For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Economic Value and Mahatma Gandhi

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar, Professor, Editor and Linguist

Gandhi International Study and Research Institute, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- dr.yadav.yogendra@gandhifoundation.net;

dr.yogendragandhi@gmail.com

Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

Economic Value and Mahatma Gandhi

The spinning resolution of the A.I.C.C. is, in my opinion, the most important of all the resolutions of the A.I.C.C. There is an inclination to laugh at it. The members of Congress organizations can demonstrate in a month’s time the impropriety of the laugh. Even if the economic value of khaddar be admitted, it will be found on experience that the resolution was necessary to bring about an economic revolution. It is not too much to expect Congress workers to give half an hour’s labour to its most popular programme. 1 I should certainly use these terms in connection with cloth. Foreign cloth for an Indian to wear would be impure. I would not apply this to the case of the Indians in England, for instance; yet just as a man is not an impure being simply because he wears impure cloth, so also a person leading an impure life does not purify himself because he wears pure clothes. The economic value of what I call shuddhi cloth, i.e., khaddar, is always there; that is why even a prostitute may wear pure khaddar and help to that extent to keep out foreign cloth. 2

Surely there can be no insurmountable objection on principle to the wearing of khaddar as a franchise test. Unless I am grievously mistaken, some of the best workers will find no zest in remaining in the Congress, if the wearing of khaddar and hand-spinning were not made a qualification for franchise. There are at present two parties in the Congress. One has no faith in the Council programme as a means for attaining swaraj and is satisfied with the khaddar activity, till the country is ready for peaceful disobedience or non-co-operation. The other, while claiming to believe in the economic value of khaddar, believes that, if swaraj cannot be gained through Council-entry, at the very least some steps may be taken towards it and some check might be placed upon bureaucratic extravagance.

I can see my way to avoiding a quarrel with the Swarajists by letting them go their way and by securing their co-operation in the khaddar programme to the best of their ability. I would beseech the Liberals and the Independents to appreciate the fact, which one man cannot alter. But this is certainly possible. Let the Swarajists, the Liberals and the Independents confer together and, if they come to the conclusion that khaddar is a spent bullet and that it is a mere mania of mine and if they do not succeed in convincing me of my error, I shall gladly stand out. I will not come in the way of their controlling and using the national organization for what they may consider to be the best interest of the country. I have been told by a prominent Swarajists that the khaddar programme is doomed to fail and that the Swarajists do not believe in it at all. I told him I did not share his disbelief. I told him that the Swarajists had sincerely accepted it and that they would zealously work for it but assuming that the friend’s prognostication is well founded and that the khaddar cult is a dividing factor in the public life, the sooner the country is disillusioned, the better for it. I must be permitted still to cling to it, so long as I do not lose faith in it. But I may not be allowed to stop all national activities. I, therefore, give my earnest assurance that I shall not willfully stand in the way of any honourable means that may be desired by the committee for bringing all the parties together. I am deliberately putting myself under the influence of Swarajists, Liberals and Independents. I am humbly trying to learn and understand their viewpoint. I have no axe of my own to grind. I share their anxiety for the freedom of the country. My way is different from theirs. I would gladly go their way, if I could. Let all parties then make an honest and earnest effort to find a way out. Let them approach the deliberations of the committee with faith and determination to find a common platform. Let them approach them with an open mind. 3

I have hitherto said nothing of the immense economic value of the wheel and its product khaddar. For it is obvious. The economic prosperity of India must indirectly affect the course of her political history even using the word “political” in its narrow sense. Lastly, when the exploitation of India by Lancashire ceases by reason of the ability of India through the wheel to clothe herself and consequently to exclude foreign cloth and therefore also Lancashire cloth, England will have lost the feverish anxiety at any cost to hold India under subjection. 4 There are many who question the facts often set forth in these columns and elsewhere to prove the economic value of the wheel. Many doubt the ability of the wheel to compete with the mills. Others regard it as a mere toy incapable even of producing an effect on the foreign cloth imports. The essay should contain incontestable statistics and argument in support of the value of the wheel unless the researches of impartial and truthful students make such presentation impossible. Such an effort is required during this year whilst the spinning franchise is being tested. 5

