Is the bandhgala jacket a relic of colonialism or inherently Indian?

We look at reactions to the meeting between US Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland in Washington. It comes after Donald Trump's growing threats to acquire Greenland. Ekstra Bladet, the Danish paper, is diplomatic in its front page – evoking "continued disagreements" between Washington and Copenhagen. Smoke and steam are wafting over Denmark, the paper says, in a literal reference to a picture of Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen lighting up a cigarette after that meeting. For the Jyllands-Posten, another Danish paper, "disaster has been averted – for now." The editorial staff of Greenlandic paper Sermitsiaq also followed the meeting closely. In their analysis, they note that the US tried to play Denmark and Greenland off against each other but did not succeed. 

The White House, meanwhile, responded to the meeting with a derogatory cartoon posted on social media. The cartoon is captioned "Which way Greenland man?", summing up the choices facing Greenland: a Greenlandic man and his dog sled heading for either the South Lawn (the US), the Great Wall (China) or Red Square (Russia). The cartoon has sparked anger in the press – the Guardian slams this expression of a Greenlandic man and its two-dimensional representation, according to the co-founder of the World Project against hate and extremism. She condemns this flagrant example of a "nod to the racist literature of the far right and its concept of the Western man". In the conservative press, we can also see this kind of reductive vision about Indigenous populations, especially in The Wall Street Journal. The headline reads "Welcome to Greenland, an economy reliant on subsidies and shrimp". The business daily warns that if Trump were to acquire Greenland, he would find himself in charge of a "slow growing economy" heavily reliant on than €1 billion of government subsidies, powered by sales of shrimp. According to the paper, Greenlandic officials quietly concede that anyone running this island is likely to find themselves staring down a money pit, rather than a gold mine. Beyond that, however, The New York Times notes that Greenland is also a front-line victim of global warming, which is rapidly melting its ice. Most of Greenland is covered in ice. As it melts, there is a wealth of untapped minerals under the soil that is up for grabs. Ironically, as one person cited by the Times says, the famously climate-sceptic US president pushing for Greenland is an admission that climate change is real.

Finally, one of India's most iconic fashion statements could be disappearing. The bandhgala is a ubiquitous Indian garment. A button-up jacket with a stand-up collar, it has evolved from centuries of formal attire in royal India. Its origins lie with the Mughals and Rajasthani kingdoms. The jacket was at the centre of a debate in India this week after the Indian railways minister said it was a relic of colonialism. The jacket is part of the formal uniform of Indian Railways staff, but it will now be banned from their official uniform. The decision is criticised by the Indian Express. It takes us through the history of the jacket, which became an inspiration for the West. The editor of the paper defends the garment, saying it is quintessentially Indian. The bandhgala may have emerged during colonialism, but so did Indian Railways.

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