Workshop and Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

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- [e-mail];

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

 

 

Workshop and Mahatma Gandhi

 

 

It is begin with the Industrial Revolution era. A workshop may be a room or hall with some appropriate tools. It gives some output, how to functutioning concerning work. In short, I feel it is necessary that we should start a workshop. By and by, we shall see our way. In this connection, I also think sometimes that, if we can get some honest, paid men, it would be advisable to engage them. They can be set to domestic chores and those [of us] who are at present occupied with this work can be released. I think of this again and again. But the idea will have to be carefully weighed. It will perhaps be convenient, for our purpose, to engage an elderly widow, if we know of any. I keep thinking along these lines during moments of leisure; however, since I think of these things so far away from you, you need not attach much weight to them. If you carry them out, it will be on your own responsibility. Seek all possible help from Vrajlal on this question. He will be especially in a position to say something about it since the responsibility is his. 1 You must find a Gujarati equivalent for “workshop”. Will karakhanu do? Someone had mentioned “metric system” in the curriculum. Henceforward, we should be careful about using such terms. There are so many points like these over which we have to break our heads. If you do that, our children will enjoy the fruits. 2 

A large plot of land is required for all these activities. Such a plot, admeasuring about 55 bighas, has already been purchased on the banks of the Sabarmati near the Sabarmati jail. Efforts are proceeding to buy some more. A workshop for weaving, living rooms, kitchens for the Ashram and a building for the National School are to be constructed on this land. This is likely to cost Rs. 100,000. The responsibility for supervising the building construction has been taken over by Shri Amritlal Thakkar of the Hind Sevak Samaj On the same day the railway workshop was attacked and determined efforts were made to bring about a strike amongst the workers. On the 12th another meeting was held at the Badshahi Mosque, when an officer of the Criminal Investigation Department was severely beaten by the mob. On the same day a mixed column of police and military was marched through the city in an effort to regain control of the situation. The march was hindered by large crowds, assembled at the Hira Mandi, who refused to disperse when so directed by the District Magistrate and began to stone the small advance force of police which was with him. Mr. Fyson was obliged to open fire with the result that one man was killed and twenty wounded. The Committee considers that it was essential on this day to disperse the crowd and that it would have been the end of all chance of restoring order in Lahore if the police and troops had left without dispersing it. All the firing was done by the police. The fact that the police, armed with buckshot, were made to take the brunt of the collision with the crowd instead of the troops with service ammunition, the small number of shots fired by the police, and the warnings given to the crowd, showed, in the opinion of the Committee, that the greatest care was taken and the least possible degree of force was used. 3

The spinning-wheels are difficult to pack and cost much railage. An ordinary carpenter should be able to make a good spinning-wheel if he has a decent pattern to go by. It is because thousands of details have to be worked out for an effective organization that I would if I could make the Congress exclusively a workshop for the supply of all the material and a warehouse for the sale of khaddar. It must require hard thinking and harder toil to bring about a complete boycott of foreign cloth by effort from within. One man or one taluka becoming entirely khaddar-clad may not bring swaraj, but the whole country doing so must bring it for all that a successful boycott means. Oh! For a little imagination that would work out the implications of the khaddar movement and all doubt will vanish. That khaddar may not appeal to the nation is another matter. But that cannot be said until there is honest effort that comes only from inward faith. 4

Even some of the richest gentlemen in Bombay cannot get pure and unadulterated milk, unless they keep cows or buffaloes in their homes. It is very difficult for even a millionaire to keep cows or buffaloes in Bombay which is horribly over-crowded. Then what are these people to do? They have no homes as you can see. Their workshop is a hell. They have no friends to give them advice. They have no God because they have forgotten God, they almost fancy there is no God because if there was a God they would not be so forsaken. Such is their miserable condition. 5 The other interesting thing I was able to see in Patna was the workshop conducted by the Department of industries. Mr. Rao is the Superintendent. The workshop itself is a modern building, well lighted, well ventilated, well planned and scrupulously clean. Handloom weaving and toy-making, which is the specialty of Patna, are the features of this workshop. Improved looms for weaving tapes and bedstead-straps are commendable. I could, however, not help feeling that in this admirable workshop, the central thing, the spinning-wheel, was wanting. Improved toy-making will certainly give better wages to the makers of toys and it has therefore properly a place in a workshop in a city like Patna. An Indian workshop is also incomplete without handloom weaving. But no national department of industries can be considered to be at all complete that takes no note of hand-spinning and there-through of millions of villagers who are at present without a supplementary industry. The difficulties that were suggested to me in making hand- spinning a success were mainly two:

(1) Hand-spun yarn can never compete with mill-spun yarn because it has never yet been found to be as strong as mill-spun yarn.