First of all, as to its economic value. You know that the surface of India is 1,900 miles long from north to south and 1,500 miles broad from east to west and it includes 700,000 villages over this vast surface. The majority of the villages are not served by any railway system at all. There was a time in India when the spinning-wheel was a supplementary occupation of this vast agricultural population. The present agricultural population of India as the Government statistics tell us is nothing less than 85 per cent. The Government statistics also tell us that this 85 per cent of the population of India has at least four months in the year absolutely idle. Some of them who are in the know tell me that in Bengal there are agriculturists who have nothing to do for six months in the year. You can imagine what will happen to a man who takes four months’ or six months’ holiday without pay. Not even the Viceroy of India can afford that vacation. Businessmen, I think, even though they may be millionaires never give themselves all that holiday and do no business. Much less can this vast agricultural population which the historian of India, the late Sir William Hunter, told us 30 years ago was living a hand-to-mouth existence. He said that one-tenth of the population of India was living on one meal only per day and that meal consisted of dry bread and a pinch of dirty salt. They did not know what milk or ghee was. Nor did they get any vegetables. 6

The criticism is a sharp rebuke to Acharya Ray for his impatience of the Poet’s and Acharya Seal’s position regarding the charkha, and gentle rebuke to me for my exclusive and excessive love of it. Let the public understand that the Poet does not deny its great economic value. Let them know that he signed the appeal for the All- India Deshbandhu Memorial after he had written his criticism. He signed the appeal after studying its contents carefully and, even as he signed it, he sent me the message that he had written something on the charkha which might not quite please me. I knew, therefore, what was coming. But it has not displeased me. Why should mere disagreement with my views displease? If every disagreement were to displease, since no two men agree exactly on all points, life would be a bundle of unpleasant sensations and, therefore, a perfect nuisance. On the contrary the frank criticism pleases me. For our friendship becomes all the richer for our disagreements. Friends to be friends are not called upon to agree even on most points, only disagreements must have no sharpness, much less bitterness, about them. And I gratefully admit that there is none about the Poet’s criticism. 7

Spinning for me is an emblem of fellowship with the poorest of the land and its daily practice is a renewal of the bond between them and us. Thus considered, it is for me a thing of beauty and joy forever. I would rather to go without a meal than without the wheel and I would like you to understand this great implication of the wheel. If you are to spin at all, I do not expect you to take up the wheel simply because I commend or the Congress recommends or because it is likely to be of economic value. 8 It is well that the correspondent grants the economic value of khaddar. I venture to suggest to him and to those who think with him that its political value springs from its economic value. A starving man thinks first of satisfying his hunger before anything else. The celebrated incident of a disciplined sage like Vishwamitra, whose austerities have hardly been matched, stooping even to steal forbidden food when he was famishing, shows the stress under which a starving man labours. He will sell his liberty and all for the sake of getting a morsel of food. Sailors struggling for want of food in mid-ocean have been known to resort to cannibalism in order to satisfy their hunger. Such is the position of millions of the people of India. For them liberty, God, and all such words are merely letters put together without the slightest meaning. They jar upon them. They will extend a welcome to any person who comes to them with a morsel of food. And if we want to give these people a sense of freedom we shall have to provide them with work which they can easily do in their desolate homes and which would give them at least the barest living. This can only be done by the spinning-wheel. And when they have become self-reliant and are able to support themselves, we are in a position to talk to them about freedom, about Congress etc. Those therefore, who bring them work and means of getting a crust of bread will be their deliverers and will be also the people who will make them hunger for liberty? Hence the political value of the spinning-wheel, apart from its further ability to displace foreign cloth and thus remove the greatest temptation in the way of Englishmen to hold India even at the risk of having to repeat the Jallianwala massacre times without number. 9

