When the minister of education in Sri Lanka emphasized that his ministry would not change the female teachers’ dress known as saree (officially and culturally accepted attire for female schoolteachers) last November, both pro and anti-saree discourses flooded social media. Following his statement, several Buddhist monks endorsed the position that this attire should not be changed. This became an episodic moment of how the everyday state negotiates with society through its masculine scheme/project to reform the female teachers’ attire. Thus, it is a discourse to investigate the everyday state-society relations in Sri Lanka. This study critically engages with the recent discourses on the teachers’ attire as a way of investigating into everyday state-society relations. First, by drawing on empirical and visual methodologies, the study finds that this discourse on female teachers’ attire has produced a rural-urban dichotomy. Saree is not merely a six-yard fabric but ‘culture’- the analysis of social media posts reveals that teachers in rural schools demanded a proper and comfortable dress. In contrast, many teachers in the urban schools supported the minister’s position. Second, the analysis of political cartoons published after the education minister’s and Buddhist monks’ statements clearly depict the yellow robe as an authoritative body representing the Sri Lanka state. Here, the saree refers not only to the ‘Indian Saree’ but particularly the Kandyan Saree (traditional attire worn by Sinhalese women) which represents the authenticity, discipline, and Sinhalese-Buddhist identity among schoolteachers. The state imposes a nationalized attire on women – in this case, the female schoolteachers without ever discussing the dress for male teachers. Thus, we argue that the everyday state of Sri Lanka is not only religious and ethnic draped in Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism but also a clear masculine project.
