The kachera is a cotton undergarment cut to a specified pattern and worn at all times by initiated Sikhs, one of the five articles of faith, and its meaning is bound up with self-control and readiness.
Modesty and restraint
The kachera is a drawstring undergarment reaching to the knee, worn constantly from initiation and changed with care so that the wearer is never wholly without it, and it is understood as a sign of modesty and of sexual self-restraint, a reminder of the ethical discipline expected of the initiated. Its constant presence, like that of the other articles, keeps a moral commitment attached to the body through the ordinary business of the day, so that a garment worn beneath the clothes carries a claim about how the wearer is to live.
Fit for action
The kachera was also practical for the active and martial life the Khalsa took on, being suited to movement and to riding in a way that longer or looser garments were not, so it joined readiness to modesty. It is included among the five Ks with the others precisely because the Sikh ideal is worked out in the details of daily life and dress rather than in withdrawal from them, and the plain cotton undergarment, cut to a fixed pattern, belongs to the same vision as the steel bangle and the wooden comb: a discipline carried on the body of one who lives and works in the world.