Dress Code Problems for Indian Women

Recently actress Gauhar Khan was slapped by a man on TV because she wore “skimpy” clothes. The action was met with severe criticism. However, even in the present day and age, the action was surprisingly met with support from a few people. Most of the times, the reason cited for shaming a woman who supposedly wears “skimpy” clothes is that it is against the Indian culture.

People tend to forget that culture is the present way of living and not the way people lived in the past. Of course, it is not right to question these people because they clearly care so much about preserving our culture. These poor culture supporters worked so hard to maintain our culture (which is only applicable to women for some reason) that they forgot the actual clothing history of India.

The dressing style of India was very different at different periods of time. Most of the time, the clothing was made to fit the weather, which was and still is hot. The outfits of India that we see now like the salwar kameez came from the times when India was ruled by the Mughal Empire. However, at other periods of time, such as during the Mauryan and Gupta periods, it was common for women to wear saris without any blouses. Most paintings of those times and sculptures on temples hint that our ancestors were much more open-minded than our present generation. Though hard to believe, this indicates there was once a time when women could walk on Indian roads without being judged by the amount of skin they are showing. As time progressed, our dressing style was heavily influenced by our rulers of the time – Mughal and Victorian empires, which is what now we root for as “our culture”. This truly shows that the problem lies in the mind and not the body.

Image Credit: Kamal Venkit / CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Source: Kanchipuram sarees

Image Reference: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kanchipuram_sarees_(7642285396).jpg