question_answer

Why was national dress needed to define the cultural identity?

Answer:

(i) A nationalist feeling swept across India by the late 19th century. Indians began devising cultural symbols that would express the unity of the nation.

(ii) Artists looked for a national style of art. Poets wrote national songs. Then a debate began over the design of the national flag.

(iii) The search for a national dress was part of this move to define the cultural identity of the nation in symbolic ways.

The Tagore family of Bengal experimented in the 1870s with designs for a national dress for both men and women in India.