{"id":175695,"date":"2020-12-28T12:00:34","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T12:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=175695"},"modified":"2020-12-24T06:43:19","modified_gmt":"2020-12-24T06:43:19","slug":"peoples-differences-dress-code","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/12\/peoples-differences-dress-code\/","title":{"rendered":"People\u2019s Differences \u2014 Dress Code"},"content":{"rendered":"

22 Dec 2020 – <\/em>All over the world there are differences between people. These are related to their racial and religious backgrounds, languages spoken, educational achievements, economic prosperity, etc. In addition, there are vast differences in the ways people dress. Apart from the jeans that\u00a0are now commonly worn, there are men who wear \u00a0\u00a0dhoti<\/em> or pajamas or even half pants. Similarly women wear frocks, saris, kurtas, salwar-kameez<\/em>,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0or jeans like men, adding to the diversities in dress.<\/p>\n

Another item of dress is the head dress \u2014 with Sikhs wearing turbans, Muslim men often wearing skull caps of different types and styles. Western men often wear different varieties of hats to protect themselves from sunlight or cold. The Christian priests also have their distinctive \u00a0 cassocks<\/em> (long dress from head to feet) generally white coloured which makes them look distinguished. In India, non Sikh and non Muslim male politicians generally wear\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Gandhi\u00a0\u00a0topis<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0(caps) to establish their political identities.<\/p>\n

Some Muslim women generally wear\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0burqas<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0covering themselves from head to toe, or at least head scarfs to display their religiosity. It is interesting how they speak or eat while wearing the head scarf which otherwise covers their mouths also.<\/p>\n

Why am I concentrating on dresses or hats? In the world that we are living in, we are witnessing a lot of religious strife and occasional violence. Although we live in democracies, people are governed by\u00a0\u00a0common human rights, despite belonging to different races,\u00a0\u00a0religions or sects. In practice, unfortunately, we witness religious\u00a0\u00a0differences leading to debate and confrontation. Dress often makes it easy to display the religion or faith of the person.<\/p>\n

The recent example of the beheading of a woman in a French church by a bigoted person and the French President Macron\u2019s statement on this incident is fresh in our minds. It led to demonstrations and antagonist remarks against the President by some Muslim countries.<\/p>\n

The French Republic based on the principles of Liberty, Egalite, Fraternite,\u00a0<\/em>allows its citizens to practice their religious beliefs privately in their homes or churches, places of worship, but not in public. This is enshrined in their principle of\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0laicite<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0that makes it a crime to display any item of their religious beliefs publicly. A person may wear a cross underneath one\u2019s clothes in public so as not to display one\u2019s religious identity.<\/p>\n

Similar restrictions apply for other religions. People must not disrespect or act against people belonging to other faiths. The violent incident unfortunately occurred recently in France despite the principle of religious equality in belief and action enshrined in their Constitution.<\/p>\n

The dress code especially for men, occasionally looks absurd. When the British ruled India, the dress of the British men consisted of a coat and a tie even when it was hot and stuffy. This code was adopted by Indians who served in high positions with the British rulers. Although India became an independent country in 1947, this code is often followed by fashionable men even today. If you see a Hindi film of the period 1950s \u2014 1970s, you will see the leading male actors following this dress code from top to bottom. Occasionally even when these actors are depicted leading a vagabondish<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0life, they wear a coat or jacket if not a tie. Funny and absurd.<\/p>\n

Today, a tie is considered an essential item of dress for many men across the world. Whether it is the western world or Japan or China, Premiers or Presidents or other political dignitaries always wear a tie and coat. However this dress code often appears absurd in India or Pakistan. So if a man anchoring a\u00a0\u00a0Hindi TV program puts on a tie to look well dressed, it appears otherwise. He looks as absurd as if India\u2019s Prime Minister Mr Modi were wearing a coat and tie while addressing the nation. Indian women usually wear the traditional \u00a0\u00a0sari<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, in India our political leaders, whatever party they may belong to, usually wear traditional dresses, and look dignified. As it is, the weather in most regions of the country is warm and it is good to wear a dress according to the weather. Similarly artistes dancing or playing the\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Sitar \u00a0<\/em>\u00a0look gorgeous in the traditional dress they wear.<\/p>\n

Without trying to hurt anyone, I end on a Hindi expression that means a tie worn by a man can easily be used to strangle his throat.<\/p>\n

Be careful while wearing a tie.<\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Dr Ravi P Bhatia is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>, an<\/em> educationist, Gandhian scholar and peace researcher. Retired professor, Delhi University. His new book, <\/em>A Garland of Ideas\u2014Gandhian, Religious, Educational, Environmental was published recently in Delhi.<\/em> ravipbhatia@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

22 Dec 2020 – All over the world there are differences between people. These are related to their racial and religious backgrounds, languages spoken, educational achievements, economic prosperity, etc. In addition, there are vast differences in the ways people dress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":166069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}