Zee JLF | Indira, Mrs Jinnah: Never ‘saa-ri’ for their choice

How obsession of wearing saree for Indira Gandhi and Ruttie Petit, Mrs Jinnah, influenced their love life, politics and destiny, was the centre of ‘Biographies across the borders: Indira Gandhi and Mr & Mrs Jinnah’ a session at JLF moderated by TCA Raghavan.

Sagarika Ghose, who penned ‘Indira: India’s most powerful Prime Minister’ and Sheela Reddy who authored biography of MA Jinnah threw light of these protagonists.

Saree with sleeveless blouse which Rutti, a Parsi, wore proved a tool for Jinnah’s opponents to attack him and sometime it was embarrassing in the elite arena he belonged to. At a reception party organised by Lord Willingdon, ‘the lady Willingdon did not like long saree worn by Rutti’ and she made a comment on her saying she caught cold, perhaps. Though, Jinnah always admired her liking for saree and both at that time decided not to step in again in the Willingdon palace.

At a Muslim League meeting, Ms Jinnah was also criticised for sporting sleeveless blouse. Few ‘mullahs’ called this against Islam. “She was always in a mood of rebel,” says Reddy who in her biography finds Jinnah as ‘King of Bombay’ with whom Rutti married against the wishes of her her parents.

The same Indira experienced who married Feroze Gandhi. The marriage was a rebellion against Nehru ‘who was more demanding and expecting from Indira’ says Ghose, adding she got poor grades in schools and failed in Oxford.

Referring her attraction to wearing saree, Ghose contends ‘Indira was a man in saree without any feminist symbols like bindi or make-up’. Her knowledge of sarees was matchless.

Once while travelling in an open jeep during an election campaign, Indira spotted a lady wearing saree. She turned to IB (intelligence bureau) chief and asked about the cloth the saree was made of.  The IB chief made a wild guess and said it was made of silk but Indira promptly correct him by saying it was a handloom saree of Coimbatore.