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.

Keywords:

• Pugree
• Dress
• Symbolic capital
• British India
• Colonial governance

Notes

1 The position of the colonists on the loinclothed native body can be understood from the opinion expressed by Emma Roberts in the 1830s –

…in Bengal where the lower orders of palanquin bearers wear very little clothing; it is not agreeable to a female stranger to see them walk into drawing-rooms, and employ themselves in dusting books or other occupations of the like nature. It would be highly disrespectful in any of the upper servants to appear in the presence of their masters without their turbans, or any other garment usually worn, but these things are deemed quite superfluous by the inferior classes, and they never seem to think that they can shock anybody by scantiness of their drapery or the incognity of their appearence.

2 Solvyns, Balt, 1804, The Costume of Indostan, Elucidated by Sixty Coloured Engravings with Descriptions in English and French, Taken in the Years 1798 and 1799, London: Published by Edward Orme, Plate VIII.

3 Ibid.

4 “The palankeen-bearers are here called hamauls (a word signifying carrier); they for the most part wear nothing but a turban, and a cloth wrapped round their loins, a degree of nakedness which does not shock one, owing the dark colour of the skin, which, as it is unusual to European eyes, has the effect of dress.”

5 Let’s look at the matter in his language—

I must not judge from the appearances in India. The climate does not demand the use of clothes. The people, I am told, when they are chez eux (or at home), take off as much of their cotton covering as they can. But I see a native “swell” pass me in the tatterdemalion shigram, or a quaint little shed upon wheels, a kind of tray placed in a bamboo framework, and he is dressed in shawls and wrapped in profuse clothes. That signifies nothing. “Those fellows like to show how rich they are by sporting fine cashmeres and gold embroidery. ““Then when men are rich the dress well, and nakedness and rags are a sign of poverty?” “My dear Sir, you are a griff, you don’t understand those niggers yet.”

6 We should look at Briggs’s (1828, 32–33) complete statement—

“It is sometimes asserted that our government should interpose to put a stop to this … proceeding.” Bigotry is easily alarmed at the idea of persecution, and if such notion were once to gain ground in India, it is difficult to say where the consequences might end. The very idea of prohibition would probably excite a vast number more to sacrifice themselves than before, not only as devotees to the deity, but as martyrs to uphold their religious prejudices …. In case of any attempt to put it down by force, the cry of “Religion is in danger” would everywhere be heard.

7 Ferdinand Mount (2015, 27) wrote about the initial reactions of British officials about the dress code of Madras army at early nineteenth century,—

“What was not tolerable to the authorities were the sloppiness and the erratic dress codes of the native troops who were guarding the princes. Commanding officers just landed from Europe were driven mad by the lack of soldierly trim everywhere in Madras Army.”

8 Another purpose of the “print” is to convey the romanticism of colonial sovereignty based on the uniform of sepoys. Expressing this consciousness originating from their history, the British East India Company densified new problems in a fledging colony like India; because there was a division between the interests of colonizer and the interests of colonized. It was not yet time for the colonizers to come to the following revelations—

“When I first put this uniform on,/I said as I looked in the glass./ It’s one to a million if any civilian,/My figure and form can surpass” (Woolman 1922).

9 Norbert Peabody (1991, 727–728) wrote,

“…Vallabha deities often eluded the imminent arrival of the “iconoclastic Mughal horde” by being concealed in the turbans of temple servants (most Vallabha images are only a few centimeters tall) and whisked away undercover to new locales of save heaven.”

A piece of cloth attached to the head is here protecting the deity, a centre of religious capital of a group of people from the attack of the heathen. In the Great Mutiny and Vellore Mutiny, the natives wanted to preserve their identity with the same cloths. Thus, it can be said, subconsciously our clothes carry and protect the charisma of our personality.

10 Solvyns, Balt, 1804, The Costume of Indostan, Elucidated by Sixty Coloured Engravings with Descriptions in English and French, Taken in the Years 1798 and 1799, London: Published by Edward Orme, Plate III.

