They say ‘Modesty is the best jewel for a woman’.
But the earliest figurines from the Indus Valley Civilisation depict women in minimal clothing and heavy jewellery, and throughout the subcontinent, the trend continues to make an appearance through temple iconography, statues, and figurines. However, it seems that art and temples are not true representatives of the society because society, today is and has been for some decades now, deeply entrenched in the idea of modesty. When India was exporting ships and ships full of cotton bales, her British colonisers were importing modesty.
The primary problem of studying clothing patterns is that very few fabric samples survive due to the highly biodegradable nature of fabrics; whatever fabrics have survived exist in small patches and pieces are mostly insignificant in the study of this subject matter. The history of clothing in the subcontinent has been largely constructed from texts or extrapolated from art, sculpture, figurines and architectural iconography.
The earliest figurines which show traces of any kind of clothing are the ones from the Indus Valley Civilisation [2500-1700 BCE]. The statuettes popularized by the names of ‘Dancing Girl’ and ‘Mother Goddess’ suggest the existence of a scantily dressed people with elaborate headdresses, hairstyles and jewellery; the ‘Priest-King’ bust shows a man with a piece of cloth draped over his shoulder covering his torso. The modern image of Buddha is largely derived from that reflected from sculptures from the Gandhara school of art which show him draped in sweeping robe like draperies; sweeping fabrics continue to be seen throughout the Gandhara school, the Kushana art and art under the Mauryas, and both men and women have their lower halves covered with them while the chests remain bare.
We find mentions of ‘Sattika’ in Buddhist and Jain Texts. Sattika was a three-piece ensemble comprising the Antriya – the lower garment, the Uttariya – a veil worn over the shoulder or the head and the Stanapatta which is a chest band. This ensemble can be traced to Sanskrit literature and Buddhist Pali literature during the 6th century BC. Kadambri by Banabhatta [composed in early seventh century CE] and Tamil poetry works such as Silappadhikaram [earliest Jain Tamil Epic composed around fifth to the sixth CE], describe women in different draperies. These mentions may seem to be uniform in terms of description; it is likely that variations in drapery, cloth material and modesty existed across the Indian landscape.
Regionality and climate have played a poignant role in determining clothing patterns and ideas of modesty. The Dharmasastras [largely considered to be composed in and around the Ganga Valley and North India] mention that women should be dressed in such a manner that the navel should not be visible, on the other hand, the Silappadhikaram suggests that a single piece of cloth was used to cover the chest and the lower half of the body, leaving the midriff bare. In Kerala, traditionally everyone wore a Mundu [ sarongs like clothing pieces] from the waist downwards, and there was no upper garment for men or women; neither was required to cover their upper body. On the contrary, in a lot of places women from lower castes such as the Ezhava community were not allowed to cover their upper bodies, and had to pay a tax to do so. Blouse-less sari wearing was also characteristic of women from Bengal and Odisha and it was so much a part of their cultural identity that in the beginning they vehemently rejected wearing blouses. The emergence of the blouse and the petticoat (two modern-day essentials of sari wearing), a colonial piece of clothing, is deeply rooted in colonial elitism. Jnanadanandini Debi, the wife of Satyendranath Tagore, was refused entry to clubs run by the British in India, for covering her breasts with her sari alone. After this incident, it was Jnanadanandini Debi started wearing blouses and popularised them, women from elite Parsi families quickly took up the trend. The first blouses for saris were modelled on Edwardian blouses, with long puffed sleeves and collars closing up the throat, they were ‘Indianised’ by including brocade fabrics, embroidery work and using indigenous prints and fabrics. While the Edwardian blouse remained in trend in the UK until the 1970’s when women like Margaret Thatcher had the courage to move beyond them, the Indian blouse changed through many styles and trends by then and would continue to do so in the coming decades.
This British import’s impact on the modesty narrative has been so substantial that the history and origin behind it have not survived in the popular memory; sanskar and maryada have hijacked the narrative of the blouse.
Pavitra is a second year History student at Lady Shri Ram College for Women. She writes about culture, History and politics.