(2) The output of the spinning-wheels is too small to be profitable. The experience of those who have worn khaddar for years is that where it is made of good hand-spun yarn it is any day more durable than the best mill-spun cloth of the same count. For instance, some of my Andhra friends have shown me their dhotis which have lasted four years and upwards against mill-spun dhotis which wear out inside of a year. But my point is not that hand-spun is more durable, but that hand-spinning being the only possible supplementary industry for the peasantry of India, which means 85 per cent of its population, all our arrangements regarding clothing should be fashioned on the understanding that it must be supplied from handspun yarn. Thus, our energy should be concentrated not on finding out the best and the cheapest yarn, no matter where and how spun, but on finding out the cheapest and the best hand-spun yarn. If my proposition is sound all the industrial departments of the nation should revolve round the charkha as the centre. The Department of Industries, therefore, would make improvements in the spinning wheels so as to increase the output. They would buy nothing but hand-spun yarn, so that hand-spinning is automatically stimulated. They would devise means of utilizing every quality of hand-spun yarn obtainable. They would issue prizes for the finest hand-spun yarn. They would explore all possible fields for getting good hand-spun yarn. This does not mean less encouragement to hand weaving. It simply means adding to the encouragement of hand-weaving and hand-spinning and thereby serving those most in need of help. 6

I have before me a report of work done by a band of volunteers in several parts of Bihar. I visited their centre at Malkhachak after my visit to the industrial workshop. The place is about twelve miles from Patna. In Malkhachak alone, with a population of about a thousand there are four hundred wheels going and there are thirty weavers weaving hand-spun yarn. I saw some of the sisters plying their wheels. They were indifferently constructed. Yet the spinners seemed to be happy with them. They get two rupees per month on an average. An addition of eight hundred rupees per month in a village containing one thousand souls is surely a big income any day. I do not count the wages earned by the weavers at the rate of fifteen rupees per month. That may not be a new addition. 7

Both takli and the spinning-wheel are at work in the school. The experiment may fairly be claimed to be a success. At the Vidyapith I was shown the workshop. Its growing feature is its carpentry department. The spinning-wheel cannot be claimed to have prospered in the Vidyapith. I had occasion in my speech to say to the students and the professors that, if they had no faith in the spinning-wheel, they should remove it from their curriculum entirely. It was no use giving it a place because it was the fashion to consider it part of national activity. Time had arrived when every national institution worth the name had to evolve its educational policy and to prosecute it even in spite of opposition and indifference.  Here we insisted that we should not have any servants either for the household work or, as far as might be, even for the farming and building operations. Everything therefore from cooking to scavenging was done with our own hands. As regards accommodation for families, we resolved from the first that the men and women should be housed separately. The houses therefore were to be built in two separate blocks, each at some distance from the other. For the time it was considered sufficient to provide accommodation for ten women and sixty men. Then again we had to erect a house for Mr. Kallenbach and by its side a school house, as well as a workshop for carpentry, shoemaking, etc. 8

If the climate there is malarial you must find out some other way of building the workshop than by putting Hema Prabha Devi there and making her the first victim. Your own body should also be kept up to the mark which Hema Prabha Devi thinks is not being done. 9  Where one is doing one’s best even in the midst of chaos and confusion, there is no cause for disappointment. If boys want technical training, they should have either carpentry or smithy, not an elaborate workshop fashioned after the European style but they should work under an ordinary carpenter or smith and when they have mastered their art, they will take up to European developments and assimilate what is necessary. This becomes cheap and effective. Sitaramayya had mistaken Gandhiji’s query regarding technical education as being intended for Maganlal Gandhi, and had praised the latter’s “incipient genius” which would benefit by workshop experience. 10 