11 In Brigg’s (1828, 134) words,

“They were not aware that latter appendages, which are by no means unseemly, and which gave no offense in the French army to Buonaparte were worn by the Mohammedans not merely as ornaments, but is token of devotion, as slaves to the shrine of some particular saint, to whom vows had been offered up for the fulfillment of objects which had been attained.”

12 Those who wore earrings were very specifically referred to as followers of Islam here. According to Briggs, wearing these rings was a sign of loyalty to their religious saints. From this statement, it can be inferred that this practice was prevalent among the followers of Sufi saints. When any religion spreads beyond its place of origin, it has to change its outer appearance a little, depending on the customs of the locals. In this case too it may have happened. Otherwise, loyalty to God would not be displayed in such a way in any country in the Middle East. Because in Exodus, the second book of the Torah of Judaism (one of the rivals of Islam in Abrahamic religions), piercing ears and wearing earrings was seen as a sign of eternal allegiance to God. In Exodus (21:1–6), it was said that—

When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing…But if the slave plainly says, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,” then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.

13 John Craddock, The Commander-in-chief’s record, Minute, 21 August 1806, Compiled in Copies of Correspondence of Government of Fort St. George Regarding the Mutiny at Vellore, vol. III, Home Department, Miscellaneous Branch, National Archive of India, New Delhi.

14 In the words of the report –

I now beg permission to close this question, that however diversity of opinion may prevail as to the origin or exact which this regulation had been carried in the service, the interference in my judgments far as words can express either on the former occasion or the present in the “injurious” and “weak” to every degree of reprobation.

John Craddock, The Commander-in-chief’s record, Minute, 21 August 1806, Compiled in Copies of Correspondence of Government of Fort St. George Regarding the Mutiny at Vellore, vol. III, Home Department, Miscellaneous Branch, National Archive of India, New Delhi.

15 In Marshman’s (1813, 3) word, –

Discussion, especially of a religious nature, is familiar with the Hindoos; it agrees with their taste, and the country is almost full of it. … I have heard it also mentioned as one cause of detestation in which the Hindoos always held the Mohametan governments in India, that they were constantly hostile to religious discussion, which I believe is a strong feature in all Mohametan Governments.

16 Marshman (1813, 5) narrated the conspiracy of Tipu’s family thus—

“They have commanded you to efface all marks of caste while on duty, but what is this, but a prelude to compelling you all together to obliterate them, nay, to renounce caste and embrace the religion of Eesa.”

17 Solvyns, Balt, 1804, The Costume of Indostan, Elucidated by Sixty Coloured Engravings with Descriptions in English and French, Taken in the Years 1798 and 1799, London: Published by Edward Orme, Plate III.

18 Wilson (1883, 169–70) wrote about this dress code, –

It is ordered by the regulation that a native soldier shall not mark his face to denote his caste, or wear earrings when dressed in his uniform; and it is further directed that at all parades, and upon all duties, every soldier of the battalion shall be clean shaven on the chin. It is directed also that, uniformity shall as far as it is practicable, be preserved in regard to the quantity and shape of the hair on the upper lip.

19 Marshman (1813, 6) gave an example to illustrate the caste discrimination in indigenous Hindu society, –

… Nimmi Mullik, one of the richest Hindoos in India, died a few weeks since, and left an order for three lacks of rupees, nearly thirty-six thousand pounds, to be distributed at his Sradda, or funeral feast. Brother Carey a day or two ago asked several of his pundits why they had not applied for a share … They replied with apparent abhorrence that they would not on any account touch a cowrie of the money. … Would you know the reason why these Hindoos were so averse in this instance to touching money? Nimmi Mullik was a soodra, of the caste of goldsmiths, which happens to be a degree lower than that of the Khidmitgai! caste is therefore a remora of the most serious kind of Military subordination.

