One of the women took Kasturba into her hut and said, ‘The sari I am wearing is the only one I have. How am I to wash it? Tell Mahatmaji to get me another sari, and I shall then promise to bathe and put on clean clothes every day.’[iii]

This encounter with acute poverty must have left a deep imprint on Gandhi’s mind.

Freedom Struggle reaches rural India

Prior to Gandhi, the Congress Party was led by the educated, upper and middle-class urban elites. Gandhi’s seminal contribution was to reach out to the vast multitudes of rural Indians most of whom were poor and illiterate. His thoughtfully chosen attire was one element in the complex repertoire of symbolism which included truthfulness, non-violence, brahmacharya, mouna, fasting, vegetarianism, etc.

Churchill on Gandhi

When Gandhi attended the Round Table Conference in London in his dhoti and a shawl, he was called the ‘half-naked fakir’ by Churchill - a rude, loud-mouth, contemptuous, less-than-cultured, future British Prime Minister.

King’s Tea Party

King George V hosted an afternoon tea at Buckingham Palace for the Indian delegates to the Round Table Conference and Gandhi attended the party in his dhoti and shawl.

After the party, when asked if he wore appropriate clothes to meet the King, Gandhiji is reported to have famously remarked, “The king had enough on for both of us.” This story may be anecdotal, but provides an interesting illustration of Gandhi’s point of view.

 Dhoti or loincloth?

The western media called it loin-cloth. Even Gandhi called it loin-cloth when writing in English. But loincloth is typically an inner-wear to cover the private parts, and different from dhoti which is an outer-wear. Gandhi’s dress was a dhoti that covered his waist up to his knees. Maybe, Gandhi purposely called it loincloth to dramatize the acute poverty of Indians, and the exploitation by the Empire.

Conclusion

Gandhi’s sartorial choice of a hand-woven cotton dhoti and a chaddar or shawl was symbolic of the colonial stripping of India’s economy and dignity, and a masterly non-verbal communication tool. His ‘choice’ of attire was entirely personal, not emulated by his associates or followers, and criticised and ridiculed by many; but he stuck with his resolve to thus identify with his poor countrymen and women.

Gandhi was saintly, but no renunciant. Though a crusader for non-violence, he was a tenacious fighter.

Khadi was, as Nehru had observed, the ‘livery of freedom.’ In his message from Sabarmati jail, Gandhi had said: Place Khadi in my hands and I shall place Swaraj in yours.

Dhoti was not a fashion gimmick for Gandhi, but the cloth of choice after deep contemplation and firm conviction.

***

G. Subbu, a friend shared the following Limerick:

The Brits who wore a suit and a sola topee, 

Were dazed by a man so low key,

 The exploiters full of virulence,

Were taught a thing or two about non violence,

With simplicity and clad only with a dhoti !

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[i] Gandhi, M.K., The Story of My Experiments With Truth: An Autobiography – Wilco Publishing House, Mumbai, 2015 Edition

 

[ii] Guha Ramachandra, Gandhi Before India - Allen Lane (Penguin Books)-2013

 

[iii] Gandhi, M.K., The Story of My Experiments With Truth: An Autobiography – Wilco Publishing House, Mumbai, 2015 Edition