IN an essay titled ‘The Secret of Swaraj’ in Young India (1921), Gandhi wrote: ‘The householder has to revise his or her ideas of fashion, and at least for the time being suspend the use of fine garments which are not always worn to cover the body. He should train himself to see art and beauty in the spotlessly white khaddar and to appreciate the soft unevenness.’

When most people hear the word ‘khadi’ they think of the rough textured handwoven cloth made iconic by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s struggle for swadeshi and independence from colonial rule. What they might not automatically think of is a fine woven jamdani. From Bengal, jamdani evolved over centuries in response to both the terrific heat of summer in the Gangetic plains as well as the requirements of royal patrons. Jamdani was so finely woven that nothing can be compared to it today, not even the 400 count Egyptian cotton bedsheets which are considered the height of ‘luxury’. In the making of jamdani, muslin threads were sized (coated) with rice starch to prevent them from breaking on the loom. The strong yet diaphanous muslins could have as many as a 1,800 count (the number of threads per square inch of fabric). The thread count contributed to the relative shade of white of the textile.

Jasleen Dhamija and Jyotindra Jain describe the many whites of jamdani in the following terms: ‘bright gold or light white, tooth white, pure sandal white, autumn cloud white (white in which rain is spent), autumn moon…’¹ This is a very different kind of khadi from the slubby, coarse cloth worn as kurta’s or bundi jackets or even the finer white khadi worn by India’s politicians.

Forms of ‘khadi’ such as the aforementioned jamdani rarely figure in the popular imagination of khadi. Yet that we can speak in terms of the many shades of white in jamdani, bears witness to the incredible diversity of handspun and handwoven cloth in India. White cloth can be made from cotton, wool, silk or a blend of these; it embodies the ingenuity of generations of innovation and development of weaving styles; along with different thickness of yarn, the complex variations of warp and weft help create rich derivations of white through relative opacity, weight and texture.

In 2002 ‘Khadi: The Fabric of Freedom’ was displayed in Delhi, the result of many years of work by textile revivalist Martand Singh known affectionately as Mapu. He understood the importance of reclaiming the idea of khadi from the stereotyped vortex it had fallen into, and made the exhibition of khadi the finale to his ‘Vishwakarma’ series that celebrated Indian textiles. It was supported by the Volkart Foundation, a Swiss charitable trust. Mapu presented a definitive exhibition of khadi that explored the range of handspun, handwoven cotton from its coarsest to its finest weaves. Andreas Reinhart of the Volkart Foundation called the khadi ‘white gold’. This seems an apt metaphor for a textile that sits at a complex matrix of history, cultural symbolism, emotional resonance and relevance to pressing issues of sustainability today.

With over 108 samples from nine states, swatches of shades of khadi were neatly catalogued, each sample framed and archived in a thick book. Each swatch was accompanied by documentation that recorded the thread count, region and charkha used from the finest, near-transparent jamdani muslin to the thick velvety texture of cloth made in Ponduru, Andhra Pradesh. In 2012, it was with a sense of wonder that I studied the samples when visiting the Delhi based studio of Rta Kapur Chishti who had collaborated on the exhibition, and who Mapu had handed responsibility to for keeping the archives from the exhibition.

 

In India, white is a symbol of purity and light and has often been associated with the garb of religious ritual whether it be the white dhotis or janeu worn by Brahmins or the white prayer caps and kurta pyjamas worn by Muslims for namaz (prayer). Across India white has always been worn for religious and ritual events, in particular by men. In Hinduism white has a particular association with the mourning dress worn by widows, a fact which I will return to later in this essay.

It was the traditional symbolic purity of white that Gandhi harnessed to create a form of dress for Indians to become members of an imagined community, free from communal and caste based divisions, and sufficiently united to fight for freedom from colonial rule. Both the irregular texture of coarsely woven khadi, as well as the colour white, were important symbols of simple intentions in dress. Plain coarse, white khadi cloth visually announced both the wearer’s renunciation of markers of caste and status as well as their commitment to a nation defined by hand production.

