Faith and footwear

 

Faith and footwear share a complex narrative in India. My father used to tell me that in the early 1950s when he was an undergraduate, only one boy in his class wore shoes. The nation was just emerging from colonial rule. Today, almost everyone wears footwear. Yet, people still remove their shoes when entering religious sites, homes, and certain pristine exhibition spaces. A furniture designer friend once mentioned that one of the first pieces of furniture purchased by an urban middle-class or upper-middle-class family in India is a shoe rack to be kept at the entrance.

Footwear also holds symbolic importance in Indian culture. In the Ramayana, Bharata ruled the kingdom by placing Rama's sandals on the throne to symbolise his reign. In many ashrams and Sufi dargahs, devotees worship their guru's footwear. You can even find "ahimsa" sandals in Khadi shops, made from the skin of animals that died naturally rather than being killed for leather. With the advent of new, innovative materials, traditional leather shoes have largely disappeared from the lower-priced market.

Despite being a crucial part of hygiene, footwear in India often retains a sense of "unholiness." Sociologists offer a caste-based explanation for this, though it is far-fetched. My father's observation—that only a few wore shoes in India 70 years ago—leads me to think that footwear still feels foreign to many Indians, not fully integrated into their religious and cultural practices. It seems like an "insider versus outsider" migrant issue where footwear is still seen as a cultural outsider (!). Before returning to my hotel today, I saw crowds walking barefoot, seeking divine blessings. On social media, Bollywood actor Kajol yelled at a person wearing footwear on a pooja pandal—yet another reminder of the complex relationship between Indians and their shoes.