Constructing Social Relationships through Clothes in Kutch, India
Miwa Kanetani
This study examines the manner in which an odhani - a head cover used by women in the Kutch District, Gujarat State, India - is worn, in order to explain how clothes create boundaries between the Hindus and Muslims.
The odhani is commonly found in Gujarat, including Kutch. The odhani, which refers to a cover for the head in Kutch, is made of two squarec meters of cloth, with a remarkable variety of materials, designs, and colors based on castes, age, and localities. The odhani functions as an amdhal, whereby women hide their faces behind the veil from their husband's father and elder brothers; the custom is traditionally practiced by married women both Hindu and Muslim in Kutch. The odhani was symbolic of a married woman with a living husband (suhagan). On her wedding day, the husband presents the bride with a tie-dyed odhani of special significance -- known as cumdadi -- and she can wear it as long as she is a suhagan. Cumdadi is considered to be auspicious, and is great significance to the suhagan in the Hindu context.
While both Hindus and Muslims have shared the significance of the odhani, they now assign new meanings to it. This paper discusses the process of how visible boundaries are created by clothes, in order to complete the traditional discussion on Muslim society, in which the Muslims are considered separate from Hindu society.