Mahatma Gandhi’s dream was to clothe the whole nation in khadi. He felt khadi would be a means of erasing difference between religions, classes, etc. Not many could take to the single peasant loincloth as he had.

Nor did all want to Some examples of other responses to Mahatma Gandhi’s call:

1. Nationalists such as Motilal Nehru, a successful barrister from Allahabad, gave up his expensive Western-style suits and adopted the Indian dhoti and kurta. But these were not made of coarse cloth.

2. Those who had been deprived by caste norms for centuries were attracted to Western dress styles. Therefore, unlike Mahatma Gandhi, other nationalists such as Babasaheb Ambedkar never gave up the Western-style suit. Many Dalits began in the early 1910s to wear three piece suits, and shoes and socks on all public occasions, as a political statement of self-respect.

3. A woman who wrote to Mahatma Gandhi from Maharashtra in 1928 said, ‘A year ago, I heard you speaking on the extreme necessity of every one of us wearing khadi and thereupon decided to adopt it. But we are poor people, My husband says khadi is costly. Belonging as I do to Maharashtra, I wear a sari nine yards long … (and) the elders will not hear of a reduction (to six yards).’

4. Other women, like Sarojini Naidu and Kamala Nehru, wore coloured saris with designs, instead of coarse, white homespun.