Journal articles on the topic 'Sarvodaya'

Background: The term ‘Self-Help’ has been attracting the attention of scholars across the globe,invested in sustainable-development especially after the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were established by the United Nations in 2016. In this study, a joint discussion between NGOs from two nations, Sri Lanka and Cambodia was conducted to look into the successful factors in Self-Help development and the current challenges in both nations. Methods: In addition to literature reviews for theoretical discussion, the research sets the international dialogue in 23th May 2017 between Sarvodaya Sri Lanka and Salvation Centre Cambodia (n=7). The author also visited the local offices of Sarvodaya in Trincomalie and Batincaloa districts in Sri Lanka and interviewed the local officers (n=10) in addition to JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) volunteers (n=2) who work in a field of community welfare. In each district, five villagers (n=10) selected via snow ball sampling were also interviewed. Results: Self-Help starts from spiritual awareness, which leads to collective thinking and community practice. It is a crucial process to bring about change in a community through self-determination. Sarvodaya Sri Lanka has maintained its philosophy for decades and this implication provides an important perspective for the current challenges in Cambodia. The lessons learned from Sarvodaya punctuate ‘collective thinking’ and ‘integrated idea’ in implementing a holistic approach, recognized as strong impacts for Self-Help development. Conclusions: Being the key factor for sustainable development through Self-Help effort, collective thinking to define the issues is perceived to play a critical role in promoting integrated/holistic development.

While the ideas and objectives of Western, often religious, agricultural and development organisations in international development are well documented, those of Hindu NGOs operating, internationally, outside India are not. This paper explores the approaches of some of the key players. These include Gandhian Sarvodaya (especially in Sri Lanka), the Ananda Marg's Progressive Utilisation Theory (PROUT) (especially in Venezuela), ISKCON — the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (especially its model farms in Europe), the Ramakrishna Order and, briefly, the “ Bhumi Project”, the Hindu contribution to the UNDP/ARC's multi-faith sustainability initiative “ Many Heavens, One Earth”. Each initiative emphasises different aspects of the Hindu worldview. Gandhian Sarvodaya emphasises self-reliance, non-harming ( ahimsa), and personal ethics ( dharma), while P.R. Sarkar's Ananda Marg, emphasises cooperative enterprise and the institution of a new more spiritually-socialist social order. ISKCON emphasises devotional service ( bhakti yoga) within a model for a self-sufficient, self-sustainable, post-hydrocarbon future, while Swami Vivekananda's Sri Ramakrishna Order emphasises service and holistic development. Finally, the Bhumi Project, a product of the emerging self-awareness of the global Hindu diaspora, aims to unite the work of a range of Hindu organisations. These movements share a development agenda that emphasises self-sustainability, a low ecological footprint, social justice (variously defined), and the development of spiritual rather than economic capital.

Gandhi is best known for his sarvodaya movement where he talked of ‘welfare for all’. His focus was on the deprived section of the countrymen who constituted a majority of India’s population. Thus, the term was often referred to as antodaya, i.e., ‘Rise to the last men’. Gandhi was not very particular about ‘tribe’, as to him, tribes were a part of rural communities who were exploited by the powerful class of people; thus, they required welfare measures. Gandhi’s mission and vision towards tribes was mainly an outcome of his constant association with Thakkar Bapa, who had been well exposed to the exploitation and helpless misery of tribal life, especially of the Bhil people of Gujarat under the British rule. To Gandhi, tribal welfare and rural welfare were same. However, he believed that tribals were simple people. His interaction with the Zulu people in Africa exposed him to the bare truth of exploitation of the tribal people by the colonial rulers. To his idea, the tribes should be approached on the basis of non-violence, accepting the principles of a democratic society and the fundamental equality and unity of man. The process of social domination and political imposition should be avoided. Welfare measures should be taken up on the basis of understanding their society and culture. Gandhi’s concept of Sarvodaya, i.e., welfare of all also had a purpose to bring the majority of Indians in the struggle for independence. He believed that India’s independence cannot be achieved without participation of its rural masses that formed the majority of Indian population. Gandhi dreamt of a society with equity among all members in fundamental necessities of life including education. His dream is yet to be chased.

