The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Fashion, not civil services, was her calling

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jul 30, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Fashion, not civil services, was her calling

She has contributed more to corporatising the Indian fashion industry

There is more to fashion, civil services and Rathi Vinay Jha than meets the eye.

For the Coorgi girl from Mysore who left for college to New Delhi in 1958, and later become a top civil servant as a Tamil Nadu cadre officer, fashion is about change. So is life.

After serving in posts such as the Madras Collector, she set up the National Institute of Fashion Technology in the late 1980s.

Ms. Jha talks to Sandhya Soman on how she is trying to corporatise the fashion industry.

After she retired as Union Tourism Secretary in 2004, she became the head of the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) to bring about more changes in the fashion industry ... like making the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week a biannual event.

The sprightly lady says she was selected to set up NIFT in 1986. "Later, the Government asked me whether the graduates would get a job. Nobody asks such questions today," says Ms. Jha, pointing to the demand for designer wear propelled by the increasing purchasing power of the youth.

But, not so much in the south, she says. "Chennai still is the traditional stronghold where people come from all over to buy their Kancheevarams." It is far behind the rest of India, particularly the north, when it comes to embracing new designs as well as shelling out money to keep up with the constant changes, she notes.

"I am not saying it is good or bad. But, this is bound to change, and then you will have NIFT graduates from the Chennai centre also setting up shop [here]."

The salwar revolution

But another revolution has been taking place here. "Look at salwar kameezes. They have been accepted as the regular work wear all over South India," says Ms. Jha. She should know.

"My parents thought I had a future in civil services. I was never allowed to wear a salwar kameez as it was a north Indian dress."

While salwar kameezes happened later, she had to choose from one of the `safe' south Indian states after getting into the civil services.

With her "misplaced idealism" making her reject home state Karnataka, she had a choice of the two best administered states in India then — Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

"I got Tamil Nadu and came here as a rank outsider," she recalls.

"I didn't know the language, I didn't know the State ..." Not that it mattered.

"I was very happy doing whatever job they asked me to. I belong to a generation which genuinely felt that it was in the service to do public good."

A futile battle

As the sixth woman in the service to come to the Tamil Nadu cadre as a civil servant, she was also given the comfortable post of Madras Collector.

She tried to change. "I fought with them to give me a posting in districts." A senior officer asked her why she wanted to "go to a riot-ridden district" and not remain in Madras, all quiet and happy.

Ms. Jha says she later did just that. "See... I realised the futility of continuing that battle. Besides, I make a mark wherever I go ... like fashion," she says.

Five-and-a-half years she spent in setting up NIFT. "Today, I wouldn't want to enter the government sector."

She is enjoying the freedom of organising events to corporatise the Indian fashion industry through promotional activities as well as undertaking scientific studies in the sector. Not that it stops her from taking pride in the new buildings and institutions she helped start — from NIFT to the Chennai Trade Centre.

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