I would certainly suggest his going to Calcutta if Calcutta climate suits him better. After all he can find his peace even in Calcutta if he must be there for the sake of his health. It would be otherwise, perhaps, if he was not a Calcutta man and had not passed years there. But, he knows best where he should be. There is no place I know yet where only dead-cattle-hide shoes can be guaranteed. Ours will be the first workshop of the kind when it is opened. I am trying to expedite it, but I am so helpless for want of experts. 11 A sample spindle has now been sent to you. I do hope that the workshop will be able to turn out spindles according to the sample. 12 The spindles also have now been received. The spindles are not good. They bend at the end under the slightest pressure. It is such a delicate thing that even whilst filing, it becomes heated and it requires, therefore, cooling from time to time. I hope you have not got the specimen spindles. It will be a great thing if the workshop there can turn out such spindles. There are pending orders for several thousands. The specimens you have sent are also not true. If a spindle is not absolutely correct, it wobbles as it revolves and wobbling is fatal to good spinning. 13

A gentleman is available for running the leather workshop and hence expenditure up to another Rs. 50,000 has been sanctioned to run this experiment. 14 Yes, Mirabai is still with me. At the present moment, she is even at Bangalore where I am. She has come to be with me for a few days. Then she goes to a branch of the Ashram for perfecting her Hindi. How do you occupy your time there? Devdas is with me, and Ramdas is at his post in a khadi workshop. 15 As you have not told me anything about the lady you have in view, I can only give you general information. The Ashram is, you might almost say, a workshop. Men and women are engaged in doing some work or other, all activities centred round ginning, carding, spinning and weaving, and men and women, boys and girls take their due share in these activities. There is no doubt, literary training in a proper school conducted in the Ashram. But vocational training is not sacrificed to literary training. One might almost therefore fancy that literary training is subordinated to the vocational. English is taught; it might almost be said, under compulsion. We don’t encourage the teaching of English there, and the rule of first exacting knowledge of Sanskrit and Hindi before going to English is more or less adhered to. If, therefore this lady does not know Hindi, or wants to do everything through English, or is fond merely of literary pursuits, at the Ashram, she would be like fish out of water. 16 

As there are weaving sheds in the Adi Karnataka workshop conducted by the Government, all yarn manufactured in the schools should be sent to these sheds for weaving and a stipulated price should be paid by these institutions to the schools manufacturing yarn. 17 In August-September 1927, the Bengal Nagpur Railway Administration decided to reduce the labour force in the Kharagpur Workshop by 1,600 hands. The workmen adopted passive resistance. The workshops were closed on 12th September and were reopened on 8th December when, as the result of an enquiry, some workmen who had been discharged were reinstated and in a few cases the compensation payable to the discharged workmen was enhanced. 18   

When I was in Bangalore you had sent me the charkha turned out in the Government Workshop. You were turning out good spindles also if I remember rightly. Could you please ascertain through your Engineering Foreman whether there is any machine which turns out absolutely true spindles and whether that machine or any such machine can straighten out absolutely correctly spindles that may become bent or crooked? At the Ashram we are doing it without the use of a machine. It is a laborious process and can be mastered only by a few and imposes a terrific strain upon the eyes of the mender if he has to correct many in a day. I shall esteem any information that you can give me or procure for me in this matter. 19 He should be going to school or attending a workshop, not be saddled with the duties of a householder. I hope the parents of the couple in question will wake up to a sense of their duty. If they do not, it will be the clear duty of the boy and the girl respectfully to disregard parental authority and follow the light of reason and conscience. 20

A cultured and experienced lady has just now gone to the Mandir. She has gone there only for a short experience. There is a continuous ferment going on at the Mandir. It is a good sign. Chhaganlal Joshi is making a tremendous effort to deserve the post to which he has been called. The others too are trying their best. Kusum went to her mother the same day I left the Mandir for Burma. She is likely to have returned now. Vasumati is at the Mandir. Did I tell you I brought Keshu to Delhi and left him with Mr. Birla for gaining experience in his engineering workshop? 21 Because their economic condition is good, they are in a position to carry on a number of benevolent activities. In this article I wish to speak only of the Gujarati National School. They have a costly building. The school has a good number of pupils. There is no doubt that the Gujaratis need a good school. The exiting school has much room for improvement and addition. The school building is small. It is situated in a quarter where the boys and girls have no place to play in. If technical skill is to be imparted there, there is no place to house a small workshop. It has hardly enough accommodation even for the existing number of pupils and classes. Hence, there is need for a building with a playground adjoining it. If it is situated at a distance, so that boys and girls cannot walk to it, arrangements should be made to provide transport. This facility is provided in many places. The number of classes must be increased. It is not beyond the financial capacity of the Gujaratis in Rangoon to advance as far as the Vinaya Mandir. 22 