The article examines the formation of the Chipko environmental movement, whose activity in 1980 led to the suspension of long-term deforestation in northern India. The historical connection of Chipko with the campaigns of forest satyagraha, which were widespread in northern India during the struggle for independence, is examined. It is shown what role such Gandhian leaders as Mira Behn and Sarala Behn played in transforming the goals of satyagraha. Attention is drawn to the role of such a women's organization as Sarvodaya Mandal, which has become Chipko's organizational basis. The important organizational and philosophical role of such an environmental movement leader as Sunderlal Bahuguna, who became Chipko's true soul, is shown. The role of Vandana Shiva, which is not only a researcher of the Chipko movement, but is also a leading environmental theorist and practitioner of modern India, is examined.

Abstract In the first two decades of Indian independence, members of the Sarvodaya movement—India’s popular, non-state program for Gandhian social uplift—sought to partner with representatives of Israel’s developmental apparatus to build a communal agricultural settlement at Gandhi’s former ashram. Working against the lure of large-scale, Nehruvian development, Cold War politics, and cool formal diplomatic relations between the two countries, Indian votaries of small-scale rural uplift saw in Israeli collective agriculture the chance to give Gandhian “constructive work” a practical program rooted in voluntary, village-based socialism—a goal that eluded Gandhi himself. Israeli planners saw their work with Indian civil society as a means of securing the formal diplomatic sanction largely stymied by India’s relationship with the broader Muslim world. Gandhi’s vision of the Indian “village Republic” and the Israeli model of agrarian collectivism both owed their origins to nineteenth-century utopian thought, and both projects felt anachronistic by the time of their decade-long joint effort, whose initial promise succumbed to realpolitik and the hegemony of the developmental state. Yet their work foregrounds the enduring international stake that Indian civil society maintained in development and nation-building, long presumed to have withered with the arrival of the nation-state.

Background: In the current scenario, the urbanization is happening at a faster pace and the economy is not able to match at par with urbanization, this In turn is causing problems of unavailability of safe and potable water along with proper sewage system, despecially in urban slums. As a result of the scenario many urban slums are still using poor quality pit latrines and even drawing water from nearby wells, water taps which are not complying with government norms. Space is also a big problem which is being faced by these slums, due to which there is a lack of enough spaces in the houses and nearby areas, therby causing overcrowding. Due to overcrowding, the space between houses, pit latrines, wells, taps and water bodies has decreased and thus the potential of contamination of water bodies by fecal microorganisms has increased drastically. Given the above knowledge, a study is much needed to estimate the presumptive and differential coliform count of water samples from the urban slum area in Lucknow. Subjects & Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted during the period of January to June 2019. Samples were collected from all the taps, hand pumps that were currently in use, along with potable water stored in households of Sarvodaya Nagar (an urban slum area), Lucknow and were processed in the Microbiology department of IIMS&R, Lucknow. Results: A total of 53(63%) samples were taken from Public supply, out of which 36(67. 9%) were found unsatisfactory and 17(32.0%) were intermediate, were found to be contaminated with Pseudomonas sp., E.coli, Thermotolerent E.coli, Klebsiella Spp. Citrobacter, Enterococcus and Pseudornonas Spp., E.coli, Thermotolerent E.coli, Klebsiella respectively. In the study more than half of the samples were taken from the Public water supply. Out of these about seventy percent were unsatisfactory and were found to be contaminated with Pseudomonas. Conclusion: The proper sanitation, regular treatment, supervision of water sources, arid regular bacteriological assessment of all water sources for drinking should be planned and conducted.

