Threads of Liberation: Navigating Patriarchy in India through Saree

The Saree is a common traditional garment worn predominantly by women in the Indian subcontinent and holds a powerful place in the cultural imagination of India. Translating to “strip of cloth” in Sanskrit, the garment is a long, unstitched, woven piece of fabric that rests on the hips and shoulders of a woman’s body. Beyond its materiality, the Saree has historically symbolized a woman’s place in society, oscillating between reverence and regulation. With origins tracing back to the Indus Valley Civilization (Kaur and Agrawal, 2019), its legacy intertwines with India’s colonial past, gender norms, and evolving politics. This paper argues that the Saree embodies a dual narrative: one of patriarchal conformity and one of radical self-expression. By examining the Saree through the lenses of colonial imposition, nationalist resistance, gender fluidity, and media representation, this paper highlights how this garment reflects and shapes the socio-political landscapes of Indian womanhood and gender nonconformity. Moreover, this dual-use nature of the Saree in social commentary continues to this very day. This is observed through: 1) the Saree’s interaction with colonial rule; 2) its utilization in political rebellion; 3) its role in LGBTQ+ expression; and 4) its contextual representation and popular resurgence in contemporary media.

Fashion as a medium of cultural expression has long served as a lens for feminist and postcolonial inquiry. According to Barnard (2014), clothing functions not only as a marker of identity but as a political statement, capable of both reinforcing and/or challenging hegemonic structures. In India, dress has historically intersected with caste, religion, gender, and colonialism (Anagol, 2005; Tarlo, 1996). Chatterjee (1993) highlighted how the colonial gendered divide positioned women within the spiritual realm of the home, while men engaged in the material world—a dichotomy represented by and reinforced through clothing.

Tarlo (1996) shows how these transformations were not merely external impositions but became internalized through nationalist discourses that saw the Saree as both traditional and modern. Indrani Chatterjee’s (1999) work further elaborates on how colonial law and kinship dynamics shaped gender norms, including practices around women’s clothing and visibility.

Gonsalves (2012) describes how the Khadi movement used handwoven sarees as symbols of resistance, linking the cloth to the feminist causes of economic self-sufficiency and broader agency. The Khadi movement itself, initiated by Mahatma Gandhi around 1918, encouraged the production and use of khadi (hand-spun, hand-woven cloth) as part of India's broader struggle for economic self-sufficiency and resistance to British colonial rule (Bose and Jalal, 2017). It became a cornerstone of the Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-1922) and symbolized national unity and self-reliance. More recent studies, such as those by Roy (2007) and Devika (2005), analyze how sartorial practices continue to shape and reflect gendered power dynamics in postcolonial India. These scholars emphasize that clothing is never neutral—it encodes norms, negotiates identities, and mediates power.

In the realm of queer and transgender identity, works by Reddy (2005), Hines (2020), and publications such as the Indian Journal of Gender Studies highlight the role of traditional clothing like the Saree in navigating visibility and legitimacy of diverse gender identities. These garments enable marginalized groups to claim space in both familial and public life, often challenging long-standing hegemonic gender binaries.

Before British colonization, Sarees were worn without blouses, and the female torso was not necessarily sexualized in traditional Indian society (Clark, 2003; Crooke, 1919). Ancient sculptures and artwork depicted women with exposed torsos, suggesting a different aesthetic sensibility that did not align with Victorian prudery (Srinivasan, 2001).

It was commonplace for women to be bare-chested in public, with just a rectangular piece of cloth covering their lower body. This was not associated with immodesty for much of the subcontinent’s history (Crooke, 1919). Historical records of ancient subcontinental civilizations suggest a relatively open-minded norm set. The British colonial mission sought to moralize the body, introducing Western standards of modesty and enforcing them through both legislation and imposed social norms (Bahl, 2005).

This led to the normalization of the blouse and petticoat as necessary components of the Saree. Jnanadanandini Devi’s innovations in Saree draping were part accommodation, part resistance—a hybrid fashion born of colonial pressure (Tarlo, 1996). After being ridiculed for her appearance in a traditional Bengali Saree in Bombay’s colonial social circles, Devi devised a new way of draping the Saree that combined elements from both Parsi and European styles. She introduced a blouse and petticoat for modesty, added front pleats for ease of movement, and draped the pallu over the left shoulder instead of wrapping it around the body. This new style, later known as the Brahmika Saree, allowed her and the other upper-class Indian women to appear in public and participate in colonial social spaces in a respectable manner without discarding their cultural garment entirely. This process exemplified what Chatterjee (1993) termed the “inner domain” of tradition, where Indian women were expected to preserve cultural identity by embodying moral virtue, symbolized in part by appropriate clothing (p.10).