Of the educational value of the takli, the writers explain that it develops in the spinner patience, persistence, concentration, self-control, calmness, realization of importance and value of detail, ability to do more than one thing at a time, making one of them so habitual that its control and operation are almost unconscious, sensitiveness, sureness and delicacy of touch and of muscular control and coordination, realization of value of cumulative and sustained individual effort even though separate efforts be of short duration; thus a realization of the value of co-operative work, self-respect and self-reliance arising from recognition of one’s ability to create something of economic value useful to oneself, to one’s family, to the school and to the village, province or nation. There are several other values mentioned in this short chapter which the reader interested in the national spinning movement may see for himself in the book. 10 Your account of how you came to spin is deeply interesting. Whatever your ulterior object, what prompts you to spin should be all-suffering for everybody. I am glad too that you appreciate the economic value of the spinning-wheel for the dumb millions. You will not hesitate to send me your yarn for testing whenever you feel inclined. 11

And is the present programme quite as tame as it is made to appear? Was the picketing of liquor traps a tame affair? Let Dr. Kanuga and his band of volunteers who were assaulted by angry liquor dealers and their myrmidons answer. Let the hundreds of the prisoners in Assam answer who were mercilessly clapped into the Assam jails because they had the audacity to picket opium dens. Was the burning of foreign cloth a tame affair? Let Sarojini Devi who gave her very beautiful costly foreign scarf and many girls who gave up their rich foreign silks and other fineries they had learnt to treasure answer. There is nothing to prevent Congressmen now from picketing liquor traps or opium dens or from collecting and burning foreign cloth. Apart from the great social and economic value of these two very powerful items they have a political value of the very first order. If we achieve boycott of foreign cloth we remove from Britain’s path the greatest incentive to greed, and if we stop the liquor and drug revenue, we force the rulers to reduce the ever-growing military expenditure. These two things so easy to accomplish, so well suited to employ the energy of a vast mass of people, I hold, will go a long way towards the fulfillment of the national purpose, if we can but accomplish them. 12

It came upon me as a shock to find the District Board of Moradabad issuing circular forbidding school teachers from taking part in politics, i.e., even collecting funds from their pupils or others for Daridranarayana. That same Board gave me an address with a beautiful casket. Probably the Board knew nothing about the circular. The loyal zeal betrayed in the circular no matter by whom evidently outruns the loyalty of Government schools and colleges which have been inviting me to address their students and presenting me with purses for khadi. Government servants have openly given donations to the same cause. It has come to be recognized that khadi as such had no politics in it, and that whilst there may be two opinions about its economic value; its undoubted moral value may not be ignored by any educationist. Unquestionably it has its political side, but so have many others very important questions at present engaging the attention of the people as well as the Government. 13 The boycott of legislatures is also part of the programme for enforcing the national demand. This was a natural corollary to the independence resolution, and I am glad to say it is finding an adequate response from Congressmen. A constructive programme such as removal of untouchability, communal union, liquor prohibition, and the boycott of foreign cloth remains. These have tremendous social and economic value and also bear great political consequences. The Nehru constitution, with its tentative communal solution, naturally lapses. 14

Such an exhibition will be of the greatest value to the nation, and if it has a permanent organization behind it, it would provide education of the highest economic value to the masses. Let the Sind workers profit by the mistakes of the past. They have more than twelve months in front of them. Let them not suspend their thinking or their action because something untoward or serious or grand is going to happen. It is a sign of panic to suspend ordinary and necessary business in anticipation of an uncommon event. We may hold ourselves in readiness for it even as we do or ought to for the supreme event, death, without interrupting the even tenor of life. If the Congress is to be the instrument for achieving independence, it must be disciplined, compact, united and responsive to the needs of the dumb millions. 15