20 The report reads –

I apprehend there cannot be a difference of opinion upon the necessity of the fullest enquiry into every part of the public conduct … The public will ask, and they have a right to be satisfied … how an officer entrusted with that height and delicate responsibility and possessing every means to facilitate discovery and detection could have so long ignorant of the proceedings of the princes and their adherents … .

Mr. Petri lays before the Board of Enquiry, Letter, 21 August 1806, Madras, Compiled in Copies of Correspondence of Government of Fort St. George Regarding the Mutiny at Vellore, vol. III, Home Department, Miscellaneous Branch, National Archive of India, New Delhi.

21 John Craddock, The Commander-in-chief’s record, Minute, 21 August 1806, Compiled in Copies of Correspondence of Government of Fort St. George Regarding the Mutiny at Vellore, vol. III, Home Department, Miscellaneous Branch, National Archive of India, New Delhi.

22 Solvyns, Balt, 1804, The Costume of Indostan, Elucidated by Sixty Coloured Engravings with Descriptions in English and French, Taken in the Years 1798 and 1799, London: Published by Edward Orme, Plate XXXIV.

23 There was no reason to think that this process of unification was a new import of the nineteenth century. In 1798, i.e., after the introduction of Permanent Settlement in Bengal, we can see this process in the Dress Code of Native Army –

The want of general uniformity, in the Dress of our native Corps, is a circumf(s)tance that cannot have escaped common observation; but Commanding Officers exercising a latitude in this respect, think perhaps, that it would argue a poverty of taste, to lean to others for a grace.—Variety is therefore so much indulged, that scarce two battelion in the service have a mutual coincidence in Dress.

24 In May 1806, Adjutant General Agnew introduced new regulations and men of the second battalion of the 4th regiment were ordered to wear the new type of turban, which was popularly known as “Agnew hat” among the native sepoys.

25 To the Chief Secretary to the Government Fort George, From Headquarter Southern Division of Army, Trichinopoly, Letter, Compiled in Copies of Correspondence of Government of Fort St. George Regarding the Mutiny at Vellore, vol. III, Home Department, Miscellaneous Branch, National Archive of India, New Delhi.

26 Examination of Saikh Abdul Cawder of the 7th Company of the 2nd Battalion 23rd Regiment, taken at Trichinopoly on the 15 August 1906. Compiled in Copies of Correspondence of Government of Fort St. George Regarding the Mutiny at Vellore, vol. III, Home Department, Miscellaneous Branch, National Archive of India, New Delhi.

27 The same statement came out in the words of the then Governor General of Madras, Lord Bentinck (1809, 37)—

“It was maintained that the Mussulman had formed, previously to any suspicions on our part, a deep and widely extended conspiracy with the express object of re-establishing the dominion of the Moors on the ruins of the British power that the conspiracy was rapidly maturing, when the temporary irritation in the Army offered to the conspirators an occasion of hastening the explosion, which must at any rate have soon taken place, that after the massacre, the same projects were pursued with ardour and assiduity that plots the most dangerous and desperate extended, by a regular chain of communication from one end of the peninsula to the other.”

28 Watson, Forbes J., 1866, The Textile Manufactures and the Costumes of the People of India, London: Published by George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, Plate I (Left and central both the photographs were of Dr. Simpson, right one was of J. C. A. Dannenberg).

29 One of the commentaries on Vedic sacrifice, mythology, and symbolism.

30 Watson, Forbes J., 1866, The Textile Manufactures and the Costumes of the People of India, London: Published by George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, Plate II.

31 Watson, Forbes J., 1866, The Textile Manufactures and the Costumes of the People of India, London: Published by George Edward Eyre and William Spottiswoode, Plate II (Photograph by Shepherd and Robertson).

32 The President records the following Minutes, Letter, Compiled in Copies of Correspondence of Government of Fort St. George Regarding the Mutiny at Vellore, vol. III, Home Department, Miscellaneous Branch, National Archive of India, New Delhi.

