A Note on The Question of Dress for The

Tribal s

(With an apology to Dr. Verrier Elwin.)

Srimati Shakuntala Srivastava

In my own humble way I have given my very serious consideration to this question. The more I have thought over the matter the greater has been my feeling that the very discussion of this question is useless. As a matter of fact I have felt that it is no problem at all. In his "A Philosophy for NEFA" Dr. Verrier Elwin has made a lot of this problem in Chapter IV. I have very carefully gone through the whole Chapter. My own reaction has been that he himself is not very clear in his mind what exactly he is trying to say. At one place he seems to be elaborating the views of our Prime Minister whom he has quoted in the beginning of the Chapter. There can be no disagreement with our Prime Minister when he says "I am horrified at the picture of these people being made to give up their old artistic clothes or even lack of clothes in favour of a dirty pair of shorts or some such thing . . . We do not wish to stop them from doing what they like, but we must not encourage them to go the wrong way." No great argument was, therefore, needed in support of the above view. At another place he seems to have taken up his cudgel against the adoption of Western dress by the tribals. He states "The danger of this adoption of Western dress is that it not only makes boys and girls misfits in their own villages, but it creates a feeling of superiority towards India generally. Foreign dress creates a foreign outlook." In support of his case he has quoted Rabindranath Tagore, Mulk Raj Anand and others. Much can be said both for and against this proposition and I reserve my opinion on the subject at the moment. Soon after he turns to sex appeal of clothes and quotes Bernard Shaw and Mahatma Gandhi in his support. I do not think his quotations from these two great men are to the point. I wonder if he is advocating nudity or sex appeal In the end he makes three important points about the problem or dress. "The first is that our approach to the whole subject must be a dynamic one; we must keep on the move. It is no use merely bewailing the passing of picturesque old fashions and trying to freeze existing custom as it is. Change will come everywhere, even in the remotest places, and our task is not to check it but to guide it. If a culture does not evolve, it dies ... as the people become 'civilised 43 we should help them to evolve the form of dress which will remain truly tribal, but more artistic, more attractive and more appropriate." "The second point is that we must recognise the fact that a certain number of tribal boys and girls will become largely 'modernised' at all events in such externals as dress and general style of living. These will be the officers, and politicians, the doctors and lawyers, the engineers of the future. We may hope that they will not grow up to be ashamed of their race and with a scorn of the simple ways and beliefs of their father, but they are in the context of modern India which so curiously prefer the drabness of Western attire to its own traditions almost certain to give up most of their own sartorial fashions . . . ."

"The third point is that the problem of dress is only part of a much bigger problem, the problem of detribalization as a whole. It is no good trying to preserve and develop tribal dress unless we are going to do the same for tribal institutions, tribal religion and tribal dance, song and art. The same attitude of respect for all good tribal things must run through every aspect of life."

As I have already stated above I have not been able to find out what exactly Dr. Verrier Elwin is trying to advocate. His three important points are those that would apply to any people and not necessarily to the tribals. By virtue of his past associations, services, and work he, to-day, enjoys a unique status and is looked upon by the Government as an authority on the tribal affairs. And, therefore, it is very necessary that before issuing any mandate he should be very sure of his grounds. I have no pretence to any intimate knowledge of the tribals except that I have also had the privilege of having lived and worked in their midst for some years to be able to know their likes and dislikes. I feel it is my duty to place before the country my own study of this problem.

India has always presented a variegated picture so far as dress is concerned. There has never been any set pattern of dress anywhere in India. People have attired themselves in any manner they have liked. There has never been any hard and fast rule about the correctness or otherwise of dress in India. Only sometime ago this Was true of almost every oriental country. By their very nature they have always detested regimentation in dress. Therefore, the best thing would be to leave the matter as it is giving the tribals the fullest liberty to dress themselves in any manner they like. Only a few years back anybody moving in the streets of Lucknow or Gaya in the evening would have noticed people dressed in embroidered 44 caps, Kurtas, Pyjamas or Dhotis. But now that is vanishing fast Most of the young men are seen bare-headed in flying shirts and pants. It would be futile to bemoan the vanished style of dress for which Lucknow and Gaya were known or to criticise the modern tendencies in dress. The best thing would be to let the people adopt any dress they like.

