It was not without much misgiving that I consented to include Swadeshi
as a plank in non-co-operation. But Maulana Hasrat Mohani by his sheer
earnestness bore me down. I fear however that his reasons for including
Swadeshi are different from mine. He is a protagonist of boycott of
British goods, I cannot reconcile myself to the doctrine as I have
explained elsewhere in this issue. But having failed to popularise
boycott, Mohani Saheb has accepted Swadeshi as the lesser good. It is
however necessary for me to explain how I have come to include Swadeshi
in the programme of non-co-operation.
Non-co-operation is nothing but discipline in self-sacrifice. And I
believe that a nation that is capable of limitless sacrifice is capable
of rising to limitless heights. The purer the sacrifice the quicker the
progress. Swadeshi offers every man, woman and child an occasion to
make a beginning in self-sacrifice of a pure type. It therefore presents
an opportunity for testing our capacity for sacrifice. It is the measure
for gauging the depth of national feeling on the Khilafat wrong. Does
the nation feel sufficiently to move it to go through even the
preliminary process of sacrifice? Will the nation revise its taste for
the Japanese silk, the Manchester calico or the French lace and find all
its decoration out of hand-spun and hand-woven cloth, i.e., Khadi? If
crores of people will refuse to wear or use foreign cloth and be
satisfied with the simple cloth that we can produce in our homes, it
will be proof of our organising ability, energy, co-operation and
self-sacrifice that will enable us to secure all we need. It will be a
striking demonstration of national solidarity.
Such a consummation cannot be achieved for the mere wish. It cannot be
achieved by one man, no matter how capable and sincere he may be. It
cannot be achieved by dotting India with Swadeshi stores. It can only be
achieved by new production and judicious distribution. Production means
lacs of women spinning in their own homes. This requires earnest men to
be engaged in honestly distributing carded cotton and collecting yarn
and paying for it. It means manufacture of thousands of spinning wheels.
It means inducing the hereditary weavers to return to their noble
calling and distributing home-spun yarn amongst them and selling their
manufactures. It is thus only as an energising agent that I can think of
Swadeshi as a plank in non-co-operation. But it is not to be despised in
that capacity. And I hope that every worker for the cause, even if he
can do nothing else, will have done something if he can advance Swadeshi
first by increasing production and then distribution. He would be simply
moving in a circle if he is satisfied with distributing cloth that is
already being manufactured in India.