The programme began with a visit to Dr. Sam Higginbottom’s experimental farm and agricultural institute. Gandhiji wanted to visit it not for collecting funds for Daridranarayana but as a farmer to learn what he could of Dr. Higginbottom’s experiment. It was a packed one and a half hours’ programme. Gandhiji was hurried through the workshop, cattle-farm, sewage farm, soil reclamation area, etc. Cross cattle breeding is being tried at the farm. Sewage is buried in shallow pits and used with good results on the very spot where it is buried. The liquid manure in cattle shed is treated separately from the solid and is carried in a diluted form to a farm prepared for Lucerne-growing and the like. Gandhiji could not help noticing the contrast between this economical and scientific treatment of sewage and the woeful neglect of the Municipal Board which allowed thousands of rupees worth of sewage to be annually wasted and the sacred waters of the Ganges and the Jamna to be polluted at the very spot where they meet and to view which tens of thousands of devotees travel long distances from all parts of India. We had a peep at the little children whom Mrs. Higginbottom is bringing up with a mother’s care.

Most of these are children born of lepers. This part of the visit finished with a five minutes’ function at which the students presented a purse containing earnings from their own labour specially dedicated to Daridranarayana and a huge basket full of the delicacies that mother earth had yielded at this farm. From this function Dr. and Mrs. Higginbottom took the party to the leper asylum nearby conducted by them. They seemed to take special pride in this work of theirs and Gandhiji could not help envying Mrs. Higginbottom the spontaneous love that the little children bestowed upon their adoptive mother who with pardonable pride introduced the ‘troupe’ to Gandhiji as “my children”! The chaulmoogra oil injections are regularly given to the lepers with, it is said, 80 per cent success complete or partial in recent cases and less success in advanced cases. But it is claimed that the ravaging progress of the cell disease is arrested even in advanced cases. 23 Along with this, the names of those in whose homes the spinning-wheel is being plied have been mentioned. In regard to this report also, the above criticism should be regarded as applicable to the extent it is relevant. The reference to a dearth of spinning-wheels should put us to shame. At every place, we should develop the capacity to make spinning wheels.

One or two samples should be obtained from Bardoli and spinning-wheels should be made everywhere. Moreover, this recommendation is far more applicable to places where inmates of the Ashram happen to be living. What kind of wood should be used for making spinning-wheels and other information should be obtained from Bardoli. All should remember that the workshop there is not meant for earning money but is a training centre. Hence everyone can get the necessary information from there. A time will come when people will demand spinning-wheels and talkies in every home. If even then we continue to depend on Bardoli, Satyagraha Ashram and such other places, our work will certainly come to a stand-still. Even the largest single factory cannot provide crores of spinning-wheels. This is neither necessary nor desirable. The meaning of the khadi movement and its special feature is that every process involved in its production can be carried out in every village. Khadi is not an enterprise that supports a single activity, but it feeds many activities. Hence every one of its limbs should blossom forth in every village. 24

The Swadeshi Electric Clock Manufacturing Company has its workshop in Sastri Hall, Grant Road. Some days ago I had the pleasure of visiting this workshop in Jamnalalji’s company. Satisbabu of Khadi Pratishthan was also with me at the time. But as he is an expert in these matters, I asked him to visit the works again, and give me his own impressions, which he has done. He speaks highly of the possibilities of this enterprise. It owes its origin to the educational activities of the Tilak Rashtriya Pathshala of Nipani, a national school in Karnatak. The school was established during the Non-co-operation days of 1921. Industrial education was part of its syllabus. In Shri M. D. Joshi, a life-member, the school had a technical expert of great ability. The management therefore wanted him to take regular training, and he took the engineering course and stood first in the final examination. Then he served as an apprentice in the B. B. & C. I. Railway Parel Workshop, and then in the Royal Indian Marine Dockyards. During all this time he devoted his spare time to experiments in the manufacture of electric clocks. The upshot of all these labours was the present concern which became possible through the voluntary support of Sardar Dajisaheb Patwardhan of Poona. He lent Rs. 20,000 as capital to the company without any interest, and without even requiring any security. Its directors are Principal Limaye of the Tilak Mahavidyalaya, Poona, Dr. R. N. Datar, Sr. Joshi and Sr.Naravane. These directors get no remuneration.

