Measuring up mantriji

Thrice a month, Madhav Agasti flies to Delhi to meet political bigwigs. Members of the ruling alliance and the opposition readily give him an audience. From LK Advani to Farooq Abdullah and Praful Patel to Sharad Yadav, he has access to the high and mighty in the power corridors. The humble measuring tape and fabric samples — the tools of his trade — opens these influential doors to him. Agasti is the man behind the three-buttoned jackets of Advani and the khadi kurtas that Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar unfailingly sports.

Miles away in Ahmedabad, Bipin Chauhan has secured the trademark rights for the half-sleeved, buttoned-up Modi kurta, which now retails in India and abroad. Tailor to the BJP’s PM candidate, Chauhan has seen Narendra Modi’s dress sense evolve from his days as a pracharak for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in the 1980s.

“When he (Modi) was in the Sangh, he travelled frequently and would wash clothes on his own. He found full-sleeves cumbersome and decided to go for half-sleeved kurtas with pants,” says Chauhan, who is the co-owner of menswear chain Jade Blue, along with brother Jitendra Chauhan. Back then, Modi preferred khadi in whites and off-whites. More than a decade later, when he became the CM of Gujarat in 2001, the whites made way for blues, pinks, greens and yellows. And linen began to share space with khadi in his wardrobe.

“He then started opting for more detailing in kurtas even though embroidery remained restricted to attires for special occasions,” says Chauhan, who sells 18,000 ‘Modi Kurtas’ across India every year.

Maratha stripes

Much like Modi, Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray’s style too has changed over time. Agasti was the one who brought Thackeray out of his black sherwani and into a kurta and shawl, which endeared the right-wing regional leader to the masses in Maharashtra. “I used to get coloured shawls made for him from Kashmir. For kurtas, he preferred thick linens in white and off-white,” Agasti says. His store, Madhav’s Men’s Modes, is a regular stopover for netas visiting Mumbai.

The man who has been dressing political leaders since 1977 observes that politicians today “are far more stylish and conscious about their clothes and looks than they were in the ’80s”. The reason, he believes, is that people no longer judge leaders for their work alone; educational background, personality and looks are important factors too.

This transformation could in part be attributed to globalisation, which opened up the country not only economically, but also to international fashions and trends. Little wonder then that the young leaders who emerged on the national political scene in the 1990s redefined political dressing in India.

This trend was led by Ghulam Nabi Azad, Madhavrao Scindia, Rajesh Pilot, Vilasrao Deshmukh and Pramod Mahajan. While Scindia’s style included a collarless jacket with a narrow pocket to hold his pen, Pilot brought the Rajasthani safa (turban) centre stage.

“Stylish dressing, with colours, started with these leaders,” says Agasti, whose client list includes Gopinath Munde, Shahnawaz Hussain and Sushil Kumar Shinde.

It was also around the ’90s that the Hindi film industry moved towards slick flicks, marked by well-dressed actors and colourful settings. “The film industry definitely influenced the dressing style of leaders,” says Agasti.

So loose kurtas gave way to well-fitted attires. And raw silk, jute silk and variations of woollen fabric became the materials of choice, beyond good old khadi.

Nehru in fashion

But the one man who set the country’s evergreen standard for a well-dressed politico was India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. His achkan — a knee-length coat with a stand-up collar — was always in shades of black, white and grey.

PK Vaish, one of Nehru’s tailors, recalls visits to the late prime minister’s Teen Murti Bhawan residence for measurements and trials for stitched clothes. “His physique was fit and he carried off his clothes well,” says Vaish, now 73.

He later tailored the outfit worn by actor Roshan Seth for his role of Nehru in the 1982 film Gandhi . “I had to pad up his dresses as his structure was leaner than Nehru’s,” he says.

The exclusivity of Nehru’s achkan has been captured by historian Tilak Ranjan Bera in his book A Journey through Nicobars . He details how Edward Kutchat, the head of the tribal council in Car Nicobar Island, agreed to provide additional land for expanding an airfield only if Nehru parted with one of his achkans . That was done, and the land changed hands.

Nehru always teamed his kurtas and achkans with cotton churidars to make a distinctive style statement. So when Rajiv Gandhi was travelling to London to attend the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana in 1981, his mother, Indira, felt that he should wear an achkan . “He was a pilot then, and had not entered politics. On Mrs Gandhi’s advice, he wore a raw silk achkan for the first time,” says Vaish, who had tailored that outfit.

After becoming prime minister, however, Rajiv Gandhi preferred trousers with bandhgala coats for his overseas trips.

Changing colours

Vaish laments that the achkan and bandhgala have gone out of mainstream fashion. “After VV Giri, Giani Zail Singh and VP Singh, no leader has worn the achkan . It is now a part of wedding attires only,” he says. But the Nehru jacket, with its half-inch mandarin collar, remains trendy even today. As also the fabric that’s inextricably woven into Indian politics, the khadi. Despite repeated death knells, khadi still holds it own among linen, silk and other fabric blends. “Nobody has given up khadi. It is just that other fabrics have come up too,” says Agasti.

So while you have staunch khadi loyalists such as Nitish Kumar and Sharad Yadav, there’s also the younger crop of leaders who prefer not to have any fixed style. “They also buy readymade clothes unlike the previous generation, which swore by bespoke styling,” says Vaish.

So while Rahul Gandhi might be seen in a suit at formal ceremonies, at a meeting with party workers he wears a Gandhi cap. Rallies in the hinterland bring out the kurta-pyjamas and student interactions, a pair of jeans.

Even Modi has been experimenting with bolder colours during his election rallies this time around. The tone-to-tone kurta and waistcoat (for instance, a light yellow kurta and a darker yellow waistcoat) are giving way to contrasting colours. At a rally in Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, he teamed a neon-green kurta with a saffron-coloured waistcoat, while Bareilly saw him in a sky blue waistcoat worn over a saffron kurta.

The saffron waistcoat appeared with a dark-grey kurta at a rally in Delhi. Saffron, synonymous with the BJP, is clearly his colour of choice ahead of elections. “I finished stitching for Mr Modi a month before his rallies began. Now I will meet him after he becomes the prime minister,” Chauhan says. And if his tailor’s wishes do come true, Modi might go in for another round of wardrobe updates, just as he did after becoming the Gujarat chief minister 13 years ago.

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