Paper short abstract:

The fashion industry in India thrives in a crucible which amalgamates tradition and modernity. A new debate is opened up when Indian fashion is studied through the analytic aperture of ‘Museology’ which can lead us back to India under British rule and early post-Independence imagination of the nation.

Paper long abstract:

The fashion industry in India thrives in a strange crucible which amalgamates tradition and modernity. An investigation into this, may lead us to post Independence debates and to earlier still, the British rule and the colonial era. In my paper, I shall recall the tussle between ideas of tradition and modernity in the initial years after Independence, whereby the new nation drew her symbols from pre-colonial tribal and ethnic culture, the rural landscape with its autochthonous arts and crafts emerging as the site of recovery of pristine and essential India in visual culture such as art and cinema. The Government backed propagation of the national idea domestically and abroad embraced a 'heritage industry' which promoted ethnic jewellery, crafts, textiles and motifs. The paradigm that emerges in such exhibitionary complex is a colonially inherited 'aesthetic of primitivism'. This opens up a new debate when Indian fashion is studied through this analytic aperture of 'Museology'. An important acolyte for the emerging exhibitionary complex of the nation was colonial anthropology which studied races and tribes of the colonies along with their rituals, customs, religion and habits as collectibles. Such depictions would serve as future indices for identification of the people of India. In world forums and beauty pageants/contests representations need to fit into these preformatted stereotypes, into which India readily plays into. However, it is interesting to see how the twin insinuating modalities of seduction and alienation, through which a typically urban fashion industry succeeds, are given new nuances as it copes with the onslaught of globalisation.