Looking back to the history of fashion in dress of any country one would notice the same change in pattern everywhere. Chaucerian England did not dress itself in the same manner as the Elizabethan. Elizabethan style of dress underwent a great change after Restoration. The Victorians had their own morality also in matter of dress. Victorian style of dress has again almost completely changed in modern times. No English-man feels guilty for his change and nobody considers it necessary to advocate this or that pattern. I know some of the well-to-do tribals of some of the areas like 'NEFA' have their own gorgeous style of dress. If they want to retain it, well and good. If they want to discard it, there is hardly any room for sorrow and no expert guidance is needed in the matter. But if anybody were to advocate that the tribals should retain their own pattern of dress, he would not be doing any real justice to them or their cause. As for example, let us take the case of the 'Birhors'. They live in their 'Kareyas' not because they have any love for them but because they are in abject poverty and they simply cannot afford to dress themselves any better. To ask them to stick to their own original pattern is to jest with their inferiority.

I feel that Dr. Verrier Elwin has not done justice to Mahatma Gandhi by quoting him in a wrong context. He has quoted Mahatma Gandhi thus "I believe that the ideal state of man is digambara. I hold the state of nakedness dear. Were I living in a forest, I would go without clothes. Nature has clothed mankind in skin. . . . The loftiest beauty of man lies in his nudity". Perhaps Dr. Verrier Elwin does not mean to suggest that Mahatma Gandhi wanted us to remain nude. Perhaps Dr. Verrier Elwin does not advocate nudity for the tribals. I admit 'there is more adventure in walking naked', but how many of us dare do so? It is no use advocating a cause that will be repugnant to the people to whom it is advocated. It is no use giving guidance that is not acceptable either to the guide himself or to the person who is sought to be guided. It is no use being a guide who cannot guide himself.

Dr. Verrier Elwin has also tried to associate various diseases the tribals suffer from with European clothes. In support of his 45 contention he has, as is his wont, taken shelter under authorities like Mills, Rivers, Harrison and others. According to him "The wearing of European clothes is one, if not the most important, of the principal factors in bringing about the spread of lung diseases and the consequent decimation of those who have adopted them. Not only lung diseases, but dysentery, itch and yaws are all propagated by the foolish habit of wearing English clothes quite unsuited to the temperament and environment of the wearers". This is a bad logic and it suffers from the fallacy of post hoc, ergo propter hoc. My experience has been that before the setting up of Development Pro- jects in the tribal areas the above diseases as well as small-pox were constant companions of the tribals not because of any fault of dress but because they suffered from neglect and they did not have any idea of personal or environmental hygiene. The most backward among the tribals like the Birjias, the Asurs, and the Birhors who did not have any dress worth the name, much less anything like the English dress, were the worst affected people in this part of the country. Therefore, it would be wrong to associate the above diseases with the dress they wear. The real fault is the lack of essential knowledge of hygiene and want of cleanliness. The emphasis should be on these rather than throwing the whole blame on this or that dress.

As the Chairman of the Welfare Extension Project, Bishunpur, I have to move among the tribals. I find that the above diseases have been greatly checked through our efforts to teach the habit of cleanliness and imparting knowledge of personal and environmental hygiene. I find them quite happy in whatever dress they have and there is nothing to complain of.

I admit that I have neither the knowledge nor the experience nor the insight into the tribal life as Dr. Verrier Elwin has, but my honest feeling is that there should be no fad about dress or about anything. The tribals are essentially one of us and there is hardly anything basic to distinguish them from the rest of mankind. What is good for the non-tribals in a particular environment and climate is equally good for the tribals also. Let us not be their guardian angels bestowing patronage and uncalled-for guidance. They are sick of patronage and so-called guidance. They have had enough of them; they do not want to have any more of them. Behind their rugged exterior there is the essential man; let the personality of this essential man deflower. After all, what they wear and what they would choose to wear is a very minor issue and we must not make a fuss about it.