The Congress resolution has rightly emphasised the importance of
Swadeshi and the amount of greater sacrifice by merchants.
India cannot be free so long as India voluntarily encourages or
tolerates the economic drain which has been going on for the past
century and a half. Boycott of foreign goods means no more and no less
than boycott of foreign cloth. Foreign cloth constitutes the largest
drain voluntarily permitted by us. It means sixty crores of rupees
annually paid by us for piece-goods. If India could make a successful
effort to stop that drain, she can gain Swaraj by that one act.
India was enslaved for satisfying the greed of the foreign cloth
manufacturer. When the East India Company came in, we were able to
manufacture all the cloth we needed, and more for export. By processes
that need not be described here, India has become practically wholly
dependent upon foreign manufacture for her clothing.
But we ought not to be dependent. India has the ability to manufacture
all her cloth if her children will work for it. Fortunately India has
yet enough weavers to supplement the out-turn of her mills. The mills do
not and cannot immediately manufacture all the cloth we want. The reader
may not know that, even at the present moment, the weavers weave more
cloth than the mills. But the latter weave five crore yards of fine
foreign counts, equal to forty crore yards of coarser counts. The way to
carry out a successful boycott of foreign cloth is to increase the
out-put of yarn. And this can only be done by hand-spinning.
To bring about such a boycott, it is necessary for our merchants to stop
all foreign importation, and to sell out, even at a loss, all foreign
cloth already stocked in India, preferably to foreign buyers. They must
cease to speculate in cotton, and keep all the cotton required for home
use. They must stop purchasing all foreign cotton.
The mill-owners should work their mills not for their profits but as a
national trust and therefore cease to spin finer counts, and weave only
for the home market.
The householder has to revise his or her ideas of fashion and, at least
for the time being, suspend the use of fine garments which are not
always worn to cover the body. He should train himself to see art and
beauty in the spotlessly white _khaddar_ and to appreciate its soft
unevenness. The householder must learn to use cloth as a miser uses his
hoard.
And even when the householders have revised their tastes about dress,
somebody will have to spin yarn for the weavers. This can only be done
by every one spinning during spare hours either for love or money.
We are engaged in a spiritual war. We are not living in normal times.
Normal activities are always suspended in abnormal times. And if we are
out to gain _Swaraj_ in a year's time, it means that we must
concentrate upon our goal to the exclusion of every thing else. I
therefore venture to suggest to the students all over India to suspend
their normal studies for one year and devote their time to the
manufacture of yarn by hand-spinning. It will be their greatest act of
service to the motherland, and their most natural contribution to the
attainment of _Swaraj_. During the late war our rulers attempted to turn
every factory into an arsenal for turning out bullets of lead. During
this war of ours, I suggest every national school and college being
turned into a factory for preparing cones of yarns for the nation. The
students will lose nothing by the occupation: they will gain a kingdom
here and hereafter. There is a famine of cloth in India. To assist in
removing this dearth is surely an act of merit. If it is sinful to use
foreign yarn, it is a virtue to manufacture more Swadeshi yarn in order
to enable us to cope with the want that would be created by the disuse
of foreign yarn.
The obvious question asked would be, if it is so necessary to
manufacture yarn, why not pay every poor person to do so? The answer is
that hand spinning is not, and never was, a calling like weaving,
carpentry, etc. Under the pre-British economy of India, spinning was an
honourable and leisurely occupation for the women of India. It is
difficult to revive the art among the women in the time at our disposal.
But it is incredibly simple and easy for the school-goers to respond to
the nation's call. Let no one decry the work as being derogatory to the
dignity of man or students. It was an art confined to the women of India
because the latter had more leisure. And being graceful, musical, and as
it did not involve any great exertion, it had become the monopoly of
women. But it is certainly as graceful for either sex as is music for
instance. In hand-spinning is hidden the protection of women's virtue,
the insurance against famine, and the cheapening of prices. In it is
hidden the secret of _Swaraj_. The revival of hand spinning is the least
penance we must do for the sin of our forefathers in having succumbed
to the satanic influences of the foreign manufacturer.
The school-goers will restore hand-spinning to its respectable status.
They will hasten the process of making _Khaddar_ fashionable. For no
mother, or father, worth the name will refuse to wear cloth made out of
yarn spun by their children. And the scholars' practical recognition of
art will compel the attention of the weavers of India. If we are to wean
the Punjabi from the calling not of a soldier but of the murderer of
innocent and free people of other lands, we must give back to him the
occupation of weaving. The race of the peaceful Julahis of the Punjab is
all but extinct. It is for the scholars of the Punjab to make it
possible for the Punjabi weaver to return to his innocent calling.
I hope to show in a future issue how easy it is to introduce this change
in the schools and how quickly, on these terms, we can nationalise our
schools and colleges. Everywhere the students have asked me what new
things I would introduce into our nationalised schools. I have
invariably told them I would certainly introduce spinning. I feel, so
much more clearly than ever before that during the transition period, we
must devote exclusive attention to spinning and certain other things of
immediate national use, so as to make up for past neglect. And the
students will be better able and equipped to enter upon the new course
of studies.
Do I want to put back the hand of the clock of progress? Do I want to
replace the mills by hand-spinning and hand-weaving? Do I want to
replace the railway by the country cart? Do I want to destroy machinery
altogether? These questions have been asked by some journalists and
public men. My answer is: I would not weep over the disappearance of
machinery or consider it a calamity. But I have no design upon machinery
as such. What I want to do at the present moment is to supplement the
production of yarn and cloth through our mills, save the millions we
send out of India, and distribute them in our cottages. This I cannot do
unless and until the nation is prepared to devote its leisure hours to
hand-spinning. To that end we must adopt the methods I have ventured to
suggest for popularising spinning as a duty rather than as a means of
livelihood.