33 On the question of dramatism, Marx’s essay on “The East Indian Question”, published in “The New York Daily” in 1853, provides an indication of the ideas about the oriental dress that were flowing among European intellectuals. In Marx’s words, –

…the Great Mogul…is allowed $120,000 a year…a most heavy charge upon a people living on rice, and deprived on first necessaries of life…. His authority does not extend beyond the wall of his palace, within which the Royal idiotic race, left to itself, propagates as freely as rabbits…There he sits on his throne, a little shriveled yellow old man, trimmed in a theatrical dress…much like that of dancing girls of Hindostan. On certain state occasions, the tinsel- covered puppet issues forth…. strangers have to pay a fee… as to any other saltimbanque (street performer) exhibiting himself in public; while he in his turn, presents them with turbans, diamonds etc. [But] the Royal diamonds are…. ordinary glass, grossly painted [and] break in the hand like gingerbread.

34 Letters to the Secretary to the Board of Revenue, Land of Revenue Dept.; The Secretary to the Board of Revenue, Miscellaneous Revenue Dept.; All Commissioners of Divisions; All District Officers; Commissioner of Police, Calcutta; Inspector General of Civil Hospitals, Bengal; Sanitary Commissioner, Bengal; Inspector General, Lower Provinces; Inspector General of Jails, Lower Provinces; Inspector General of Registration, Lower Provinces; Director of Public Instruction; Port Officer, Calcutta; Protector of Emigrants; Superintendent of Emigration, Calcutta; Embarkation Agent, Goalundo; Conservator of Forests; Superintendent of Botanical Garden, Calcutta; Meteorological Reporter, Bengal; Bengali Translators to Govt.; Accountant General; Director of the Dept. of Land Records and Agriculture, Bengal; Hindi Translator to Govt.; Uriya Translator to Govt.; Orders Regarding the Dress of Clerks in Govt. Offices, 7 January 1892, General Dept., Miscellaneous Branch, West Bengal State Archive, Kolkata.

35 In the words of that etiquette book,

Whatever kind of dress you wear, be clean and neat in your person and attire. Keep your fingernails short and free from dirt. Be careful that there are no buttons missing from your shirt or your chapkan. If you wear a “brimless cap” or skull-cup of any kind, see that it is not soiled with dust or grease; but in your social intercourse with Europeans, it is better to wear either the shamla or the mogli pagri (Webb 1890, 10).

36 Atkinson, George Francklin, 1859, “Curry & Rice,” on Forty Plates; or The Ingredients of Social Life at “Our Station” in India, London: Published by Day & Son, “OUR JUDGE”.

37 Resolution on the question of Native Gentleman being required at reception, public or private or in courts of Justice to appear with their shoe,19th March 1868, Proceeding No.20, Political Department, January 1880, West Bengal State Archive, Kolkata.

38 To the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, from Tarini Coomar Ghose, Deputy Magistrate of Malda, Proceeding No-19, January 1880, Political Dept., West Bengal State Archive, Kolkata.

39 To the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, from Tarini Coomar Ghose, Deputy Magistrate of Malda, Proceeding No-19, January 1880, Political Dept., West Bengal State Archive, Kolkata.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

43 Baboo Parbutty Churn Roy, Deputy Magistrate of Dacca; Baboo Chandra Coomar Datta, Deputy Magistrate of Mymensingh; Baboo Anund Chunder Sen, Deputy Magistrate of Backergunge; Moulvie Mohabut Ali, Moonsif of Goalundo; Baboo Mohini Mohun Chuckerbutty, Deputy Magistrate of Shahabad; Baboo Judoopoti Banerjee of Comillah; Baboo Ram Chandra Mookerjee, Honorary Magistrate of Kishnaghur.

44 To the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, from Tarini Coomar Ghose, Deputy Magistrate of Malda, Proceeding No-19, January 1880, Political Dept., West Bengal State Archive, Kolkata.

