Campus gear

Personal preference gives us the freedom to choose, but that choice must be in keeping with the degree of social acceptance and practice.

Clothing is a site where social identities are both constructed and contested, and hence where struggles over gender might occur. Along with the fashion phenomena, it is also a unique language and social system common to all cultures, complete with “codes” and “rules”. The emergent culture wars that have seemingly broken out between those who adhere to liberal thinking in which individual preference is all that matters and those who follow more conservative mores stem from a perspective which claims that two worldviews that transcend social groups are ultimately and fundamentally responsible for moral value attitudes.

The objection to how girls/women should dress, when in public, derives from a distinction between "high" or "legitimate" culture and "mass" or "popular" culture. This might be referred to as generational anxieties over what is permissible and what is forbidden.
Issues of dress, clothing tastes and public appearances are encoded in a belief system concerning the morality of consumption, conditions of self-worth, pursuit of individuality, relation of appearances to deeper character traits, dynamics of social relationships, gender roles and standards of tastes.

For the high priests of culture - those who have appropriated to themselves the role of judging between good and bad, moral and immoral - any dress, usually western outfits, that reveals is apa-sanskriti or corrupting-culture. They delude themselves into believing that as members of the dominant class, and with the institutions they control, they possess the power to concentrate and dictate certain cultural practices, thus certifying them as legitimate and permissible. Such a worldview is backed by a social system which is hierarchically ordered and, therefore, obedience, rather than outright defiance, ought to be the norm. So girls and women who defy the legitimacy of "decent clothing" and instead prefer tight jeans and tighter tops to more modest and traditional attire that cover the body become objects of condemnatory moralising. What is forgotten by the vanguards of culture, whether a college principal or a maulana, is that a saree, and now-a-days even salwar-kameezes, can be fashioned to reveal more than they can be tailored to conceal.

A fundamental question that is often overlooked in the culture wars over clothing is that restrictions and objections are directed more at girls/women rather than against boys/men. Bare-bodied men appearing in television or billboard adverts have seldom come under attack from the morality brigade as much as scantily-clad women. The bogey of the bawdy is raised in a manner that would otherwise appear that women are objects of reverence. What is at work here is that when culture, or so-called appropriate culture, influences action, it is often times the exercise of power of a dominant gender over a subordinate social category (women).

What’s cool

Why then do certain kinds of dress, thought to be inappropriate, cause trouble? The problem lies not just in the eyes of the beholders. Young Indian women, living in large, urban cities, are experiencing a post-modern consumer culture premised upon the pursuit of personal sovereignty through western brands and "cool" apparel. The deeper the neckline and shorter the hemline, the higher one is on the cool scale. Even parents, who should be reminding their children the pros and cons of a dress perceived to be provocative, shy away from doing so in the face of a variety of considerations, not least among them being their children too must look cool.

Such pressures pervade the middle and upper-middle classes which are more closely attuned to the changing times. In fact, what is often observable in cities like Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore is parents and children of the same gender falling head-over-heels to out-do each other in the attempt to look modern (read western), a concept that has been historically misunderstood by generations. Parental anxieties are not only restricted to admonishing a daughter to "dress decently" and in keeping with India's cultural ethos, if there is a monolithic culture, but, for the so-called-upwardly mobile, also extends to tacit encouragement to certain kinds of dress.

While personal preference gives us the freedom to choose, that choice must be in keeping with the degree of social acceptance and practice. And yet, spaghetti tops and low rise jeans should not be construed as corrupting Indian culture. There is no one Indian culture really. If that were so, cultural moralists must direct their ire at scantily clad adivasis or other indigenous peoples whose cultural moorings, incidentally, are far stronger than our West-aping youngsters.




One should have the freedom to dress the way one thinks fit. But freedom obviously means not doing something that infringes on somebody else’s freedom. That is the sense of true democracy. Besides, learning is not just what happens within the four walls of the classroom. Dressing is also a part of learning - how to fit in, how to express ourselves.

Nooraine Fazal, CEO, Inventure Academy.

Instilling dress sense among students, especially in co-educational institutions, is a must to prevent indiscipline.

That does not mean

banning a particular dress, but ensuring that any dress worn to the campus is decent and not provocative.  Yes, university means freedom but a very limited licence that does not give a student the right to strut around in campus in shorts with cigarette in hand. Even social clubs prescribe a dress code for members. So, why not on campus?

M K Panduranga Setty, President, Rashtreeya Shikshana Samithi Trust, which runs RV engineering college, NMKRV women’s college and others.


When it comes to deciding on what they (students) want to wear, there should be some restrictions at the very basic level.

N R Sapna, Lecturer in Department of Journalism, University of Mysore.




“Clothes are meant to enhance one’s personality. Proper dress always adds integrity to a student. While drafting dress code for students we have kept universal norms in mind.”

Sister Philomina, Principal, Jyoti Nivas College, Bangalore.



An academic campus must have a corresponding ambience. India has a rich culture and students are supposed to lead from the front to take that culture forward. A disciplined dress code will serve as an add-on to their charisma and it will help them to adapt easily to their future organisation set up.

Father Viju, Director of Students Affair, Christ University, Bangalore.