The whole concern is based on the principle of self-sacrifice. It gives technical education to students from national schools. If there are any profits, they are to be devoted to the advancement of education. The company sold clocks for nearly Rs. 15,000 last year, and they are said to have given perfect satisfaction. The mechanism of these clocks is original and patented. “Every part of the machine is manufactured and other processes completed in the workshop.” These clocks are designed not for the use of individuals but for offices, factories and public institutions, which require a number of clocks, fitted in the same building. They require no winding and all the clocks in one circuit show exactly the same time. There are six students already working in the workshop from the Nipani School. But I must not give any more space to a description of this enterprise. I invite those who are interested in genuine swadeshi enterprises to visit the institution and study its working.  The superstition that no education is possible without a teacher is an obstacle in the path of educational progress. A man’s real teacher is himself. And nowadays there are numerous aids available for self-education. A diligent person can easily acquire knowledge about many things by himself and obtain the assistance of a teacher when it is needed. Experience is the biggest of all schools. Quite a number of crafts cannot be learnt at school but only in the workshop. Knowledge of these acquired at school is often only parrot-like. Other subjects can be learnt with the help of books. Therefore what adults need is not so much a school as a thirst for knowledge, diligence and self-confidence? 25 

Thus the khadi stock and contents of the workshop and the weaving sheds will be handed over to the All-India Spinners’ Association on whose behalf that activity has been carried on. The cows and other cattle will be handed to a representative of the Goseva Sangh on whose behalf the dairy has been conducted. The library will be handed probably to an institution that will take care of it. The moneys and articles belonging to the various parties will be returned to them or kept for them by friends who will care to take charge of them. 26 It was in 1929 that a young man, with a single-minded zeal rarely surpassed, chose Anantapur for his experiment, after a year’s travelling in search of such a village. He is khaddar mad. He believes in the message of khaddar even as much as perhaps I do. I doubt if he would not replace ‘perhaps’ by ‘if not more than’. I would submit to his correction, if he made it. His faith in himself would put to shame the tallest among us. He believes that the only permanent cure for the enforced idleness of the peasantry of India and their consequent chronic poverty is the universal adoption of the spinning-wheel. His name is Jethalal Govindjee. He does not know English. He is no Gujarati scholar. Himself a town-bred man, by dogged pertinacity he has inured himself to the hardships of village life and lives like, and in the midst of, villagers.

He has three companions with him. He is a thorough believer in one thing at a time and, therefore, will not pursue other social service, no matter how tempting it may be. If the spinning-wheel is well-established in every cottage, he thinks that all the other problems that puzzle and drag down villagers will solve themselves. He will say: ‘I shan’t preach temperance or thrift to the villager, for no drunkard will take to the wheel if he will not give up his drink, and to preach thrift to a pauper is a mockery. It will be time to preach it, when I have put a few coppers in his pocket. Since I believe that every revolution of the wheel will mean a revolution in his daily life, I am going to be patient with his vices and many drawbacks. And I have faith that, if I am a clean man, my cleanness cannot but touch both the inside and the outside of the villager.’ With varying fortunes, but with an unvarying faith, he and his companions have plodded for the past four years. Their formula is Self-dependence writ large. Khadi must support itself. The way to make it do so is for the villagers to spin, and weave too if possible, for their own use. They may sell only the surplus, as they do with the grain they grow. No cloth can be cheaper than that spun and woven in one’s home, even as no bread can be cheaper than home-baked from grain grown in one’s own field and ground in one’s own home. The business of these servants of the villagers is merely to instruct and help. They visit every cottage and offer to teach them ginning, spinning, carding, weaving and dyeing. They improve their wheels and manufacture new ones for sale only from the material available in the village. This has given extra work to the village carpenter and the village blacksmith. Every item is well thought out. They have an almost complete record of the condition of every cottage and its dwellers. They have made a fairly accurate study of the villagers’ wants and woes, customs and manners, and have published their report in Hindi. Their workshop is a busy hive. Work is being done in a neat and methodical manner. A common log-book is kept containing a day-to-day summary of the work done by each worker. I have mentioned only four foundation workers. Needless to say they have raised workers in seventeen villages they are serving within a five-mile radius of Anantapur. 27 