As an economist Mahatma Gandhi was different from the main stream tradition due to his emphasis on ethical aspect to promote economic development as well as a rejection of materialism. Inspired by American writer Henry David Thoreau throughout his life Gandhi was in search to find the ways by which poverty, backwardness and other socio, economic problems could be solved. Here is an attempt made in this paper to present the economic thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi and analyze the relevance of these concepts in the present era. In this process this study analyzes the spiritual economic thoughts of Mahatma Gandhi for a post modern construction of India and examines his views on Swadeshi, decentralization of economics and self sufficient village economy as a means to attain and achieve the economic self sufficiency of the nation. Through his thoughts, actions, movement and life style he advocated that economic activities can never be justified without ethics and non-violence. The economic aim of Gandhi was Sarvodaya, self sufficient village economy, preservation of ecology and full employment which were quite different than conventional economic.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a staunch advocate for nature cure. He promoted the use of earth, air, sunlight, water and diet not only to treat medical problems but also as an integral feature of a programme for comprehensive public health reform. As such, Gandhi conceptualised healthcare as an encompassing, biomoral project designed to produce Swaraj in the broadest sense of the term. Nature cure was, in other words, fundamental to sarvodaya as a form of praxis. This essay focusses on Gandhi’s establishment of Nisargopchar, a nature cure ashram in the Uruli Kanchan village, and the conceptualisation of the ashram within the framework of the constructive programme and rural development more broadly. This focus not only highlights fundamental tensions and contradictions of social class within the Gandhian project but also sheds light on the way in which Gandhi’s vision of biomoral reform provides a perspective on how these contradictions and tensions, which are especially visible in contemporary India, reflect larger, more encompassing global problems of consumption, development and progress measured in terms of material wealth.

Durante las últimas décadas del siglo xix y las primeras del xx, una irresoluble contradicción entre la retórica radical dirigida a la emancipación nacional y la práctica política incapaz de cuestionar jerárquicas estructuras sociales de casta, empapó el proyecto nacionalista anticolonial indio en su conjunto. Esto ha contribuido al desarrollo de una ambigüedad no resuelta entre, por un lado, un marcado radicalismo en lo que concierne a la oposición a las estructuras y las formas del Estado y, por otro, el conservadurismo frente a las jerarquías internas de la sociedad durante este periodo. Esta ambigüedad ha tenido efectos claros en el desarrollo de las prácticas y los imaginarios de la política en la India independiente. De ella han participado figuras y corrientes que van desde el nacionalismo secular del Partido del Congreso y la adopción del legado gandhiano basado en la idea del swaraj o autogobierno como autonomía, hasta los diferentes intérpretes del corpus marxista en la India contemporánea. De igual forma, es una ambigüedad que marca no sólo las prácticas de gobierno y administración, sino también, y en igual medida, los imaginarios de protesta y oposición al poder. En este artículo me interesa explorar la presencia y las premisas de esta ambigüedad fundacional a través de un estudio del debate público de la India británica en las últimas décadas del siglo xix y las primeras del xx basado en el análisis y la yuxtaposición de dos momentos de su historia intelectual y, en especial, de la región de Bengala. El primero, de sobra conocido y analizado a fondo por historiadores del colonialismo y el nacionalismo en India, concierne a la crítica nacionalista a la pobreza generada por las políticas económicas del Estado colonial a lo largo del siglo xix. Esta corriente de crítica anticolonial incluye los argumentos de figuras canónicas del liberalismo indio, como Dadabhai Naoroji, R. C. Dutt o Prithwis Chandra Ray, así como de otros miembros de la intelligentsia decimonónica. El segundo, considerablemente menos estudiado, abarca un conjunto de escritos que abordan la relevancia del sistema de castas para entender la expansión en India de ideas y principios asociados con el radicalismo de izquierda de tintes socialistas a partir del tercer cuarto del siglo xix. A través del análisis de este material me interesa afirmar que el radicalismo del nacionalismo anticolonial indio que surge del movimiento swadeshi —que defendió diversos programas que iban desde el socialismo revolucionario hasta la sarvodaya gandhiana— representó un programa revolucionario sólo en términos antiimperialistas y respecto a la transformación de las estructuras del Estado, mientras que permaneció profundamente conservador en su postura acerca de las jerarquías internas de la sociedad india.

