By Dr Asangba Tzudir
An increasingly visible ‘fashion statement’ in Naga public life that comes with a blend of ‘tradition’ and ‘modern’, among others, is the Naga men’s traditional waistcoat. It is now prominently seen at cultural festivals or meetings, important functions including receptions, and also political events. This hybrid attire have also sparked quiet debates and which raises a very pertinent question — Should this be called a creative evolution of culture, or does it signal a subtle compromise? Further, it also raises the question of whether we are preserving heritage or reshaping it beyond originality and thereby recognition?
Like the ‘un-mindful’ transition from ‘tradition’ to ‘modernity’, the transformation of the shawl appears quite simple and which has become normalized today. A traditional shawl, once draped in a particular way and embedded within a distinct symbolic order, is tailored into a waistcoat that is associated more with Western formal wear. However, clothing is not just the fabric but more so embedded within a language that speaks history, hierarchy, social standing and status, achievement, and identity. For the Naga tribes, shawls were not simply decorative items but a signifier of status, accomplishment, and clan affiliation. In this way, they belonged to a social, political, cultural and moral grammar or text.
Do we view the waistcoat as a cultural compromise, whereby this grammar stands at the risk of dilution? When a traditional shawl is reshaped into a waistcoat, it arguably finds detached from its original context like the ritual, the various cosmological associations, and its inherited symbols. Instead of being worn as an identity marker rooted in tradition, it becomes an aesthetic language in modern clothing. The danger lie in commodification where traditional culture is reduced to fashion, and where cultural heritage is tailored to fit the contemporary taste and respect.
However, this interpretation overlooks a deeper dynamics at play. To outrightly dismiss the waistcoat as compromise assumes that culture must remain frozen to remain traditionally authentic. We all know that cultures do not survive by resisting change absolutely. They also survive by negotiations. In this sense, the waistcoat may represent not compromise but cultural contestation where in very subtle ways there is an assertion that modernity in Nagaland need not erase indigeneity.
Now when we consider the performative spaces in which this attire appears. In colonial times and even in early post-independence India, modern public spaces like courts, offices, implicitly demanded Western codes of dress as markers of civility and authority. To appear “professional” often meant appearing less indigenous. The coming of American missionaries to the Naga Hills also had its own share of influence on the dress code for the early Naga Christians. Today, when a Naga professional walks into a conference wearing a traditional waistcoat, there is something that shifts where the message is no longer one of assimilation but negotiation where the garment becomes a statement where we enter modern spaces without really shedding our history.
In this performative context and the act of wearing, the waistcoat is not a passive adaptation but there is an active re-signification thereby disrupting the binary between traditional and modern. It seems to convey that authenticity does not belong only to festivals and museum displays, while modernity belongs to global attire. Instead, as a way of contesting, when someone walks into a conference wearing a traditional waistcoat, there is an assertion that Naga identity can inhabit such spaces without being apologetic.
Yes, ambivalence remains. There is always a risk that sacred motifs in the traditional shawls become decorative commodities, especially when commercial forces shape cultural expression. The threshold between creative adaptation and cultural erosion gets thin. The responsibility, therefore, lies not merely in what is worn but in how consciously it is worn. When the symbolism of the shawl is understood and respected even in its altered form, then the transformation becomes meaningful. Though concerns of how much of the original meaning is generated remains.
Perhaps, a deeper question will be whether Nagas want tradition to survive only in its original form, or accept transformation? Living cultures are not preserved by isolation but they are also sustained through negotiation. The traditional Naga waistcoat may not carry precisely the same meaning as the shawl worn in its original form, but meaning has not disappeared, rather shifted. The waist coat in its modern avatar now speaks of a generation that is navigating culture, faith and beliefs, politics, and the larger globalization, while also refusing invisibility.
In that sense, the Naga waistcoat tells stories of a people who are neither abandoning their past nor trapped within it. Whether it is a compromise or a contestation ultimately depends on collective Naga consciousness. But one thing is for sure - this tension itself proves that Naga identity is alive, reflective, and is still evolving.
(Dr. Asangba Tzudir contributes a weekly guest editorial for The Morung Express. Comments can be emailed to asangtz@gmail.com).
