Dressing to be a nation: Japanese and Indians experiencing nationalism, 1870s- 1920s
Summary
This thesis studies the features of emerging nationalism in India and Japan from 1870s to 1920s through dress.
The choice of period is crucial because it reflects the changes within Indian and Japanese nationalism through sartorial politics. For instance, around 1870s, in the case of Japan the emperor changed his clothing for the local and foreign audience and in India too heated debates regarding appropriate dress for public space began to emerge. Though both the nations began the search for a national sartorial style from a somewhat similar position, by 1920s the difference in their style became very stark. The choice of Japanese national sartorial style lay in contrast to the emergence of Gandhian politics and style of clothing which espoused non-violence as a response to counter colonialism.
Exploring the issue of nationalism through the lens of dress provides us opportunities to attempt an under researched cross-national study of India and Japan while bringing in people across social hierarchies into the study. It is to be noted that unlike intellectual knowledge, clothing was relatively accessible to many people, due to which a large number of actors (including the non-elites and the marginalized) can be included into the study. The thesis allows us to understand how dress was a reflection of people’s anxieties as well as their maneuverings to address the politics of the period. The chapters of the thesis are arranged in a manner to understand how Japanese and Indian people were responding not only towards Western imperialism but also to assert/contest their socio-political identity in the context of local politics.
The first main chapter (chapter two) begins with the elite men in India and Japan to understand how the most visible actors in both the regions were addressing the issue of nationalism through dress. The chapter makes the argument that, in order to understand modern political consciousness it is crucial that we take into consideration the pre-modern continuities of socio- political ideas which explain the relative ease through which the national leaders could maneuver their dress styles in the modern period. The following two chapters further discuss the trouble of elite nationalism in asserting its power not vis-à-vis the Western imperialism, but rather in the local context. As stated above, the material as well as the knowledge of dress politics, were not inaccessible to the people in general. These two chapters discuss the agency of politically marginalized men and women in articulating their socio-political identity through dress. The last main chapter (chapter five) of the thesis again returns to elite nationalism but through a discussion of next generation men whose style of addressing nationalism through dress was different from their predecessors, since they were aware of the problems faced by their predecessor’s style. By dividing the chapters of the thesis thematically, the thesis shows the active role of all the actors—
including the most politically oppressed—in asserting their identity in the period of flux. It is due to this the thesis used the term ‘Japanese’ and ‘Indians’ in the title of the thesis rather than the geographical region ‘Japan’ and ‘India’ to emphasize the role of people in making sense of their national consciousness.