Kirjoittajan aiheena on kestävän kehityksen käsite ja lukutaito köyhän kehitysmaan näkökulmasta. Uudenlaista lukutaito- ja kehitysstrategiaa edustavan Sarvodaya-liikkeen presidentti tuo traditionaalisen ja funktionaalisen lukutaitokäsitteen rinnalle uuden, enlightenment literacyn, jonka kirjoittaja katsoo sopivan verrattomasti paremmin sorrettujen ja syrjittyjen kansankerrosten pyrkimyksiin parantaa asemaansa.

The current coronavirus pandemic has emerged as a threat to the entire humanity. It has affected society at large and has created a lot of chaos and uncertainty in the world. This has created the need to restore and establish social sustainability in the society. Social sustainability is viewed as a process for creating successful places that promote people’s well-being by understanding people’s needs and wants. Here, Gandhi’s comprehensive vision for society can be related to the sustainable development approach and the social dynamics prevailing in the society amid the pandemic. As the three pillars of sustainable development- environmental, economic, and social- are interlinked, Gandhi’s ideas and principles of value-based approach and ethical living hold good in sustainable development discourse. However, though Gandhian principles and concepts have been often viewed in environmental sustainability, it is least analyzed and understood in terms of social sustainability. Therefore, the paper tries to fill this gap by focusing on building a social aspect of sustainability amid the pandemic through Gandhian perspective. This paper analyses social sustainability in terms of (a) social equity, (b) social well-being, and (c) participation by all. In this context, his idea of “Sarvodaya” is significant as it deals with social welfare, which holds importance in current pandemic days. Apart from “Sarvodaya,” Gandhi also developed an integrated view of the individual, society, and state by focusing on social harmony based upon the moral principles- love, truth, justice, and non-violence, which hold importance even today.

Mohandas K. Gandhi fue el padre de la noviolencia moderna. Él denominó a las formas de lucha sin uso de las armas de fuego como satyagraha. Gandhi diferenció entre la resistencia pasiva y satyagraha. El postulado básico de la satyagraha se basaba en la creencia en la bondad inherente del ser humano, el poder moral y la capacidad de sufrir al oponente. Intentó, en una época difícil, ofrecer una alternativa a la guerra política y social. Sobre las raíces de formas de lucha campesinas y populares ancestrales (desobediencia, no cooperación, insumisión) desarrolló la unión de ética y política, más allá de N. Maquiavelo o M. Weber. Pero su lucha ético-política no podía entenderse sin otros elementos de su “programa constructivo”, tales como ahimsa (no matar), sarvodaya (bienestar de todos), swaraj (autodeterminación y autogobierno) y swadeshi (autosuficiencia).

Durante las últimas décadas del siglo xix y las primeras del xx, una irresoluble contradicción entre la retórica radical dirigida a la emancipación nacional y la práctica política incapaz de cuestionar jerárquicas estructuras sociales de casta, empapó el proyecto nacionalista anticolonial indio en su conjunto. Esto ha contribuido al desarrollo de una ambigüedad no resuelta entre, por un lado, un marcado radicalismo en lo que concierne a la oposición a las estructuras y las formas del Estado y, por otro, el conservadurismo frente a las jerarquías internas de la sociedad durante este periodo. Esta ambigüedad ha tenido efectos claros en el desarrollo de las prácticas y los imaginarios de la política en la India independiente. De ella han participado figuras y corrientes que van desde el nacionalismo secular del Partido del Congreso y la adopción del legado gandhiano basado en la idea del swaraj o autogobierno como autonomía, hasta los diferentes intérpretes del corpus marxista en la India contemporánea. De igual forma, es una ambigüedad que marca no sólo las prácticas de gobierno y administración, sino también, y en igual medida, los imaginarios de protesta y oposición al poder. En este artículo me interesa explorar la presencia y las premisas de esta ambigüedad fundacional a través de un estudio del debate público de la India británica en las últimas décadas del siglo xix y las primeras del xx basado en el análisis y la yuxtaposición de dos momentos de su historia intelectual y, en especial, de la región de Bengala. El primero, de sobra conocido y analizado a fondo por historiadores del colonialismo y el nacionalismo en India, concierne a la crítica nacionalista a la pobreza generada por las políticas económicas del Estado colonial a lo