It was a come-uppance for the man who had focused public attention on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s monogrammed jacket long ago, and had made the epithet “suit-boot ki sarkar” stick like a limpet mine (File)
The clothes sometimes unmaketh the man, as Congress president Rahul Gandhi discovered when he faced the music at a concert in Shillong, where he was found to be dressed rather too splendidly in a padded jacket worth about $1,000. It was a come-uppance for the man who had focused public attention on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s monogrammed jacket long ago, and had made the epithet “suit-boot ki sarkar” stick like a limpet mine. Now, he will have trouble living down the image of Burberry Man, the face of a brand that has represented Englishness for at least 150 years.
But sadly, this exclusive, $1,000 example of outdoor couture is indistinguishable from jackets that you may buy off the pavement — or the internet, if that’s too low for your tastes — for Rs 1,000. You could throw in a fake Rolex for a nice highlight to flesh out the image. It could get you unchallenged into airport lounges where you don’t belong.
The Congress took the right countermeasure, with Renuka Chowdhury dropping chaff about the jacket costing just Rs 700. But a BJP MP immediately sent her Rs 700 and asked for a similar jacket by return post. That should keep her occupied for a while, scouring Delhi’s flea markets.
Read | Rahul Gandhi’s Burberry jacket in Shillong: Here’s where you can get it
Gandhi is not the first Congress leader to be pulled up for inappropriate dress sense. His Burberry moment was seen as a qualitative trangression, but UPA home minister Shivraj Patil had preceded him quantitatively. In 2008, following serial bomb attacks in Delhi which left 30 people dead and over 100 injured, he became a figure of fun for changing clothes three times in the course of one day, allegedly for the benefit of the media.
He protested that a politician should be criticised for performance, not costumery. Having drawn first blood himself, Rahul Gandhi cannot take refuge in that argument. He has protested that his jacket was a gift, but so was the prime minister’s liberally monogrammed suit. The only difference lies in orders of magnitude — the Burberry jacket cost about 7 per cent of the reputed price of the suit.