With the materialization of the blouse, the DNA of Indian fashion was altered at a subliminal level. It encouraged a certain level of communal decorum in the rapidly evolving Indian population, who had hardly perceived breasts as salacious before being asked to cover them. Mishra (2019) and Padma Anagol (2005) noted that this legacy of colonial and caste-based moral policing continues in the Brahmanical patriarchal structures of contemporary India.

These colonial impacts on dress and the rejection of Indigenous Indian practices took place without sumptuary laws or codes of conduct in terms of what women should wear during the British Rule. Tarlo (1996) righteously pointed out that “the problem of what to wear in the 19th century [in India] can best be defined as the problem of how much foreignness to allow into one’s clothes.” This democratization, while it had its roots in colonial oppression, also allowed the Saree to be utilized as a tool for political protest and liberating gender expression.

The Saree’s role in India’s nationalist movement is well-documented.

Gandhi’s Khadi campaign imbued the handspun Saree with political symbolism, positioning it as a rejection of foreign rule and a gesture of self-reliance (Gonsalves, 2012). Female leaders, such as Sarojini Naidu and Aruna Asaf Ali, adopted Khadi Sarees not only as nationalist symbols but as declarations of female agency (Forbes, 1996).

Figure 1

Sati’s “Widow’s” Saree—A suspended textile sculpture by Aneri Shah exploring the erasure of female identity after widowhood, drawing on the myth of Sati.

Later in the Indian freedom fight, Savitribai Phule, a prominent activist, pioneer of feminism, educationalist, and poet, wore the Saree as a statement of revolution. Savitribai Phule’s choice to wear a Saree that defied caste and widowhood restrictions was a radical assertion of dignity and resistance (Omvedt, 2004). She revolted against atrocities towards the newly widowed that were prevalent at the time, which included being forced to shave their heads, being subjugated to wearing an identifying white Saree, and being pushed into a life of extreme austerity and celibacy. In literary contributions, Jayaprabha, a Telugu poet, literary critic, and feminist thinker, wrote the poem “Burn the Saree” (Pytani Tagaleyyali). She portrays the garment not merely as clothing but as a tool that enforces traditional gender norms, chastity, and modesty, thereby subjugating women. This poem symbolized a radical rejection of these oppressive norms and a call for liberation from patriarchal constraints.

More recently, in 2006, an extraordinary women’s movement started in the Banda district of Uttar Pradesh. In a grassroots response to the failure of local authorities to protect women and marginalized communities from domestic violence, caste-based oppression, and broader corruption, women in the region took to forming the “Gulabi Gang,” also known as the Pink Saree Revolution. The Gulabi Gang's use of bright pink Sarees not only unified them visually but also challenged conventional submissiveness and asserted rural women's right to justice and dignity by redefining femininity as a form of resistance against violence and oppression (Sen, 2017). Today, the group works toward women's empowerment and punishes oppressive gendered practices.

Feminine apparel was designed consciously to hamper women’s movements and thus prevent them from earning their livings except through marriage (Alpaxee, 2019). The Saree thus emerged as a semiotic device—at times coded with submission, at other times wielded as resistance. Its ability to signify both makes it uniquely potent in Indian gender politics.

One notable area in which the Saree has been utilized as an emancipator is in the gender expression of the LGBTQ+ community in India.

Reddy (2005) and Hines (2020) documented how Indian transgender women used the saree to legitimize their gender in familial and ritual contexts.

Gender roles change from place to place, from time to time, from society to society, and even from family to family (Poonia, 2016). Traditionally, gender and sex have been interpreted interchangeably, robbing the LGBTQ+ community of a claim to identity. For many, the Saree acts as a form of embodied resistance to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, passed in the Indian parliament in 2019. Despite being framed as protective legislation, this Act has been widely criticized by transgender activists. It mandates certification of gender identity by a district magistrate, effectively requiring state approval for self-identification, which undermines the right to self-determiniation and bodily autonomy. As Butler (1990) theorized, gender is performative, and the Saree may act as a critical element in this performance—enabling gendered self-expression even in the face of institutional erasure.

