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Op-Ed | How Fashion Perpetuates Modern-Day Colonialism

The exploitation of Asia by western businesses is as widespread today as it was when the British ruled India and Gandhi and Charlie Chaplin discussed the subject in a brief encounter in 1931, argues Bandana Tewari.
Comedian and movie actor Charlie Chaplin meets with Mahatma Gandhi in 1931 | Source: Getty Images
By
  • Bandana Tewari

It was a momentous meeting between Charlie Chaplin, the Little Tramp, and Mahatma Gandhi, the Little Leader. It happened, according to Chaplin’s My Autobiography on a balmy day in September 1931 in a “humble little house” in a slum district off London’s East India Dock Road. Both men, surprisingly, had a lot in common, including their love for cockney slang and a genuine empathy for underdogs and the poor working classes.

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