Say The Word

Jia Sharma (she/her)

Being Indian is something I haven’t always embraced. Like many Indian girls growing up in New Zealand, I tried hard to assimilate, blending into the culture around me while distancing myself from the one I came from. I wouldn’t talk about it, I wouldn’t let anyone see me wearing Indian clothes. I was ashamed. People already hated Indians, there were jokes about us smelling like curry, being scammers, being too loud, too much. I didn’t want to be a punchline. So I hid. And I wasn’t alone. Among the many brown girls I knew growing up, we all carried that same fear. At cultural events, we’d watch the crowd with anxious eyes, silently praying we wouldn’t run into anyone from school.

I’ve only recently come to love my culture and see the outstanding beauty in it. I not only started embracing it, but protecting it. It sounds strange to say now, but I used to not want my culture to define me. But it does. And it should. So I began slowly. I wore jhumkas with my jeans. I stopped scrubbing my mehndi off before school. I posted photos of myself in Indian clothes during Diwali. And nothing happened. No backlash. No ridicule. The world didn’t end. I wasn’t being "cool" by rejecting my roots, I was only hurting myself.

Now I love wearing clothes that represent where I come from. I love giving them new life and flair and spinning them in different ways. Diwali is one of my favourite times of the year. I get to dress in heavy jewellery and beautiful outfits that would seem overdressed to anyone else but is the norm for us. I’ve reached a place where I dress the way I do to make myself feel good, and to show the word the beauty in where I am from. 

And yet, people always find a way to ruin it. This time it was different. They weren’t making fun of the clothes we wear or how we look. They were taking it and playing it off as their own. I’ve already heard the cultural appreciation arguments, but that’s not what this is. I believe in the importance of sharing and learning from other cultures. But there’s a difference between appreciation and appropriation—and the line is drawn in how it’s done. We all remember Coachella-era appropriation: bindis, feathered headdresses, "boho-chic" outfits from celebrities like Vanessa Hudgens and Kendall Jenner. Today, it’s a little more insidious. It comes wrapped in rebrands. 

Take the recent ‘Scandinavian scarf’ discourse. If you’re not as chronically online as me, I’ll give you a run down. There’s recently been a large amount of people on social media and clothing companies referring to the South Asian dupatta as a ‘Scandinavian scarf’. 

Western designers have for a long time been inspired by South Asia and its culture and designs, sometimes unknowingly so. South Asian patterns such as Paisley and Chintz have become staples in Western fashion. But what we’re seeing now is more than inspiration, it’s erasure. Most recently, the clothing brands Oh Polly and Reformation have been found guilty of this. In March, Oh Polly posted a Tiktok of their new “Galia convertible gown”, a baby pink bejeweled bodice with matching pleated wide leg trousers. After thousands of commenters accused them of appropriation they stated that they will “be more mindful in ensuring that cultural elements are honoured with respect in our designs moving forward”. They proceeded to use this excuse to battle the comment section in the numerous other posts they made of this ‘convertible gown’. A few days later Reformation dropped their collaboration with model and influencer Devon Lee Carlson which featured a blue top, skirt, and scarf set that bore a remarkable resemblance to a ghagra choli. Reformation has not acknowledged the backlash it has since faced. 

To give some context, a dupatta is a traditional shawl worn with Indian dress with deep historical and cultural roots. It is traditionally worn with a salwar kameez or lehenga choli. It is particularly important in religious or ceremonial contexts. Whether it was used during prayer to cover the head or draped across the chest for modesty, it has both functional and symbolic purposes. 

In many religions, the dupatta is introduced to girls during puberty or a coming of age ceremony. Removing it from this context and labeling it "classy" only when stylized for Western runways is seen by many as a deliberate act of cultural dilution. However, the dupatta is not just an accessory. For centuries it has been a symbol of resistance for South Asian women. 

Dupatta were notably used as a symbol of resistance during the Mughal conquest. When Mughal warlords ravanged Indian civilisations they killed all the men, meaning that the women of these civilisations would be left at the hands of the Mughal men to rape and brutalise them. The story goes that the women left behind would then participate in an act of self sacrifice in a group by walking into a fire. They would much rather choose death than what could happen to them in the power of men. Before they walked into the fire they would cover their head with a dupatta as their final act of dignity and defiance, reclaiming their agency even in death. They could kill our men, but they couldn’t take our bodies from us.

The dupatta was also used in the fight for freedom against British colonialism. Sarojani Naidu and many other Indian women would only wear hand spun Indian fabric dupattas and rejected any British textiles as resistance. Rani Jind Kaur was an important figure of resistance who the British called ‘the only woman in India with the guts and brains to take on the Empire’. Because of the threat she posed to the Empire, they stripped her of all her political rights and power and imprisoned her. Throughout all of this, she kept wearing her dupatta. In 1984 in post-colonial post-partition Karachi, Pakistan, the women’s action forum staged a protest outside of the Karachi press club where they burned dupattas to condemn the increasing amounts of rape in their city. 

The dupatta is so much more than just a piece of clothing that can be altered and rebranded. Hundreds of women have fought to wear it. Calling it ‘the Scandinavian scarf’ is not only deeply disrespectful, but overthrows the massive cultural and historical importance of this garment. 

The issue here is not that people of other cultures are wearing traditional Indian clothing. It’s the fact that a large portion of people will only accept South Asian features and aesthetics and deem them desirable, or even acceptable, when it’s portrayed from a western lens. The word European is the selling point. It’s chic when they do it, but dirty when I do it. If these garments were marketed as what they are — dupatta, lehenga, ghagra choli — they wouldn’t be called elegant. They wouldn’t be high fashion. They’d be “foreign.”

The dupatta is not the only instance. For years, I have seen companies like Sherri Hill market Indian formal attire like lehengas as ‘two-piece prom dresses’. Younger me would never even think about wearing Indian clothes to the school ball, but watching white girls do it and get praised for it hurt. After centuries of colonisation and dehumanisation, it’s painful to watch the very things once used to mock us become marketable. Brands like Oh Polly and Reformation take these parts of our culture without acknowledging the history behind these pieces, and target them towards a different demographic. One they deem as worthy. 

Right now, anti-South Asian sentiment feels more intense than ever. I’ve seen comment sections filled with hatred. I’ve heard boys laugh at elderly women in saris. But when a white girl wears the same thing on a runway, it’s “elegant.”

The message this sends is clear: it’s not that people hate our culture. They just hate our culture on us.

I don’t want this to be the case. I want people to embrace my culture and I want to share it. I want them to see the full beauty in it that I do. But more than that, I want them to respect it. I want them to know what it means, what makes it important and why it is important. 

If you want to wear South Asian-inspired fashion, great. But know what you're wearing. Learn its name. Learn its history.

Wear the dupatta. But call it a dupatta.