45 Prabhatkumar Mukhopadhaya also wrote in his post-independence memoir—“The Hindu Bengalis were always bareheaded—they had no ‘national’ headdress, and still don’t have” (Author’s translation from Bangla; Mukhopadhaya Boishakh 1367/1960, 110–111).

Contemporeous with this opinion of Tarini Kumar Ghosh, Shib Chunder Bose expressed much the same opinion in his book, “A simple dhootee and dubjah, with perhaps an alkhala on the back and folded pugree on the head, constituted the dress of a Bengali not long before the battle of Plassey.”

46 To the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, from Tarini Coomar Ghose, Deputy Magistrate of Malda, Proceeding No-19, January 1880, Political Dept., West Bengal State Archive, Kolkata.

47 To the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, from Tarini Coomar Ghose, Deputy Magistrate of Malda, Proceeding No-19, January 1880, Political Dept., West Bengal State Archive, Kolkata.

48 Ibid.

49 Sirkar means “the supreme authority” and Bahadur is “a hero or champion”. Sirkar Bahadur is a title affixed commonly with the sovereign ruler of British Raj.

50 It says—“…any matter connected with the official position which he occupies.”

To the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, from Tarini Coomar Ghose, Deputy Magistrate of Malda, Proceeding No-19, January 1880, Political Dept., West Bengal State Archive, Kolkata.

51 Letter forwarded from the office of Lieutenant Governor to Tarini Coomer Ghosh, Deputy Magistrate of Malda; Baboo Parbutty Charan Roy, Deputy Magistrate of Dacca; Baboo Chandra Coomer Dutta, Deputy Magistrate of Bukergunj; Moulvie Mohabat Ali, Moonsif of Goalundo; Baboo Mohini Mohan Chuckerbutty, Deputy Magistrate of Sahabad; Baboo Jodupati Banerjee, Deputy Magistrate of Comilla, Tipperah; Baboo Ram Chandra Mookerjee, Honorary Magistrate of Krishnanagar, Nuddea; February 1880, Political Department, West Bengal State Archive, Kolkata.

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid.

55 Even in 1911, Lit. Col. Maxwell issued an instruction for Military Secretary’s Office. that clearly stated, “In the case of Bengali gentlemen the head dress should be Pugree generally known as Shamla or Mouratta, and not a brimless cap.”

From F. A. Maxwell, Lit. Col., Military Secretary to the Viceroy, To Military Secretary’s Office, No. 1899-M, Simla 9th May 1911, in The Gazette of India, Legislitive Department, Govt. of India.

56 Letter forwarded from the office of Lieutenant Governor to Tarini Coomer Ghosh, Deputy Magistrate of Malda, Political Department, West Bengal State Archive, Kolkata.

57 During the Civil disobedience movement of 1930, a Native policeman of Katwa region in Bengal, threw off his red pugree and said, “Naukri nei karega” (I will not do this job). He was arrested by the colonial law enforcement, as it was a crime against colonial authority.

To understand how the red turban and the colonial police administration became synonymous, a statement by Bijonbihari can be cited.—“Police constables in Bengal wear Coat, pant and red turban. But it is to the headgears that our attention is particularly drawn. So we mean police constable by ‘red turban.’ …” (Author’s translation from Bangla; Bhattacharjee, Shraban. 1343 Bangabda)

58 Therefore, the turban also started to become a medium of expression of western educated sophistication. So the western educated native Bengalis did not hesitate to wear Cashmere shawl pugree even on hot days to show their craft of sophistication (Bose 1881, 194).

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Sumit Kanti Ghosh

Sumit Kanti Ghosh is at present a Doctoral Researcher under the guidance of Dr. Utsa Ray at Department of History, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. His main theme of research is “Colonial Body, Society and State: Sartorial Taste of Bengali Middle Class Male, 1850–1920.”

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