largo del siglo xix. Esta corriente de crítica anticolonial incluye los argumentos de figuras canónicas del liberalismo indio, como Dadabhai Naoroji, R. C. Dutt o Prithwis Chandra Ray, así como de otros miembros de la intelligentsia decimonónica. El segundo, considerablemente menos estudiado, abarca un conjunto de escritos que abordan la relevancia del sistema de castas para entender la expansión en India de ideas y principios asociados con el radicalismo de izquierda de tintes socialistas a partir del tercer cuarto del siglo xix. A través del análisis de este material me interesa afirmar que el radicalismo del nacionalismo anticolonial indio que surge del movimiento swadeshi —que defendió diversos programas que iban desde el socialismo revolucionario hasta la sarvodaya gandhiana— representó un programa revolucionario sólo en términos antiimperialistas y respecto a la transformación de las estructuras del Estado, mientras que permaneció profundamente conservador en su postura acerca de las jerarquías internas de la sociedad india.

What we wear signals our membership within groups, be theyorganised by gender, class, ethnicity or religion. Simultaneously our clothing signifies hierarchies and power relations that sustain dominant power structures. How we dress is an expression of our identity. For Veblen, how we dress expresses wealth and social stratification. In imitating the fashion of the wealthy, claims Simmel, we seek social equality. For Barthes, clothing is embedded with systems of meaning. For Hebdige, clothing has modalities of meaning depending on the wearer, as do clothes for gender (Davis) and for the body (Entwistle). For Maynard, “dress is a significant material practice we use to signal our cultural boundaries, social separations, continuities and, for the present purposes, political dissidences” (103). Clothing has played a central role in historical and contemporary forms of political dissent. During the French Revolution dress signified political allegiance. The “mandated costumes, the gold-braided coat, white silk stockings, lace stock, plumed hat and sword of the nobility and the sober black suit and stockings” were rejected as part of the revolutionary struggle (Fairchilds 423). After the storming of the Bastille the government of Paris introduced the wearing of the tricolour cockade, a round emblem made of red, blue and white ribbons, which was a potent icon of the revolution, and a central motif in building France’s “revolutionary community”. But in the aftermath of the revolution divided loyalties sparked power struggles in the new Republic (Heuer 29). In 1793 for example anyone not wearing the cockade was arrested. Specific laws were introduced for women not wearing the cockade or for wearing it in a profane manner, resulting in six years in jail. This triggered a major struggle over women’s abilities to exercise their political rights (Heuer 31).Clothing was also central to women’s political struggles in America. In the mid-nineteenth century, women began wearing the “reform dress”—pants with shortened, lightweight skirts in place of burdensome and restrictive dresses (Mas 35). The wearing of pants, or bloomers, challenged gender norms and demonstrated women’s agency. Women’s clothes of the period were an "identity kit" (Ladd Nelson 22), which reinforced “society's distinctions between men and women by symbolizing their natures, roles, and responsibilities” (Ladd Nelson 22, Roberts 555). Men were positioned in society as “serious, active, strong and aggressive”. They wore dark clothing that “allowed movement, emphasized broad chests and shoulders and presented sharp, definite lines” (Ladd Nelson 22). Conversely, women, regarded as “frivolous, inactive, delicate and submissive, dressed in decorative, light pastel coloured clothing which inhibited movement, accentuated tiny waists and sloping shoulders and presented an indefinite silhouette” (Ladd Nelson 22, Roberts 555). Women who challenged these dress codes by wearing pants were “unnatural, and a perversion of the “true” woman” (Ladd Nelson 22). For Crane, the adoption of men’s clothing by women challenged dominant values and norms, changing how women were seen in public and how they saw themselves. The wearing of pants came to “symbolize the movement for women's rights” (Ladd Nelson 24) and as with women in France, Victorian society was forced to consider “women's rights, including their right to choose their own style of dress” (Ladd Nelson 23). As Yangzom (623) puts it, clothing allows groups to negotiate boundaries. How the “embodiment of dress itself alters political space and civic discourse is imperative to understanding how