2019 Lok Sabha Polls: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s experiments with clothing

Days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost five state Assembly elections, a small video clip of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, showing him repeatedly bowing before a rally, emerged on social media. His newly attained “humility” was pointed out by many online.

However, is it just his body language that has changed of late?

The Prime Minister has hogged headlines both inside the country and during his foreign trips for his choice of clothes. After his meticulously chosen colourful kurtas, vests, ceremonial turbans, paisley shawls, besides expensive suits and, yes, an impressive collection of hats, Modi now seems to have been projecting his sartorial simplicity through media and social media.

On Thursday, he made headlines for purchasing clothes from Khadi and Village Industries Board stall at Amdavad Shopping Festival in Ahmadabad. Surrounded by a battery of cameramen at the festival, organised on the sidelines of the ninth edition of the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, he was also seen using a RuPay card to pay for it.

Eventually, he posted his pictures on Twitter, saying, “At the Ahmedabad Shopping Festival I too could not resist from shopping! Purchased some Khadi products using the RuPay card.”

However, as soon as the pictures and a video clip emerged on social media, the users started taking jibes at the Prime Minister. While some viewed it as yet another publicity stunt ahead of forthcoming general elections, others wondered if he would ever use those clothes.

Recently, during his Port Blair visit, PM Modi had shared his “new look” on his official Instagram account to garner public attention. He posted two pictures, showing him wearing something other than his regular look. Modi was sporting a “mundu”, a garment worn around the waist in parts of Kerala and Karnataka and a kurta with a customary white “Uttariya” (traditional scarf).

Interestingly, the Opposition parties have hitherto loved to lampoon the “suit-boot” Prime Minister, maintaining that “Narendra Modi is always found in the company of people attired in suits and not those who are poor.”

Although, a traditional kurta made of either cotton or silk, usually paired with a white tight fitting churidar and a vest mark his signature look, he is also known for his weaknesses for designer watches, glasses and fountain pens.

It was in January 2015 that he hogged global headlines when US media found a new fashion icon in Modi. Incidentally, the suit which he wore during US president Barack Obama’s visit to India, had his name monogrammed in dull gold stripes. After the pictures went viral on social media, evoking criticism and ridicule, the controversial bandgala pinstripe suit had to be auctioned in Surat, Gujarat. During the state Assembly elections in Gujarat later, BJP gave a poll ticket to the brother-in-law of diamond merchant Lalji Patel, chairman of the Dharmanandan Diamonds Pvt. Ltd, who had bought PM Modi’s monogrammed suit for Rs 4.31 crore.

Though Narendra Modi’s critics scoff at his selection of clothing, he has, on several occasions, claimed that his “sense of style” is God’s gift to him.

In October last year, donning the famous Azad Hind Fauj cap, he sought to claim the legacy of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose by unfurling the Tricolour at the Red Fort to mark the 75th anniversary of the “Azad Hind government”.

In November last year, South Korean President Moon Jae-in tweeted pictures of vests gifted by PM Modi and triggered an online debate.

Modi has also claimed to have invented the half-sleeved kurtas, and going by a popular perception, he has patented it too. But it was long before he emerged on the country’s political scene that the half sleeve kurtas, which now have a hashtag #ModiKurta, were already in vogue just like the “Nehru Jackets”, according to his critics. Similarly, before Modi started wearing white tight fitting churidars, it was former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who used to wear them with nicely tailored “achkan”.

But then, over 23 of the BJP-led government’s “new” programmes have been merely renamed versions of schemes launched by the UPA government.

Though PM Modi—who invariably wears crisp and ironed clothes—loves to call himself a “Fakir” and “Chowkidaar”, he has visited 92 countries so far, costing a whopping ₹2,021 crore.