I had a talk with Keshu. He must have come there by now. What do you intend to do with the workshop which he will be leaving? He is going to learn motor-car and radio repairing. I understand from him that he will secure some help in Bombay. I see that we shall have to bear the expenses of Santok and Radha. 28 I understand about Keshu. What about the workshop? Shall we get any benefit from the machines Keshu has invented? 29 Navin has arrived here. He will be given English and arithmetic. I am going to ask him to do carpenter’s work. Do you use the small workshop you have there? If you are not doing so, I may get it transferred here. 30 The leaflet about Rentia Baras is well written, but I shall know what you can achieve through it only after I get a detailed report from you. At present, the middle class does not seem to have much faith in khadi, though some individuals have certainly retained their faith in it. I will be content if, in a town like Rajkot, you get a fairly good number of spinners. If you are not using the equipment of the workshop lying there, I can easily make use of it here. If, however, it is of any use to you, I can do without it. 31

I walked yesterday to Harijan Ashram, 11/2 miles from Vidyapith and met their Ghaniram and his son. Both of them are doing good work. He showed me his invention. I could not give him much time. I have asked him to settle down there. The workshop that used to be in Bardoli has been transferred to the Ashram. Therefore there is much scope for his ability. He seemed to be quite happy. Lakshmidas whom you know is looking after him. 32 We know that those who get all that leisure both the working and the intellectual class do not make the best use of it. In fact we too often find the idle mind being turned into the devil’s workshop. 33

No, we need not have even different hours. The village is a composite whole. The vast majority of the rural population is agricultural. I need not conduct a separate type of school for the ten per cent of the non-agricultural population in India. I do not want to make every one of the boys and girls in the villages of India spinners or weavers, but I want to make of them whole men through whatever occupation they will learn. The village school will be turned into an educative workshop in as economical and efficient a manner as possible. Therefore the school will not be a glorified workshop producing more or less the conditions of the present-day workshops. The workshop will not teach the children to produce anything and everything of conceivable use. Tobacco, for instance, is a commodity very largely in use throughout the world; it is cultivated in India as a money crop. But its harm to man’s physical and moral fiber is patent. I should not teach in our school workshop bidi-making. It is in this respect that our schools will hope, differ radically from schools abroad which claim to give a sort of practical education. I read the other day about a school in England which trains boys to be efficient shop-keepers. England accepts no prohibition and does not look forward to its introduction in the near or distant future. English boys, therefore, have to be trained as workers in liquor-shops too. The English school in question has, therefore, applied for a liquor licence in order to be able to teach its pupils how to handle liquor for its consumers. In the event of a war England may turn its schools into ammunition factories. In a nation with ahimsa for its national policy such a thing should be inconceivable. Our schools will be turned into workshops, but workshops where they will learn things that are necessary for healthy living in accordance with the national ideal. 34

The A. I. V. I. A. has come into being to turn every home into a workshop. You should visit the Exhibition with the aim of acquiring knowledge and, having learnt one or the other thing that serves your own purpose, serve the province at large. 35 A person who renounces the sword dare not remain idle for a single minute. An idle man’s brain, as the popular proverb says, is the devil’s workshop. Idleness corrodes the soul and intellect both. A person who has renounced violence will take the name of God with every breath and do his work all the twenty-four hours. There will be no room for an idle thought. Frydman, commonly known as Bharatanand, was a Pole. He was the head of the Government Electrical Workshop at Bangalore. He took a keen interest in Indian politics and philosophy. 36 

