Babu ban gaya gentleman?

''he was wearing that awful outfit indian officials seem to like so much, the safari suit. the shirt was cut too short, its wings stuck absurdly out over his behind, the pants flared too much at the bottom. and i thought, gawd, one more self-important bureaucrat''. that's priscilla hart talking about v lakshman, the district magistrate of the non-existent zalilgarh, in riot, written by shashi tharoor, who as a bureaucrat with the united nations can afford to poke fun at his poor indian cousins.when she took over as minister of state for personnel in may 1999, vasundhara raje scindia sought to deliver the real-life lakshmans from their misery with a new dress code. now, over two years, rs 1.5 lakh and several drafts by the national institute of fashion technology later, there is no help in sight for the safari suit-clad babu. for, having worked with nift on a new dress code for bureaucrats, the department of administrative reforms (dar) sent its proposal to the ministry of home affairs (mha), which alone, under the allocation of business rules, can codify the official dress. the mha decided in june 2000 that it would not be worth its while to revamp the babu's wardrobe. and certainly not as the dar had envisaged — for all four million central government officers. so even as the new designs lie gathering dust in the dar files, the babus — or ''civilian officers'' — continue to follow the 1954 order, revised in 1996, to maintain ''proper decorum in dress on independence day etc''. according to this, on formal or ceremonial occasions, men are to wear a black sherwani and white or cream churidar pyjama or a black short buttoned-up coat and black, white or cream trousers. in the hot weather, the order says, the sherwani or the coat may also be white or cream. there are equally detailed instructions for ''less formal occasions and evening parties'' and for ''office dress''. on no occasion is the safari suit, the babu's best friend, mentioned. the women are no better off. in the best traditions of bureaucratese, for formal occasions they are told they must wear ''sober-coloured saris of plain material. the border, if any, must be simple''. not only that, to banish all lewd thoughts from the minds of their fellow officers, they are told that their ''blouse pieces should be of adequate length''. but the dar decided that bureaucrats should be liberated from this straitjacket and along with nift presented a ''line of casual and formal wear'', which their staff even modelled twice, once exclusively for the home secretary in august 1999. according to this new look, in keeping with ''governments across the globe opting for easy and adaptable work wear'', the men will sport bandgalas for formal occasions over ''light ochre shirts styled to show over the collar'', a western jacket combination, a kurta with a bandgala jacket or even a safari suit (one pocket, not two, on top, to distinguish the officers from the security personnel). as v k agnihotri, additional secretary in the dar, says: ''it was our attempt to codify what actually exists in practice. hence the attempt to redesign the safari suit.'' for women, the document suggests a sari for formal occasions, a sari or salwar kameez (with dupatta) for less formal occasions and ''plain cotton or silk sari with a simple border, if any'' for office wear. like the 1954 order, it grudgingly gives women the option of wearing a salwar kameez or even (imagine!) a skirt and blouse. nor is this the only time the government decided the emperor needs new clothes. when he was cabinet secretary, b g deshmukh had initiated a similar effort. all of this has been to no avail though. and the safari suit has missed its date with history.