In April 2020, when India’s prime minister Narendra Modi delivered a televised address extending the country’s coronavirus lockdown, he began by lowering the piece of red-and-white cloth wrapped around his nose and mouth. This seemed like a gesture of solidarity with the millions of poor Indians who, unable to find or afford a mask, have had to improvise one. What he had around his face was the checked cotton towel—long as a scarf, thin as a napkin, cheap as a bag of potatoes—known as a Gamcha.

When the nation’s most powerful man wears the staple cloth of the nation’s poorest like a badge of honor, it is no accident.

It immediately elevates the item to a national symbol, taking it from its mofussil roots and transforming it. That is exactly what happened when Prime Minister Narendra Modi wore a gamcha in his video conferences on coronavirus. In that one moment, the gamcha joined a select wardrobe that includes Jawaharlal Nehru’s jacket, Indira Gandhi’s ikats, and Rajiv Gandhi’s shawl.
Gamcha - a word that conjures up images of hard-working men and women, sons of the soil, toiling away, and rightly so. The trusty gamcha has been the working-class man’s essential companion through the ages.

A basic breakdown of the word gives us a clear understanding of where the name comes from. “Ga” means “body” and “mocha” means “to wipe roughly”.

The gamcha is known as the most versatile piece of clothing, the gamcha has been a savior for a huge population living in the vast sub-continent and is climatically tropical. Worn by rural men in the early years while working in the farms or through their day jobs as a turban, scarf or skirt (if the length allows) in the heat to wipe the sweat and keep them cool, this handwoven accessory has come a long way, to become a fashion statement worn by both men and women.
In 72 years of India being a Republic, our sense of dress has evolved. From indigenous garments that have stayed unchanged for village dwellers to the appropriation of ethnicity by new elites, the country has its own distinctive style that has resisted globalizing influences.

The gamcha is one of India’s most enduring and versatile garments, a sartorial workhorse usually seen dangling around the neck of working-class and rural men. Used scores of times a day to wipe the sweat off the face, it eases the tribulations of the sun-scorched field and street, the airless warehouse, and the seething kitchen.

Why is this love for gamcha so strong with the people of this region?

This love for the gamcha maybe is because the cloth stands for many things: devotion (when you present it in a worship hall), love and affection (there is no greater gift than a hand-woven gamcha for a loved one, as seen in the Assamese culture) and respect (when you honour elders).
Farmers keep the gamcha on their shoulders to wipe away the sweat while toiling in the scorching sun, the whole day long. Sometimes, they also spread it out on the ground like a mat and take a nap on it. In ancient India, travelers used the gamcha to carry food in it while journeying.
It also forms one of the essential items offered to Indian deities during religious ceremonies. Perhaps, the best thing about a gamcha is that being thin, it does not take long to dry and thus can be used many times during a day.

In the cloth, is a devotional submission to God and people.

As a drape or in a tailored form, the humble gamcha, a piece of Indian textile got a new lease of life when Anurag Kashyap screened his ambitious saga Gangs of Wasseypur.

This was not the first time that Bollywood was glorifying this piece of chequered cloth. It has been featured on the big screen time and again. Teaming up his leather jacket with a red gamcha, Amitabh Bachchan famously danced to Kajra Re in Bunty Aur Babli. In the 1991 movie Hum he wooed Kimi Katkar with gamcha adding to his roguish charm. Gamcha has been a permanent fixture in case of rustic characters — be it Aamir Khan's in Lagaan and that of Salman Khan and Shah Rukh Khan in Karan Arjun.

Thus Gamcha — the thin, coarse, traditional cotton towel from the Indian subcontinent that is used to dry the body after bathing or wiping sweat — became one of the most iconic accessories in Bollywood.

In April 2020, our Prime Minister stated that perception regarding the mask is also about to change. He went on to say that mask will now become a symbol of civilized society. If you want to save yourself and others from disease, then you will have to use a mask. And, I have a simple suggestion, 'Gamcha'," he added.

I am sure with the right design and marketing strategies, handwoven gamchas ensure a sustainable future for a section of Indian craftspeople? 

Exploring the design potential of the gamcha can directly benefit the medium- to low-skilled crafts clusters that produce these fabrics.

RELATED TOPICS:#Apparel,Sanjay Lal