NCERT Solutions Class 9 Social Science Chapter 8 Clothing A Social History

1. Explain the  reasons for the  changes in clothing patterns and  materials in the  eighteenth century.

Answer:

(i)Before the age of democratic revolutions and the development of capitalist markets in eighteenth-century Europe, people's  dressing  pattern reflected  their  regional codes.

(ii)They were limited by the types of clothes  and the cost of materials that  were available in their  region.

(iii)Ciothing styles  were also strictly regulated by class, gender  or status  in the  social hierarchy.

(iv)After the eighteenth century, the colonisation of most of the  world by Europe, the spread  of democratic ideals and the  growth of an industrial society, completely changed  the ways in which  people thought about  dress and its meanings.

2. What were the  sumptuary laws  in France?

Answer:

From about  1294  to the time  of the French Revolution in 1789, the people of France had to strictly follow  what were known  as 'sumptuary laws.' The laws tried  to control  the behaviour of those  considered social inferiors, preventing them  from  wearing  certain  clothes, consuming certain  foods and beverages (alcohol) and hunting game in certain  areas.

3. Give any  two  examples of the  ways in which European dress  codes  were different from Indian dress  codes.

Answer:

(i)In Europe, dress codes were  part  of social norms  that were enacted  as laws.  Such laws regulated various cultural activities (dressing and food). 

(ii)There were no formal sumptuary laws in India  but strict  social codes of food and dress structured in the caste system.

4. In 1805,a British official,Benjamin Heyne,listed the manufactures of Bangalore which included the following:

Women's cloth of  different musters and names

Coarse chintz

Muslins

Silk clothes 

Of this list, which kind of cloth would have definitely fallen out of use  in the early 1800s and why?

Answer:

Muslins  would  have fallen  out of use due to industrialisation in the textile industries. Factories produced  surplus  materials which  had flooded  the Indian markets and was cheaper.  Muslin  was very  expensive and hence was not used by the majority of the people.

5. Suggest reasons why women in nineteenth century India were obliged to continue wearing traditional Indian dress even when men switched over to the more convenient Western clothing. What does this show about the position of women in society?

Answer:

(i)When western-style clothing came into India  in the nineteenth century, men began incorporating some elements  of western-style clothing  in their  dress.

(ii)Western-style clothing was also especially  attractive to groups  of dalit  converts to Christianity who now found  it Iiberating.

(iii)However, in all communities, it was men who enjoyed the  modernity and progress  of the changes in the dressing pattern, but denied  the same to women.

6. Winston Churchill described Mahatma Gandhi as a 'seditious Middle Temple Lawyer' now  'posing as a half  naked fakir'. What provoked such a comment and what does it tell  you about the  symbolic strength of Mahatma Gandhi's dress.

Answer:

Winston  Churchill described  Mahatma  Gandhi as a 'seditious Middle Temple Lawyer' now 'posing  as a half naked fakir' because of the latter's decision  to dress like poor Indian peasants  to highlight their  suppressed  socio­ economic  conditions. He wore the short  dhoti  without a shirt  when he went  to England  for the  Round Table Conference  in 1931, and did the same even before  King George Vat  Buckingham Palace. It provoked Churchill to make such a comment. Gandhi's  simple  dress signified how he identified with poor Indian peasants  and their  conditions and the political strength Gandhi  derived  from  such facts.

7. Why  did Mahatma Gandhi's dream of clothing the nation in khadi appeal only  to some  sections of Indians?

Answer:

(i)Mahatma Gandhi's  dream  was to clothe  the whole nation  in khadi.  He felt khadi  would  be a means  of erasing  difference between  religions, classes, etc.

(ii)It was not easy for all classes to follow  his appeal.  Not many  could take to the  single peasant  loincloth as he had.

(iii)However, some of the leaders  and nationalists responded  to Mahatma  Gandhi's  call.

(iv)  Nationalists such as Motilal  Nehru, a barrister from Allahabad, gave up his Western-style suits and adopted the Indian dhoti  and kurta. But these  were not made of coarse cloth.

(v)Victims of the caste system  were attracted to Western dress styles. Therefore, unlike  Mahatma  Gandhi, other nationalists such as Babasaheb  Ambedkar, a Dalit  leader, never  gave up the  Western-style suit.  Many Dalits  began in the early  1910s  to wear three  piece suits, and shoes and socks on all public  occasions, to demonstrate their political statement of self-respect.

(vi)A  poor woman  from  Maharashtra wrote  to Mahatma Gandhi in 1928  about  her husband's  concern  about  very expensive price of khadi.