resistance is performed in creating social change” (Yangzom 623). Fig. 1: 1850s fashion bloomersIn a different turn is presented in Mahatma Gandhi’s Khadi movement. Khadi is a term used for fabrics made on a spinning wheel (or charkha) or hand-spun and handwoven, usually from cotton fibre. Khadi is considered the “fabric of Indian independence” (Jain). Gandhi recognised the potential of the fabric to a self-reliant, independent India. Gandhi made the struggle for independence synonymous with khadi. He promoted the materials “simplicity as a social equalizer and made it the nation’s fabric” (Sinha). As Jain notes, clothing and in this case fabric, is a “potent sign of resistance and change”. The material also reflects consciousness and agency. Khadi was Gandhi’s “own sartorial choices of transformation from that of an Englishman to that of one representing India” (Jain). For Jain the “key to Khadi becoming a successful tool for the freedom struggle” was that it was a “material embodiment of an ideal” that “represented freedom from colonialism on the one hand and a feeling of self-reliance and economic self-sufficiency on the other”. Fig. 2: Gandhi on charkha The reappropriating of Khadi as a fabric of political dissent echoes the wearing of blue denim by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) at the 1963 National Mall Washington march where 250,000 people gather to hear Martin Luther King speak. The SNCC formed in 1960 and from then until the 1963 March on Washington they developed a “style aesthetic that celebrated the clothing of African American sharecroppers” (Ford 626). A critical aspect civil rights activism by African America women who were members of the SNCC was the “performance of respectability”. With the moral character of African American women under attack (as a way of delegitimising their political activities), the female activists “emphasized the outward display of their respectability in order to withstand attacks against their characters”. Their modest, neat “as if you were going to church” (Chappell 96) clothing choices helped them perform respectability and this “played an important performative role in the black freedom struggle” (Ford 626). By 1963 however African American female civil rights activists “abandoned their respectable clothes and processed hairstyles in order to adopt jeans, denim skirts, bib-and-brace overalls”. The adoption of bib-and-brace overalls reflected the sharecropper's blue denim overalls of America’s slave past.For Komar the blue denim overalls “dramatize[d] how little had been accomplished since Reconstruction” and the overalls were practical to fix from attack dog tears and high-pressure police hoses. The blue denim overalls, according to Komar, were also considered to be ‘Negro clothes’ purchased by “slave owners bought denim for their enslaved workers, partly because the material was sturdy, and partly because it helped contrast them against the linen suits and lace parasols of plantation families”. The clothing choice was both practical and symbolic. While the ‘sharecropper’ narrative is problematic as ‘traditional’ clothing (something not evident in the case of Ghandi’s Khandi Movement, there is an emotion associated with the clothing. As Barthes (6-7) has shown, what makes ‘traditional clothing,’ traditional is that it is part of a normative system where not only does clothing have its historical place, but it is governed by its rules and regimentation. Therefore, there is a dialectical exchange between the normative system and the act of dressing where as a link between the two, clothing becomes the conveyer of its meanings (7). Barthes calls this system, langue and the act of dressing parole (8). As Ford does, a reading of African American women wearing what she calls a “SNCC Skin” “the uniform [acts] consciously to transgress a black middle-class worldview that marginalised certain types of women and particular displays of blackness and black culture”. Hence, the SNCC women’s clothing represented an “ideological metamorphosis articulated through the embrace and projection of real and imagined southern, working-class, and African American cultures. Central to this was the wearing of the blue denim overalls. The clothing did more than protect, cover or adorn the body it was a conscious “cultural and political tool” deployed to maintain a movement and build solidarity with the aim of “inversing the hegemonic norms” via “collective representations of sartorial embodiment” (Yangzom 622).Fig. 3: Mississippi SNCC March Coordinator Joyce Ladner during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom political rally in Washington, DC, on 28 