These are changing times. The entire life pattern the world over is undergoing revolutionary transformation. Old customs will have to give way to new. Time cannot go backwards. In a radical break from the centuries-old dress code of the Sree Krishna temple in Guruvayur, the shrine's management had to decide to allow women wearing churidars to enter it. That was part of the ongoing process of reforming the temple rules.

In such a scenario, an internee of a homeopathy medical college near Chennai had to chHomeopathic Medical College to permit her to attend the internship wearing salwar kameez or kurta or churidar with a duppatta. She said that from November 11 last she was not being permitted to continue her internship, which commenced on October 4, for refusing to wear a saree.

Yesterday, the High Court held that girl students can wear churidhar with duppatta while attending classes. Mr Justice K Venkatraman said the girl students could wear a sari or churidhar according to their convenience and the management or the Principal of the institution should not compel them to wear only a sari.

The institute had been insisting that the churidhar dress was indecent. The institution decreed that its women doctors and house surgeons should wear only a sari and not the ‘undignified’ churidhar.

The House surgeon argued that the college management's ban on the churidhar was in violation of Article 21 and 14 of the Constitution. She became a house surgeon after completing her four-year homeopathy course in the institution. She posed the question whether the teaching hospital would impose a similar dress code on its male practitioners by telling them to wear only a dhotee. Kamalam, was not accustomed to wearing a sari. Besides, the college prospectus did not prescribe any dress code.

I am happy the Madras High Court has concluded that churidar is decent wear.

HR