Ethnographic accounts by Narrain and Bhan (2005) detailed how public and familial acceptance of a trans person often hinges on their adoption of gendered clothing like the Saree. Such moments of sartorial acceptance can foster reconciliation, as Thomas (2016) narrates in her account of a mother gifting her trans daughter a Saree.

“For Indian transwomen, life is incredibly difficult…having other people be aware of their identities often leads them away from their homes and communities to the ‘hijra’ communities that are mired by poverty and kept afloat by coerced sex work” (Parab, 2020). Hijras consider themselves a third gender, rather than transitioning or existing between the male/female binary. They have primary sex characteristics of both genders.

Shreya, a transgender woman who now works with Humsafar Trust, an organization that has been working for LGBTQ+ communities since 1994, recalled her time in a Hijra household in an interview: “We leave our families, the security and safety of our homes, only to plunge into poverty and destitution. All this so that we can wear a Saree” (Putz, 2020). This statement demonstrates the power of embodying the Saree: authenticity, agency, and freedom.

The strides made by the LGBTQ+ community by co-opting the Saree have had a ripple effect in the broader Indian gender discussion. The flexibility in fashion has allowed comfortability in breaking binary norms, with people wearing attire that they resonate with rather than what they are expected to wear based on their assumed identities. This is working to gradually establish a society where gender is viewed as a spectrum rather than a binary.

Film studies scholars such as Dwyer (2000) and Gokulsing and Dissanayake (2013) have analyzed how Bollywood shapes public perceptions of the Saree. The Saree’s role in modern media also speaks to the use of the garment in a dichotomous fashion, with both negative and positive representations. This dichotomy has been confronted in the form of the debate between cultural appropriation and appreciation when it comes to embodiment by non-Indians. From the romanticized aesthetics of chiffon Sarees in Yash Chopra films to the hypersexualized vamps of the 1980s, the Saree has served to articulate idealized and deviant femininities as depicted in the image below (Vandana, 2020; Sheikh, 2021).

Simultaneously, the Saree’s presence on global runways and celebrity appearances has triggered debates on cultural appropriation. When worn without cultural context, as in the cases of Kim Kardashian and Zendaya, it becomes a decontextualized aesthetic, stripped of its socio-political significance (Hooks, 1992). Kim Kardashian’s appearance on the cover of Vogue India’s March 2018 edition stirred some controversy regarding cultural appropriation, as the publication missed an opportunity to accurately represent the garment with a woman whose culture aligns with the garment being displayed (Pathan 2018). See images below for illustration of this (ETV Bharat, 2025; Bauck, 2018).

figure 4

Hollywood Celebrities in Saree-Inspired Ensembles. Source: (ETV Bharat, 2025).

figure 6

Bollywood Silver Screen Reel by Aneri Shah.

Articles from the Indian Journal of Gender Studies often document how younger generations in India engage with these platforms to resist patriarchal and heteronormative portrayals. For instance, Roy (2017) explores how bodily aesthetics, including traditional clothing like the Saree, become sites of embodied resistance within trans communities, while Ganesh (2017) discusses how the Saree functions within the context of gendered mobility, especially in public and digital spaces, challenging restrictive cultural scripts.

The Saree’s multifaceted role in discussions about gender and politics makes it more than just a garment and a length of cloth. From colonial suppression to feminist rebellion; from gender conformity to queer liberation, the Saree has traversed multiple ideological terrains. This paper has demonstrated that the Saree serves as both a mirror reflecting India’s gender politics and a medium for reimagining identity.

As discourses on gender, tradition, and self-expression continue to evolve, the Saree remains a dynamic cultural artifact. It simultaneously carries the burden of history and the potential for liberation. To fully understand its contemporary significance, we must recognize not only its aesthetic beauty but also its deep entanglement with systems of power, resistance, and self-identity.

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Author Bio

Article Citation

Shah, Aneri. “Threads of Liberation: Navigating Patriarchy in India through Saree.” Unravelling Fashion Narratives, special issue of Fashion Studies, vol. 5, no. 1, 2025, 1-15. 10.38055/UFN050106.