Body, Dress, and Symbolic Capital: Multifaceted Presentation of PUGREE in Colonial Governance of British India

Abstract

The association of colonial power with turban has not been made since the beginning of British rule in India. This link has been developed through various setbacks. The Britishers’ perceptions about the dress of the native employees was not as same in the 1880s–90s as it was in the 1800s. As the time progressed, the body-politics related to colonizer’s sartorial manners in India matured. By attaching the tag of “civilized” to own sartorial etiquette, the Britishers made their social etiquette inaccessible to the natives for power’s sake. It was from this mentality that the Britishers created an English-educated class in Indian Native society, who used to consider following many indigenous customs and manners tantamount to their backwardness. Wearing a turban was among one of them. Based on the turban, the sphere of symbolic power that was constituted in colonial India until the end of the nineteenth century will be discussed in this article.