Why Rahul Gandhi wore a bandhgala in London and Cambridge

During the 2019 general election campaign, the Indian media breathlessly reported the rapturous response of Chennai college girls to the jeans-and-tee clad, dimpled Congress president, then just a year shy of 50. That he asked one girl to address him as Rahul — dropping the common ‘Sir’ suffix — was also parsed as his connect with young India. And the Congress won 8 of the 9 seats it contested in Tamil Nadu, contrary to its dismal showing elsewhere in India. In Kerala’s Wayanad, though, where Rahul Gandhi notched up an emphatic 4.3 lakh victory margin to combat the embarrassment of losing his pocket borough of Amethi in Uttar Pradesh in the same general election, he was seen in the more common political uniform of white kurta-pyjamas, with the occasional gold-bordered kasavu cloth around his neck. The wisdom of cutting one’s cloth according to the situation could not have been more apparent. So, with a couple of years to go for the next election and the ignominy of the 2022 state polls debacle still pinching, the appearance this week of a distinctly older looking — if not downright middle-aged — Rahul Gandhi in London and Cambridge University (where he completed an MPhil disputed by his opponents) in a bandhgala suit is intriguing. The obvious answer is that he (or his advisors) wanted to hark back to his father, Rajiv Gandhi, who loved that ensemble. [caption id=“attachment_10725641” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  Former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi addressing the Special Session of the United nations on Disarmament, in New York in June, 1988. Image courtesy MIB[/caption] In fact, it can be said that it was Rajiv Gandhi who brought this modern Indian alternative to the Western suit to the forefront internationally. Of course, the Beatles had worn versions of it in the 1960s, as had Sean Connery as James Bond in Dr No (as well as the eponymous villain of that movie) but top Indian leaders had not really warmed to it before Rajiv Gandhi. Maybe its structured construction and clean lines appealed to the airline pilot in him, used to uniforms. The bandhgala’s origins are rather unclear. One version says it was developed from the flared Rajput angarkha coat to become a staple of Indian royalty by the early 20th century. Others say it began as a synthesis of the Central Asian chapkan with the British frock coat. And still others aver that it was the result of a pragmatic shortening and simplifying of the long, formal achkan to be worn with trousers, initially with lampasses — side stripes along the seams. Ministers, government officials and Indian diplomats had taken to wearing bandhgalas quite early on, even as India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru developed his achkan, churidar and rose-in-buttonhole post-Independence sartorial style. Memorably, many photos of Nehru on foreign trips during the first decade of his tenure show him togged out in Western suits, ties and coats. It was his grandson who made the bandhgala a signature prime ministerial look abroad. [caption id=“attachment_10137231” align=“alignnone” width=“640”]  File image of Jawaharlal Nehru. News18 Hindi[/caption] Most Indian prime ministers since Rajiv Gandhi have also worn bandhgalas abroad, except his successor VP Singh who stuck to achkans and HD Deve Gowda who wore his usual dhoti and chappals. Narendra Modi, however, has often also ventured to wear long kurtas with the sleeveless jacket named after Rajiv Gandhi’s grandfather but now ‘modified’ for a new era, and a shawl if the weather necessitates. Still the prime ministerial connect of the formal bandhgala is apparent. But when Rajiv Gandhi visited London for the first time (just before becoming an MP in 1981) to attend the wedding of Prince Charles, he reportedly wore a silk achkan — the older, longer version of the bandhgala, unilaterally designated by his grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru as independent India’s ‘national dress’. But by the time he had become prime minister in 1984, the bandhgala was his ensemble of choice when meeting dignitaries, in India or abroad. Therefore, on his London visit in 1985 — his first foreign trip as India’s prime minister — umpteen photographs show a slim, smiling Rajiv Gandhi kitted out in immaculately tailored bandhgalas in sober shades of charcoal, grey and navy blue. Recently declassified British government documents about how he was assessed by British officials could have contributed to his son assaying a bandhgala on this London-Cambridge trip too, although visibly less well-tailored. “Rajiv is quietly spoken, courteous and diffident. He is not an intellectual, nor impulsive. He is a good listener and seems sincerely concerned to get to grips with India’s big national problems…. He is thus in many ways like his mother was before she became Prime Minister. His great advantages are that he is his grandfather’s grandson, his mother’s son…he is decent and an Indian aristocrat, and he is on the way to acquiring an all-Indian, not sectional, image.” While not all of the first few lines apply to Rahul Gandhi, the last sentence — allowing for a generational upgrade to great-grandfather’s great-grandson, etc — is very probably part of the assessment of the current Congress managers about his appeal to audiences abroad, if not in India. Accentuating that allusion to his former prime minister father with a sartorial hark-back just around the anniversary of Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in May 1991 is clever.

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Also Read **Rahul Gandhi’s Cambridge saga: When an abandoned, mocked scion cries out for Western approval** **Udaipur done, London Calling: As slow-mo Congress implosion continues, Rahul looks West to share his vision**

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In case that is indeed the intention, Rahul Gandhi could do with some design inputs as the bandhgala 2.0 has come a long way even from even his father’s days, though innovations can be dangerous too, as Prime Minister Modi found out to his chagrin. The pinstriped bandhgala he wore to greet US President Barack Obama in New Delhi in 2015 turned out to be monogrammed, leading to a social media storm and its auction in 2016, with the money going to the Clean Ganga initiative. The bandhgala has undoubtedly come into its own in the 21st century, becoming a wardrobe staple for Indian males of all ages and professions. With some variations in its cloth as well as style — such as using decorative buttons, leaving a gap between the edges of the stand-up collar for the shirt to peek through, wearing it open at the top with or without a silk cravat, or even totally unbuttoned — it suits every occasion and every climate as well. Clearly when it comes to jeans-and-tees as well as kurta-pyjamas, Rahul Gandhi has found combinations that click. With top designers from Raghavendra Rathore to Giorgio Armani pitching in to give the bandhgala a designer flair in recent years with different materials, lengths and cuts, it should not be difficult for Rahul Gandhi to find a style that suits his age, build and his purpose too, as he gears up once again for another (presumable) shy at that prime ministerial chair. The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed are personal. Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.