As Dipesh Chakrabarty reflects, Gandhi popularized khadi based on the ideals invested in its symbolism: ‘The white of khadi symbolizes the Hindu idea of purity (lack of blemish, pollution), its coarseness an identification with both simplicity and poverty; they stand for the politician’s capacity to renounce his own material well-being; to make sacrifices (tyag) in the public and national interest. Khadi indicates the person’s capacity to serve the country.’²

 

Today, even whilst it is possible to explore the rich variety of khadi, we must contend with the ways in which the symbolism of white khadi has been appropriated and diluted. The most obvious way in popular public opinion is the white khadi which has become the uniform of Indian politicians. A common sight in the leafy enclaves and lobbies of five star hotels in central Delhi, are the khadi clad politicians. In their pristine uniform of white khadi, often accented with a black or navy woollen bundi, they float in a surreal aura. In their white khadi kurta pyjamas they seem like regal figures plucked from an 18th century miniature painting, and set down amongst the chaos of modern day urban Delhi. The white khadi is supposed to represent their moral impeccability and therefore mandate to represent the populace. In reality many of todays politicians are embroiled in corruption and serve the interests of the elite not the common man. Wearing white in this sense has been hijacked as a form of symbolic violence that reinforces the inviolability of political power and wealth.

 

The word khadi has many associations whether handmade, local, simplicity, deep engagement, authenticity: all qualities that are incredibly relevant to the challenges presented by fashion’s role in climate change today. In current commentary on Indian fashion and textiles, it is an oft-repeated truism that in order to look forward into the future, one must look back into the past. But what do we really look at when we talk about history or tradition? There can be many versions of the past that we must carefully pick our way though in order to navigate pathways that take us forward.

The history of khadi and Mahatma Gandhi’s use of the cloth to call for both economic and emotional freedom from the yoke of colonialism is well documented. For example, in Clothing Matters: Dress and Identity in India (1996) Emma Tarlo charts the ways that khadi assisted in creating a sense of shared identity amongst the vast population of India. However, as Tarlo points out, we cannot only look to hagiographical readings of khadi according to Gandhi’s many written and spoken proclamations that urged Indian citizens to take it up as a symbol of struggle for independence.

Far more pertinent is the historiographical work of those, such as Lisa Trivedi’s Clothing Gandhi’s Nation (2007), which analyses contemporary sources to uncover the myriad ways in which Gandhi’s call to khadi was contested, resisted and renegotiated by distinct groups of Indian citizens, including the elite and women. This is the starting point for the many meanings of white khadi that can be uncovered in India, where ideas of craft production are inseparable from the embodiment and symbolism of khadi when worn.

 

In 1921 Gandhi wrote: ‘Anyone who wears khadi out of ignorance, by way of imitating others or out of hypocrisy, will not be regarded as having taken the vow of khadi, despite the fact that he wears it. Such fashionable khadi wearers could not be regarded as advancing the sentiment of khadi.’³

The way khadi was produced was vital to the Gandhian ideal of khadi. He insisted that it should be handspun as well as handwoven. Gandhi exhorted Congress members to spin as a form of service to the nation. In fact at one point in the early 1920s, he made a monthly contribution of personally handspun and woven cloth a requisite for membership of the party. For Gandhi spinning was no less than a meditative act, a way of concentrating the body and mind to become disciplined and focused in the service of attaining freedom that was at once personal and political.

Gandhi believed the thick slubs created when the yarn was handspun gave khadi its unique texture where the morality of providing employment to the masses was inseparable from the aesthetics of wearing simple cloth that relinquished markers of status, community and caste. Thick, coarse khadi was paramount to the Gandhian vision of moral cloth, because he believed it announced simplicity and a sense of unity with the poor who could not afford to assert status through fine cloth, rich silks or other such luxuries. White dhotis or saris and the white Gandhi topi were his powerful semantic strategy to create a sense of unity and shared collective purpose required to topple British rule.

The irony was that in the 1920s, khadi was hard to find and often much more expensive than mill made or other local cloth. This made it difficult for poorer people to adhere to Gandhian exhortations to wear khadi, even when they wanted to visibly demonstrate their loyalty to the swadeshi cause. In addition, despite Gandhi’s directives to wear white khadi, there was much resistance to this by certain social groups who sought to conform to Gandhi’s ideal of khadi whilst negotiating conflicting demands between patriotism, gender, class, caste and status. Nehru sought out the finest woven khadi as did many of his contemporaries. This often resulted in what Tarlo calls the ‘bizarre sartorial paradox’ of khadi, where it was worn to signal virtue without any real intention in terms of Gandhian ideals.

