In "The Secret of Swaraj" I have endeavoured to show what home spinning
means for our country. In any curriculum of the future, spinning must be
a compulsory subject. Just as we cannot live without breathing and
without eating, so is it impossible for us to attain economic
independence and banish pauperism from this ancient land without
reviving home-spinning. I hold the spinning wheel to be as much a
necessity in every household as the hearth. No other scheme that can be
devised will ever solve the problem of the deepening poverty of the
people.
How then can spinning be introduced in every home? I have already
suggested the introduction of spinning and systematic production of yarn
in every national school. Once our boys and girls have learnt the art
they can easily carry it to their homes.
But this requires organisation. A spinning wheel must be worked for
twelve hours per day. A practised spinner can spin two tolas and a half
per hour. The price that is being paid at present is on an average four
annas per forty tolas or one pound of yarn _i.e._, one pice per hour.
Each wheel therefore should give three annas per day. A strong one costs
seven rupees. Working, therefore, at the rate of twelve hours per day it
can pay for itself in less than 38 days. I have given enough figures to
work upon. Any one working at them will find the results to be
startling.
If every school introduced spinning, it would revolutionize our ideas of
financing education. We can work a school for six hours per day and give
free education to the pupils. Supposing a boy works at the wheel for
four hours daily, he will produce every day 10 tolas of yarn and thus
earn for his school one anna per day. Suppose further that he
manufactures very little during the first month, and that the school
works only twenty six days in the month. He can earn after the first
month Rs. 1-10 per month. A class of thirty boys would yield, after the
first month, an income of Rs. 48-12 per month.
I have said nothing about literary training. It can be given during the
two hours out of the six. It is easy to see that every school can be
made self supporting without much effort and the nation can engage
experienced teachers for its schools.
The chief difficulty in working out the scheme is the spinning wheel. We
require thousands of wheels if the art becomes popular. Fortunately,
every village carpenter can easily construct the machine. It is a
serious mistake to order them from the Ashram or any other place. The
beauty of spinning is that it is incredibly simple, easily learnt, and
can be cheaply introduced in every village.
The course suggested by me is intended only for this year of
purification and probation. When normal times are reached and Swaraj is
established one hour only may be given to spinning and the rest to
literary training.
_Y. I.--2nd Feb. 1921._