What is the Color of your Topi?

What is the color of your Topi


From being the symbol of simplicity, austerity and piousness,


the topi has taken many colors, many hues.


Starting from the Gandhi topi -


worn by the father of the nation as a symbol of resistance to the imperial brutality - a white khaki topi.


It was associated to cultural pride, self-reliance and solidarity with India's rural masses.


Later on the cap was made more popular by Nehru and other politicians,


that is when it took the shape of being a symbol of political activism and being a politician.


Recently, It got a new birth, in a new avatar as the white cap by Anna, where it found a new meaning: of standing up to claim our own right against the corrupt sarkari Imperial.


Since then the simple cap has taken many turns and many colors.


First, what looked like a simple copy paste by the AAP, eventually turned out to be a political turn.


Looks like the topi cannot stay away from political agenda.


Seeing the popularity and value of the symbols it brought in, other parties could not stay away.


We have the Red cap of the Samajwadi Party.


The Saffron cap of the BJP


Blue cap of BSP


And then of course, there is the much debated skull cap.


It is not uncommon to see common men wearing these multi-colored topis to show solidarity of the party they support.


The emotional ploy has worked!


Are all these topis a way of putting topi on the emotions of the poor citizens ? What will really happen and which topi will eventually win. Only time will tell.


Meanwhile, what is the color of your Topi?





April 13, 2014 at 5:59pm