ঔপনিবেশিক বঙ্গদেশে বাঙালি ভদ্রমহিলার পোশাক ভাবনা/ Sartorial Practices of the Bhadramahilas (Middle-class women) in Colonial Bengal

Abstract

Anthropologists usually categorize the study of clothing under the umbrella of material culture. Although clothing, being a mere tangible and social thing, can be read as a silent language or a behavior. Clothing not only beautifies one’s body but also depicts the identity and plays a vital role in the wearer’s performance in everyday activities. In a different sense clothing can also be considered as an entity which is entangled with the concept of appearance and self-representation. It not only depicts the social positionality or the politics behind putting on a particular attire but also reflects the inner-self of the wearer. Clothes can be considered as the disguise in which we dissolve, the camouflage that allows us to keep something of ourselves in reserve. Therefore clothing can be seen or analysed from different perspectives and theoretical frameworks. Clothing or dress can also be considered as an index of racial, class, caste and gender discrimination. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to explore how dress can be considered as a tool to read gender in terms of social class. With the advent of British rule in India, especially in Bengal the introduction of English education and new bourgeois economy gave rise to the middle-class in colonial times. This introduction of English education not only refashioned the minds of the Indians with the tool of bookish knowledge but also reformed their social lifestyles. Thus the middle-class men also started reforming the antahpur (the inner quartets of their houses) with the tool of education. But in case of women’s education their pre-colonial ‘immodest’ dress has become social a constraint. Therefore their dress has been reformed drastically. Bengali periodicals, journals, manuals of late-nineteenth and twentieth century were replete with debates and instructions of dresses for the middle-class genteel women. But these instructions on dress not only constructed them as reformed, modest wives but also snatched away their agency on their choices of clothing. Therefore this paper aims to explore how dress can be considered as a tool which can control women’s body and sexuality and can make us think of the idea of agency in a different way.