 

For women, dressing in a coarse white khadi sari meant essentially adopting the garb of a poor widow. For this reason it was also rejected by many middle class families who felt Gandhi’s directive to wear coarse white khadi would be an affront to the family’s status and dignity. One of those who actively resisted Gandhi’s vision of khadi was poet, Congress member and supporter of women’s educational reform, Sarojini Naidu. She disagreed vehemently with Gandhi’s dress code for the Indian National Congress. Naidu’s vision of swadeshi was far broader than the idea of simple white homespun cloth. Instead Naidu believed swadeshi lay in the rich diversity of Indian craft as the solution to unemployment and the spirit of nationhood.⁴

Naidu balanced loyalty to Gandhi with her more broadly defined ideal of swadeshi by wearing silk saris, and foreshadowed the way in which khadi and swadeshi have become intrinsic to the discourse of India’s unique heritage of luxury in the post-millennium. These days, khadi confers a moral authority to luxury. The virtuous consumption at work here is not based on some abstract idea of ethics, but is a dense interplay of ideologies of taste, of class; a rejection of the aesthetics of Bollywood, bling and new money status; a new instantiation of connoisseurship and patronage; and being authentically Indian. This reveals khadi’s symbolic role for mediating the politics and potential in the formation of a uniquely non-western form of luxury production and consumption.

 

In all honesty, khadi as it exists in much of the market today is far more myth than reality, and it is the myth making around khadi that has spurred much of the bureaucratic intervention surrounding it since the creation of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) in 1956. The notion of ‘khadi’ lies at the centre of a vast behemoth of government infrastructure and marketing and remains an emotive symbol of patriotism for many citizens. The label placed on each and every garment in over seven thousand KVIC outlets across India will say ‘Handspun and Handwoven’ in exquisite Devanagari script, but in reality most of these garments are made using mill spun yarn in the warp and a large proportion are woven on power looms. In principle there is nothing wrong with mechanization, semi or otherwise if workers are paid a decent wage and enjoy safe and properly regulated working conditions, but what seems odd is the need to adhere to ideas of the handmade.

As textile historian Rahul Jain writes: ‘…this diverse system is a more singular economic compulsion as perceived by the state: the provision of assured employment and income to a million khadi workers, nearly 80 per cent of whom are rural women. In the presence of chronic poverty, the usefulness of a nationwide mechanism for facilitating and controlling the production and sale of khadi fabric can hardly be overstated. It is hard to overlook that such manner of intervention has glossed over… the subtleties and nuances of textile craftsmanship that can command, in our time, human and economic value in their own right.’⁵

 

Even whilst the term khadi is now applied to everything from herbal shampoo, trinkets and power loom garments, the idea of the hand crafted remains paramount in the imagination. Not least, different kinds of semi-mechanized charkhas (spinning machines) such as the hand cranked six or eight spool ambar charkha or power driven multi-spool charkhas further complicate the idea of khadi as a purely ‘handmade’ product. In an interview with venerated textile expert and weaving revivalist Rta Kapur Chishti in 2012, she insisted that khadi must be made using handspun yarn on a takli or a khada (single spool wheel) charkha (such as the one pictured in the image of Gandhi by Margaret Bourke-White). Whilst cotton spun using ambar charkhas is defined as ‘handspun’ this definition remains fraught. ‘It shouldn’t be called handspun, it is hand turned’, says Chishti.⁶

In fact, as Rahul Jain explores in the catalogue that accompanied the 2002 khadi exhibition, the hand held takli (a rotating stick weighted by a circular tablet of clay, wood or bone) was used for millennia to spin the finest yarn for cloth such as muslin. In the first millennia the vertical khada charkha was developed. It may now be most familiar in its giant stainless steel avatar atop of Palika Bazaar in Delhi’s Connaught Place, but the real thing is still in use in many parts of India today. The takli or the khada charkha depend upon the dexterity, skill and judgement of the spinner to create the soft twist, fuse the fibres together and determine the yarn’s evenness, all of which impart a distinct quality to the yarn and subsequently the cloth when woven on the loom.

However, since the 1940s, when even Gandhi himself struggled with the limitations of scaling up hand spinning to compete with mill spun cloth, mechanization has been introduced to the spinning process. In 1949, Ekambarnathan, a worker in Tamil Nadu, developed a two spindle ring spinning frame. Then came the four spindle ambar charkha in 1954 and the six spindle New Model Charkha (NMC) in 1965 (both require that the spinner sit on the floor bent forward whilst repeatedly cranking a handle at the side, the yarn is spooled without hand spinning).

 

The progressive mechanization of khadi in the post-independence era now results in a confusing clash between Gandhian language and symbolism and the realities of ‘khadi’ work sheds where the introduction of new technologies in spinning such, blur the lines between craft as small-scale cottage industry on the one hand and mass production on the other. Yet it is this idea of the handmade in khadi: of hand spinning as well as hand weaving, that informs both historical symbolism and contemporary relevance.