Those therefore who realize that boycott of foreign cloth and manufacture and use of khadi are permanent institutions of the highest economic value will welcome the Settlement which enables them to know how far the people have been converted to the national ideal. Our real strength must lie in the people doing in normal times the things they did in abnormal times under the severe pressure of public opinion or worse. 16 Self-sustained khadi means khadi spun and woven in the first instance by the villagers for themselves and, wherever possible, out of cotton grown, ginned and carded in the respective villages. This is the true mission of khadi. The end can only be achieved by persistent human contact with the villagers. They should know the dignity and value of work apart even from its economic value. Khadi under this scheme will be manufactured to suit the village taste. Bleaching, even washing, will be avoided, for every villager will wash for himself or herself. Khadi thus produced will be cheaper than any cloth if its durability is taken into account. The town khadi carries all the incidental charges, e. g., extra processes, stocking, transport, rents, and commissions. The village khadi eliminates all these charges.

The towns and cities should rely for their supplies on the surplus that may be saved after village use. Hence no khadi store should be run at a loss. A. I. S. A. stores should aim primarily at quality, never at mere show, masquerading under the name of art. Who knows what true art is? At best it is a relative term. A. I. S. A. stores should be original, should introduce village art in towns and have confidence that they will win the day. Every piece of khadi must be strong and durable. We must not procure fineness at the cost of durability Flimsiness will kill khadi in the end. If we cannot produce fine counts without sacrificing strength, we must own our inability. I have noticed, often enough to frighten me out of bleaching, that bleached khadi gives way almost at the first wear. It is not suggested that this is true in every case. It is enough for my purpose to be able to say that cases of bleached khadi having proved endurable have been frequent enough to cut out customers. Let all Khadi Bhandars; therefore, revise their standard in so far as it may be necessary in the light of what I have said here. And what is true of khadi is more or less true of tanning and other village industries. Workers must not, without considerable experience, interfere with the old tools, old methods and old patterns. They will be safe if they think of improvements retaining intact the old existing background. They will find that it is true economy. 17

There is a similar complaint from C.P. National Scouts. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was, as has been made clear by him, misreported. In common with the other believers in khadi, till the country has attained its freedom he thinks khadi to be a vital necessity. His doubt about its economic value has a place, if at all, only when independence is achieved and industrialization on a vast scale takes place in the country. Surely no wise man will give up khadi now for fear of its being overwhelmed by industrialization which may or may not envelop India in the far-off future. The restrictions on private producers are intended as well in the interests of artisans, especially the spinners, as the buyers. If they are removed the market will be flooded with spurious khadi resulting in spinners being put out of work and the buyers being deceived. If there is irregularity in the working of the regulations, attention of the Secretary should be drawn to it and it will be set right without delay. 18 It is hardly necessary for me here to examine all the claims on behalf of toddy advanced by my correspondent. Suffice it to say that I have already admitted the immense economic value of the toddy-palm. I have nothing whatever against the use of toddy juice as such. My sole objection is to fermented toddy which has alcoholic properties like any other spirituous liquor whether made from sugarcane, grape or apples. I have myself freely partaken, and made others partake, of sweet toddy gur and its sherbet. Nor is there any duty on the tapping of sweet toddy for gur-making. I am planning to tap 250 palms here at Segaon in the coming season for sweet toddy and, God willing, I hope to get some of the finest gur and sugar from it. The deeper I dive into this question of sweet toddy, the more I find that, owing to the disrepute into which it has fallen by its evil association with liquor manufacture, its proper use has never been inculcated upon our people. The grapes of the Madeira Island in the Atlantic Ocean, which is under Portuguese rule, meet with the same fate. There are vines in every courtyard and wine is distilled in every home. Hence in this place ‘grape’ means ‘wine’. The term has acquired such a noxious connotation that in our language it has become a common expression and we employ the word ‘madira’ to denote liquor. Toddy has similarly become accursed. I also played no small part in condemning it in the last Satyagraha. The abovementioned gentleman can rest assured that now I am atoning for it by helping people to a true knowledge of toddy and by keeping the intoxicating principle away from it. 19

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