Aug. 1963Clothing in each of these historical examples performs an ideological function that can bridge, that is bring diverse members of society together for a cause, or community cohesion or clothing can act as a fence to keep identities separate (Barnard). This use of clothing is evident in two indigenous examples. For Maynard (110) the clothes worn at the 1988 Aboriginal ‘Long March of Freedom, Justice and Hope’ held in Australia signalled a “visible strength denoted by coherence in dress” (Maynard 112). Most noted was the wearing of colours – black, red and yellow, first thought to be adopted during protest marches organised by the Black Protest Committee during the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane (Watson 40). Maynard (110) describes the colour and clothing as follows:the daytime protest march was dominated by the colours of the Aboriginal people—red, yellow and black on flags, huge banners and clothing. There were logo-inscribed T-shirts, red, yellow and black hatband around black Akubra’s, as well as red headbands. Some T-shirts were yellow, with images of the Australian continent in red, others had inscriptions like 'White Australia has a Black History' and 'Our Land Our Life'. Still others were inscribed 'Mourn 88'. Participants were also in customary dress with body paint. Older Indigenous people wore head bands inscribed with the words 'Our Land', and tribal elders from the Northern Territory, in loin cloths, carried spears and clapping sticks, their bodies marked with feathers, white clay and red ochres. Without question, at this most significant event for Aboriginal peoples, their dress was a highly visible and cohesive aspect.Similar is the Tibetan Freedom Movement, a nonviolent grassroots movement in Tibet and among Tibet diaspora that emerged in 2008 to protest colonisation of Tibet. It is also known as the ‘White Wednesday Movement’. Every Wednesday, Tibetans wear traditional clothes. They pledge: “I am Tibetan, from today I will wear only Tibetan traditional dress, chuba, every Wednesday”. A chuba is a colourful warm ankle-length robe that is bound around the waist by a long sash. For the Tibetan Freedom Movement clothing “symbolically functions as a nonverbal mechanism of communication” to “materialise consciousness of the movement” and functions to shape its political aims (Yangzom 622). Yet, in both cases – Aboriginal and Tibet protests – the dress may “not speak to single cultural audience”. This is because the clothing is “decoded by those of different political persuasions, and [is] certainly further reinterpreted or reframed by the media” (Maynard 103). Nevertheless, there is “cultural work in creating a coherent narrative” (Yangzom 623). The narratives and discourse embedded in the wearing of a red, blue and white cockade, dark reform dress pants, cotton coloured Khadi fabric or blue denim overalls is likely a key feature of significant periods of political upheaval and dissent with the clothing “indispensable” even if the meaning of the clothing is “implied rather than something to be explicated” (Yangzom 623). On 21 January 2017, 250,000 women marched in Washington and more than two million protesters around the world wearing pink knitted pussy hats in response to the remarks made by President Donald Trump who bragged of grabbing women ‘by the pussy’. The knitted pink hats became the “embodiment of solidarity” (Wrenn 1). For Wrenn (2), protests such as this one in 2017 complete with “protest visuals” which build solidarity while “masking or excluding difference in the process” indicates “a tactical sophistication in the social movement space with its strategic negotiation of politics of difference. In formulating a flexible solidarity, the movement has been able to accommodate a variety of races, classes, genders, sexualities, abilities, and cultural backgrounds” (Wrenn 4). In doing so they presented a “collective bodily presence made publicly visible” to protest racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, and xenophobic white masculine power (Gokariksel & Smith 631). The 2017 Washington Pussy Hat March was more than an “embodiment tactic” it was an “image event” with its “swarms of women donning adroit posters and pink pussy hats filling the public sphere and impacting visual culture”. It both constructs social issues and forms public opinion hence it is an “argumentative practice” (Wrenn 6). Drawing on wider cultural contexts, as other acts of dissent note here do, in this protest with its social media coverage, the “master frame” of the sea of pink hats and bodies posited to audiences the enormity of the anger felt in the community over