To optimize productivity from ring spinning, more uniform cotton fibre is required, which has driven the wholesale breeding of cotton with longer fibres. In parallel, many indigenous varieties of short staple cotton in India have been progressively lost. In recent decades this shift has also involved the turn to BT cotton, notorious for its impact upon indigenous farming practices as well as high dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. A small number of farmers in areas including the Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan were reported returning to ‘desi’ varieties which are more resistant than BT crops to pests. However, the demand by industrial-scale spinning for longer fibres means the short length of desi varieties limits this cotton’s use to denim and medical applications. Yet what sets luxury products apart from the ordinary is artisanal skill, precision and innovation, all embodied in the very essence of khadi, yet so undervalued by the current market context.

 

White khadi continues to play a role in Indian public life, notably in the guise of Indian politics, but also in religious ritual and devotional practices. It still tends to be worn far more by men than women in Indian public life. White khadi has also become part of the lexicon of Indian fashion, taking its cue from historical symbolism. One of the most fascinating aspects of contemporary Indian fashion is the diverse expression it affords to the many historical threads of khadi, some of which have been touched upon briefly here. The issue may no longer be one of freedom from British rule, but the idea of khadi as iconic of a swadeshi battle against foreign fashion continues to flourish and find new iterations in Indian design, craft, artisanship and luxury. Modernity, globalization and urbanization collide to create an entirely new context for the symbolism of white khadi in India today.

 

This is evident in the bridal and ethnic formal wear created by Rohit Bal and Sabyasachi for example. Samant Chauhan has forged a unique design signature in both western wear, as well as more unusually, bridal wear, by using tussar silk, often replete with uneven texture and the different shades of white of raw, as well as more finely processed, tussar silk. Abraham and Thakore, is comprised of designers David Abraham, Rakesh Thakore and business partner Kevin Nigli. Rakesh Thakore is one of Martand Singh’s original collaborators on the Vishwakarma series of textile exhibitions. Thakore’s unparalleled textile expertise is reflected in the core ethos of A&T’s work, where the idea of ‘contemporarising’ traditional weaves and motifs is executed with flair and sensitivity. A&T have used khadi in certain collections (for example Urban Shikar, AW/14), playing on its symbolism and inviting new ways of understanding its identity as fashionable ‘Indian’ cloth.

Rta Kapur Chishti was also one of the original collaborators of the Volkart exhibition. She now occupies an interesting space, part textile historian and practicing expert, part sari-draping guru and with her own range of saris, scarves and soft furnishings under the label Taanbaan. Chishti’s creamy white khadi saris are legendary and embody the original Gandhian ideal of transparent hand production, although as in Gandhi’s time they realistically can only be purchased by the wealthy. Chishti is one of the only textile designers who as part of the marketing of each item, gives specific details on which kind of charkha the yarn for the woven product was spun on. This is a direct reference to the Volkart exhibition creation and cataloguing of the khadi samples which Chishti was responsible for and also connects to her emphasis on the importance of using desi cotton varieties.

 

This attention to detail is a small but significant insertion of information into a field that largely remains beset by stereotypes and assumptions regarding the assumed provenance and therefore symbolism of khadi. It is a bringing to the fore of what Rahul Jain recognizes ‘…as the nuances of textile craftsmanship that can command, in our time, human and economic value in their own right.’ It is a provocation to deeper thought about what khadi, and therefore the hand, the weaving, artisanship, community and sustainability really mean in India today. Khadi’s advent into the sphere of fashion reinvigorates deeper questions regarding the Gandhian ideal of affective relations at the heart of khadi’s production and consumption but designers need to do more to provoke rather than gloss over those deeper questions.

No matter how diluted by political appropriation and the complexities of defining craft, white khadi remains a reminder of the universal message in Gandhi’s vision of khadi, one that was influenced by the writings of Marx and which sought (no matter how problematically) to counter the effects of industrialization on the individual and on traditional community life. Many of these threads of thought find new expression as part of solutions to the massive challenges of climate change and the effects of fast fashion on workers and the environment. White khadi remains a symbol of hope for a better and more auspicious future, not only in India but globally.

 

Footnotes:

1. Jasleen Dhamija and Jyotindra Jain (eds.), Handwoven Fabrics of India. Mapin, Ahmedabad, 1989.

2. Dipesh Chakrabarty, Habitations of Modernity. Orient Blackswan, Hyderabad, 2004.

3. S.R. Bakshi, Gandhi and Hindu-Muslim Unity. Deep & Deep Publications, New Delhi, 1987 (1935).

4. Padmini Sengupta, Sarojini Naidu: A Biography. Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1966.

5. Rahul Jain, ‘Handspun and Handwoven: Cotton Khadi in the New Millennium’, in Martand Singh (ed.), Khadi: The Fabric of Freedom. Volkart Foundation, Switzerland; Roli Books, Delhi, 2002.

6. Notes and digital recording from interview with Rta Kapur Chishti, 25 January 2012, New Delhi.