Dupatta: The Indian Women’s Veil of Honour

Disclaimer: This writing is purely intended to challenge the glorification and disciplining of dupatta culture in South India. This article doesn’t criticise the dupatta as an aesthetic accessory, but rather attempts to condemn the flawed definition of modesty and dignity of women attached to the dupatta. By problematizing the 2.5 metre fabric, this article questions the rudimentary composition of complex social stigmas that it symbolises. The author is well aware and conscious of her class privileges while involving conversations with domestic help, and was conscious in her attempt to convey personal stories carrying interpretations that convey conflict of beliefs in the appropriateness and gracefulness of a woman. This article requires the reader to think along and think aloud through its passages about the very fabric of how certain stereotypes are used to symbolise the character and validity of good women contributing to the perpetuation of patriarchy. The writing consists of a mention of sexual assault.

On a humid Sunday morning, beside the open window that carried still plants on its sill in the living room, I sat down with my strong filter coffee, and the akka who helps me with cooking joined me with her cup. We sat down talking about random things like her varicose veins that she developed with long hours of standing in other kitchens, and my forever-strained backbone that initially began troubling during my 19 hours of standing and working as an Assistant Director in the television industry. In the middle of our conversation, the house help akka comes out of the kitchen with the broom and jokingly comments on the sitting posture of cooking akka (a relaxed position on the ground with a hand on the sofa, one leg loosely folded outward, and the other leg spread wide on the floor). She bashfully spoke in a hushed tone with a tinge of sarcasm shown only in her facial expression, “sit like a gentle woman,” and instructed her to sit with her legs tightly closed to herself. Though I had an urge to interrupt and say it doesn’t matter how we sit, and it's all about how we are conditioned to sit as women by our society, I refrained from interrupting to see where the conversation was taking us. Both of them laughed about it as if it were a great joke, and the cooking akka immediately moved on to her next concern instead of answering her. She asked the cleaning akka to drop her dupatta while she was working. She added, “There are no men in the house right now. Why do you want to wear a dupatta while working in this scorching summer? Seeing you wear it as you work makes me feel uncomfortable.” Disapproving of the advice, the cleaning akka said, “I will lose my mobility and freeze if I remove my dupatta. I am used to wearing this from my childhood, and I feel naked if this isn’t there on my body.” As she responded, I saw her hands clasping her dupatta more firmly. It was as if she feared that it would be snatched away forcefully from her. After a few moments of silence, she convinced herself, detached the dupatta from her body, and kept it aside in one corner of the kitchen. She quietly continued working, and none of us spoke about that dupatta for the rest of the day until I discovered in the evening that the dupatta that she had shed away stayed in the same place as it was placed. I wondered how she forgot to wear it when she left the house. Maybe all it takes to challenge a socially conditioned practice is just a loud conversation among ourselves.

Though the conversations ended and both of them left for their next job, the stranded dupatta rekindled a bitter memory inside me. A memory of sexual assault that I experienced when I was studying class VIII. Whenever my memory brought back this scene without my permission, it always starts with me standing in front of the dressing table, pinning my yellowish fluorescent colour dupatta. The perpetrator stepped into my bedroom with an ill intention while my parents were away, and it was at the same moment while I was pinning my dupatta with a safety pin. The perpetrator was a constant gazer who worked as an office peon in the building right behind my house. Though I do not want to illustrate the scene, I wanted to elaborate on my understanding of it over the years. This incident has kept me thinking and rethinking about the connotations that a woman’s dress carries. The recurrent memories of the discomfort that he made me feel kept troubling me, and it so happened that I spent my teenage years blaming myself, assuming that I invited my perpetrator by not dressing appropriately. I blamed the nighties that I wore to fetch water from the water lorry during the summer, I blamed the shimmies that I wore while playing with my friends on the ground, I blamed the translucent t-shirts that I roamed around freely with, and I blamed myself for all the times when I refused to wear a dupatta. Maybe if I had had a circle of women who debated about the perceptions and patriarchy involved with dupatta, I may have fallen out of guilt sooner. I may have stepped out by not playing a part in the conditioned society, I wouldn’t have unanimously abided by the protocol of tolerance. Maybe all it takes to challenge a socially conditioned practice is just a loud conversation among ourselves.

The dupatta in this article is discussed keeping in mind the effect it creates when it catalyses a false notion of modesty and functions as a tool to inculcate insecurity of our own body. To a great extent, Women's clothing is often used as a basis for judging violence against them. The patriarchal society assumes a lot of control over women’s bodies, and dupatta is one of the tools that functionalises this control. The whole idea of how and with what the breast of a woman/ girl should be covered has been a constant disciplining act in many of the middle-class families. A woman’s breast is seen as a treasure of value that has to be accessed only by an owner, and if kept open to public access, it may be mishandled and robbed, leaving a loss in families' wealth, name and fame.

Wearing a dupatta is seen as protecting one's body from the surveillance of society. Snatching it away from a woman’s body is seen as taking away the pride and honour of that woman and that of her family and generations to come. A significant part of this taboo is nurtured by using dupatta as an allegory in Indian films to convey romantic and moral ideas. Kollywood had played a torch-bearing role in dramatising the flairs of dupatta. It tangibly and intangibly intensifies the gender biased behaviour patterns in the South Indian culture even today, and the media has played a significant role in constructing the ideas around dupatta. With regards to the term ‘gendering’, I adhere to what Nivedita Menon (2012) defines it as “how people are produced as ‘proper’ men and women through rules and regulations of different sorts; some of which we internalise, some of which had to be violently enforced” (Menon, 2012, ix).

