India:Government officials in India's eastern Bihar state have been ordered to adopt an Indian dress code at work that dates back to 1954 and was introduced as an anti-colonial measure shortly after independence.
"As quickly as possible, one or other styles of dress recognised generally as correct in this part of the country should replace western dress in office wear" Bihar's most senior civil servant Ashok Kumar Chowdhury declared.
The order was issued after a judge criticised some officials appearing in his court dressed casually in gaudy western clothing.
According to the diktat, males are permitted to wear dhotis or a sarong-like garment with a kurta or knee-length shirt or, at a pinch, shirts with trousers.
Women are to dress in either the traditional sari but with a blouse of "adequate length" or baggy, pyjama-like trousers with long shirts, known as salwar and kameez.
All female officials are forbidden from wearing trousers at work.
The dress code also specifies that the "materials, colour schemes and designs should be such that they maintain dignity and decorum".
Coarse, homespun cotton, made famous by Mahatma Gandhi to oppose the domestic sale of cloth manufactured by British mills, is the recommended material. Bright, striking designs are strictly banned.
Welcoming what many Bihar officials claim are archaic measures, state home secretary Afzal Amanullah declared they would be strictly enforced.
He cautioned anyone flouting them with severe consequences, including dismissal.
"A person can be asked to go home and change his clothes. He can be made to take the day off, his salary can also be deducted," Mr Amanullah said.
And if he still continues to flout the order, he can even face dismissal, he added emphatically.
The dress code, however, has not been well received.
"The old dress code that is being referred to was an advice in consonance with the times so that civil servants do not get alienated from the masses. Now, the attire of the common people too has changed," Vivek Kumar Singh, secretary of Bihar's senior civil servants association, said.
"The Bihar government is divorced from reality. What it has prescribed (in its dress regulations) is ridiculous," the Times of India editorialised yesterday.
Bihar is not only among India's poorest, most lawless, backward, politically turbulent and corrupt states but also one where the proliferating Maoist insurgency interspersed with complex caste wars is at its most virulent.