A ‘stock list’ should be prepared for the Trust. Perhaps it cannot be done till Bhimnag comes, though of course I have with me so many people here that I can easily get the stock list and such other things prepared. But your method of getting work done is altogether different. I do not like it. That way there are many things that I do not like, but I put up with them. If you take up the responsibility, most of the things here can be settled while I am here. I consider it wrong that you do not get patients to work. Vanamala is capable of doing a lot of work. All the patients would not be bed-ridden. From now on, only the poor must be admitted. If there is any rich patient, he will be brought only by me and he will serve some purpose. I may even take money from him and he will stay at my pleasure. It irks me that you have not trained even Gulbai properly. No one here seems to be getting any training. I do not even see the three-year training being given here which you thought was necessary. That is not correct. But in this matter, I have got to be content with whatever you can easily provide. If you think that thereby the whole thing would completely change and if it is not proper for me to interfere to such an extent, you can remove me. If I were to involve myself in the matter, I would let things continue as they are. I receive letters from people from all over. They are willing to help in this or even join in. Some of them I must admit are very good. But till such time as I see you as a votary of nature cure and know who will be the right people to work with you, I would not like to admit any nature cure expert. If I run this workshop I would like to pass on its benefits to the thousands of people outside. For that, I would naturally need to have a large number of workers. Only when that happens, can we at last have something like a university. 36

 It should be remembered that the scheme I have in view does not contemplate any workshop for the manufacture of spinning-wheels, these being already in existence in the villages to be selected. The scheme also contemplates the manufacture of wheels and the like by the local village carpenters and blacksmiths. 37 Such a woman should lead a very chaste life. She should work for her livelihood. She should not hoard anything but only keep that which is absolutely necessary. It is wrong to assume that a person is a true hermit simply because he wears an ochre robe. If the desolate woman is at a loss to know what to do, she could take to spinning. I have called the spinning-wheel the Kamadhenus. She should also chant God’s name as she spins. In my opinion this type of renunciation will surpass that of her husband. She should constantly keep herself occupied in altruistic work such as sweeping the village streets, giving bath to dirty children, etc. There is a proverb saying an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. There must be a similar proverb in Bengali. If we sit idle, doing nothing, a thousand unhealthy thoughts will crowd our mind so one should never be without some sort of work at all times. This is the best solution for the problem. 38 You must be looking after your health. You must have gathered a lot of information about leather workshop and dairies. Is it necessary to be as stingy about paper as you are trying to be? Even if you want to use such paper, why should there not be aesthetic sense and uniformity? Is there any virtue in rags or in joining the rags together and showing that as artistic effort? 39

 

References:

 

1. Letter to Chhaganlal Gandhi, May 17, 1917
2. Letter to Sankalchand Shah, May 30, 1917
3. Circular Letter for funds for Ashram for Private circular only Motihari Champaran, July 1, 1917
4. Young India, 31-7-1924
5. The Hindu, 24-3-1925
6. Young India, 8-10-1925
7. Young India, 8-10-1925
8. Young India, 29-10-1925
9. Letter to Satis Chandra Das Gupta, May 23, 1926
10. Letter to Birendra Nath Sen Gupta, June 19, 1926
11. Letter to Krishnadas, July 8, 1926
12. Letter to A. T. Gidwani, July 30, 1926
13. Letter to A. T. Gidwani, August 6, 1926
14. Navajivan, 26-12-1926
15. Letter to Devi West, June 22, 1927
16. Letter to Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, July 1, 1927
17. Letter to B. Gopalachar, August 19, 1927
18. India in 1927-28, pp. 177-8  
19. Letter to C. Rangnatha Rao, May 27, 1928
20. Young India, 3-1-1929
21. Letter to Mirabehn, March 23, 1929   
22. Navajivan, 31-3-1929
23. Young India, 28-11-1929
24. Navajivan, 10-5-1931
25. Young India, 27-8-1931  
26. Letter to Home Secretary, July 26, 1933
27. Harijan, 15-12-1933
28. Letter to Narandas Gandhi, June 6, 1935
29. Letter to Narandas Gandhi, June 14, 1935
30. Letter to Narandas Gandhi, August 25, 1935
31. Letter to Narandas Gandhi, September 15, 1935
32. Letter to Amrit Kaur, February 17, 1936
33. Harijan, 1-8-1936
34. Harijan, 15-1-1938  
35. Harijan, 2-4-1938
36. A Pilgrimage for Peace, pp. 60
37. Letter to Dinshaw K. Mehta, November 6, 1945
38. Advice to the Madras Government, September 2, 1946
39. The Sunday Hindustan Standard, 2-2-1947
40. Letter to Valji G. Desai, Ashwin Sud 9