Let’s talk about a couple of examples now. Take director Hari’s Singam (2010) movie, in which the heroine (Anushka) is teased by a rowdy in a theatre, and is humiliated by snatching her pink dupatta. She stands helpless without being able to get her dupatta back. Discovering the incident, her dignity is restored only after the hero (Surya) fights with all his rage, proving his masculinity to save womanhood. In Alavaikuntapuramulo (2020), a dupatta becomes the object of dispute between the hero and the rogues. To establish the heroism with style, there is a complete fight sequence that involves the hero (Allu Arjun) fighting for and using the dupatta as his weapon. The action sequence happens in the first place when the hero’s younger sister is ridiculed by grabbing and pulling her dupatta by a group of youngsters riding on a bike. We can notice a solid ten minutes of S.S. Rajamouli’s Maghadeera (2009) film building up the love story between the leads (Allu Arjun and Kajal Agarwal) by using the flairs of the heroine's dupatta to revive the connection between them in their previous birth. In most of the films dupatta is used as a site to intensify the masculinity of the hero and to establish the delicate femininity of the heroine in the storyline. It either helps brimming romanticism or upholds the stereotypes of religious idealism and sexism.

Like Superman's recognisable red cape, the dupatta is still seen as an extended protection gear of an average middle-class woman in India. The dupatta, other than protecting specific parts from the gaze of the other gender, is believed to also perform the duty of upholding the honour and dignity of the girl’s family. The presence and absence of the dupatta subjects a female body to public scrutiny and constantly leaves it a prey to the male gaze. Dressing for a woman is all about choosing between identities. The multiple dimensions of femininity are what is expected inside a woman’s wardrobe. The ideas of desirability always structure the outlook of women in a male-dominated society. However, the available options that lie in front of us are all multiple interpretations of what men wanted women to be, a composition of modesty and over-glorification of morality. A male interpretation of what women should wear to temple, how she should be dressed for the workplace, what can be her sports costume, what cannot be her wedding dress, date-night wears to first night wears are all the perceptions that women are subjected to.

At the age of 34, My wardrobe today doesn’t contain a single dupatta. It took years for me to resist, deny and burn the need for a dupatta in my life. The prolonged duration that it took to transgress the normative boundaries in my case may end up shorter or non-existent to another woman with loud conversations of this sort. Not that I got liberated by just shedding my dupatta, but it's more about realising our subconscious conditioning. There is a critical need for us to see tools like the dupatta as a symbol of gender hierarchy, as a tool that helps keep patriarchy in place. The need to be conscious about the induced sense of shame and obedience that comes with wearing a dupatta is more necessary now. A woman’s body is to be seen as a universal platform where power is contested and negotiated. Though it's ignored in the public spaces and silenced in private spaces, it’s significant that we reclaim our bodily agency and autonomy. Maybe all it takes to challenge a socially conditioned practice is just a loud conversation among ourselves.

In line with the arguments presented, here is a poem, you might want to read:

The Dupatta Discipline

You may forget to eat, forget to sleep, but forget not your dupatta.

You have come of age, quit your pinafore and wear your salwar with dupatta;

It's time for school, get ready, pin your dupatta;

The PT teacher may scold, make two folds of your dupatta and not three;

Running a 400 metres relay race makes it wiggle, wear a broader dupatta;

You may forget to eat, forget to sleep, but forget not your dupatta.

Cousin at the doorstep. Hurry, get a dupatta;

Brother’s friends are home, serve them coffee, bend with your dupatta;

Father is calling from the living room, attend to him after covering up with a dupatta;

We are visiting your grandparents, wear a long dupatta;

Uncle video calling from the U.S., attend the call with a dupatta;

You may forget to eat, forget to sleep, but forget not your dupatta.

Ding dong! The house bell rings, quickly wear your dupatta;

Stepping out of the house? Wear a dupatta;

Hand over the money to the milkman, go with a dupatta;

Need onions from the vegetable vendor on the street, go grab a dupatta;

Get some curd from your neighbour auntie, don't forget your dupatta;

Take a U-bend and wash the tiles properly, don’t wet your dupatta;

You may forget to eat, forget to sleep, but forget not your dupatta.

Hold it to your chest, tie it tight behind, pin it neatly, pull it lower, and shield it both ways.

Your feminine values, morals, modesty, and chastity all lie entangled within that dupatta.

Gazers may penetrate, gropers may sneak in, but anyway, hold tight to your dupatta.

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Dr. Sithara is currently an Independent researcher. Currently, she works on a “Tribal Children Education” project for the Tamil Nadu Welfare Department. She was an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mass Communication, St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata (2022-24). She

has completed her Ph.D “An Autoethnography on Child Labour in Tamil Reality Television” in the Department of Journalism and Communication, University of Madras. Before which she was freelancing for a private television channel for 9 years as an Associate Director and

Artist Co-ordinator for Reality shows. Her research areas of interest are Autoethnography, Childhood studies, Media & Labour, and Gender studies.