attacks on the female body – real or verbal. This reflects Goffman’s theory of framing to describe the ways in which “protestors actively seek to shape meanings such that they spark the public’s support and encourage political openings” (Wrenn 6). The hats served as “visual tropes” (Goodnow 166) to raise social consciousness and demonstrate opposition. Protest “signage” – as the pussy hats can be considered – are a visual representation and validation of shared “invisible thoughts and emotions” (Buck-Coleman 66) affirming Georg Simmel’s ideas about conflict; “it helps individuals define their differences, establish to which group(s) they belong, and determine the degrees to which groups are different from each other” (Buck-Coleman 66). The pink pussy hat helped define and determine membership and solidarity. Further embedding this was the hand-made nature of the hat. The pattern for the hat was available free online at https://www.pussyhatproject.com/knit/. The idea began as one of practicality, as it did for the reform dress movement. This is from the Pussy Hat Project website:Krista was planning to attend the Women’s March in Washington DC that January of 2017 and needed a cap to keep her head warm in the chill winter air. Jayna, due to her injury, would not be able to attend any of the marches, but wanted to find a way to have her voice heard in absentia and somehow physically “be” there. Together, a marcher and a non-marcher, they conceived the idea of creating a sea of pink hats at Women’s Marches everywhere that would make both a bold and powerful visual statement of solidarity, and also allow people who could not participate themselves – whether for medical, financial, or scheduling reasons — a visible way to demonstrate their support for women’s rights. (Pussy Hat Project)In the tradition of “craftivism” – the use of traditional handcrafts such as knitting, assisted by technology (in this case a website with the pattern and how to knit instructions), as a means of community building, skill-sharing and action directed towards “political and social causes” (Buszek & Robertson 197) –, the hand-knitted pink pussy hats avoided the need to purchase clothing to show solidarity resisting the corporatisation of protest clothing as cautioned by Naomi Klein (428). More so by wearing something that could be re-used sustained solidarity. The pink pussy hats provided a counter to the “incoherent montage of mass-produced clothing” often seen at other protests (Maynard 107). Everyday clothing however does have a place in political dissent. In late 2018, French working class and middle-class protestors donned yellow jackets to protest against the government of French President Emmanuel Macron. It began with a Facebook appeal launched by two fed-up truck drivers calling for a “national blockade” of France’s road network in protest against rising fuel prices was followed two weeks later with a post urging motorist to display their hi-vis yellow vests behind their windscreens in solidarity. Four million viewed the post (Henley). Weekly protests continued into 2019. The yellow his-vis vests are compulsorily carried in all motor cars in France. They are “cheap, readily available, easily identifiable and above all representing an obligation imposed by the state”. The yellow high-vis vest has “proved an inspired choice of symbol and has plainly played a big part in the movement’s rapid spread” (Henley). More so, the wearers of the yellow vests in France, with the movement spreading globally, are winning in “the war of cultural representation. Working-class and lower middle-class people are visible again” (Henley). Subcultural clothing has always played a role as heroic resistance (Evans), but the coloured dissent dressing associated with the red, blue and white ribboned cockades, the dark bloomers of early American feminists, the cotton coloured natural fabrics of Ghandi’s embodiment of resistance and independence, the blue denim sharecropper overalls worn by African American women in their struggles for civil rights, the black, red and orange of Aboriginal protestors in Australia and the White Wednesday performances of resistance undertaken by Tibetans against Chinese colonisation, the Washington Pink Pussy Hat marches for gender respect and equality and the donning of every yellow hi-vis vests by French protestors all posit the important role of fabric and colour in protest meaning making and solidarity building. It is in our rage we consciously wear the colours and fabrics of dissent dress. ReferencesBarnard, Malcolm. Fashion as Communication. New York: Routledge, 1996. 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