Wearing a bandhgala to work is a decision, and people read it as one. It says you're as serious as the man in the suit beside you, and that you're comfortable enough in your own dress not to borrow his. For the executive, the advocate, the civil servant, the professor, the man who spends his week on platforms and panels, it's the Indian answer to the suit: equal in register, and not pretending to be anything but Indian. We cut a lot of these, and most of the men who order one come back for a second in a different cloth.
Who wears the bandhgala to work, and why it lands well
India's political establishment has worn the bandhgala since independence, which gives it real authority in government and public-sector settings. A senior official or a minister in a bandhgala is correctly dressed for any official occasion, and the garment says both that he takes the job seriously and that he's Indian while doing it.
In the private sector it's on solid ground anywhere Indian identity is part of the professional identity: traditional businesses, family firms, plenty of professional services. In multinational offices with strong Western dress habits, a well-made bandhgala in good suiting cloth is now read as the equivalent of a suit jacket by anyone who understands Indian dress, and increasingly by those who don't but can see it's well made.
Cloth for a working bandhgala, and how it should be built
If the jacket is going to work five days a week, use the cloth you'd use for a business suit: a fine British or Italian worsted in charcoal, navy or black. That gives you the same wear, the same crease recovery and the same finish as the suit jackets around the table. A lightweight 120s worsted from Holland & Sherry or Scabal in charcoal is exactly as correct in an Indian boardroom as a charcoal suit jacket would be anywhere else.
Build it fully lined, with a canvas chest piece for shape, and shape it enough through the waist that it still sits properly when you're seated for two hours. Keep the collar at the taller end, 4 to 4.5 cm, which is what separates it from a Nehru jacket and what makes it read as formal rather than smart-casual. That extra half centimetre does more work than most people expect.