A CONFESSION OF ERROR

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09415777229, 094055338

E-mail- [e-mail];[e-mail]

 

 

A CONFESSION OF ERROR

 

 

God only knows how often I have erred. Those who charge me with infallibility simply do not know me. My own experiences have taught me to be humble enough to know and to appreciate the fact that life consists in struggling against errors. When I launched out light-heartedly on civil disobedience in 1919, I saw that I erred grievously. As soon as I perceived at Nadiad the want of foresight, I called it a Himalayan miscalculation. It was not an exaggeration. And if India has not lost in moral growth thereby, it is because I had the wisdom to make a clean and full confession. I wish similarly to make another confession during these few weeks of concentrated swadeshi work. I have already made the confession in my talks with students and professors. But a more definite and more public confession is necessary as well for my mental peace as for the present propaganda. All these nine months’ experience has confirmed the correctness of the boycott of government educational institutions. But I was weak about the alternative suggested, and I was weak because I distrusted my ability to carry conviction. I cared for the consequence instead of leaving it to God. And therefore in my weakness I said the boys, after leaving schools, could roam about the streets, follow the same course of instruction or best of all take to hand-spinning till swaraj was established.

I discovered soon after the Nagpur Congress resolution that I had erred in suggesting several alternatives. But the mischief was already done. It started in September last. I began to retrace my steps in January, but repair is always patch-work. And so the spinning-wheel remains more or less an excrescence or an idle pastime in most non-co-operation schools. I should have boldly said the whole truth and suggested hand-spinning and hand-weaving as an integral part of the proposition regarding boycott of educational institutions. It is true that probably fewer students would have come out. But they would have done far greater work than all the thousands who have left schools and colleges without a definite notion about the alternative. They would by this time have become experts in hand spinning and hand-weaving, and our swadeshi work would have been easier. I know that the students and the professors of non-cooperation schools are doing their best. But it must be admitted that they are labouring under a handicap. They did not come with any conviction about hand-spinning of swadeshi in general. They simply considered the question, as they had a right to, from the educational standpoint. It was enough for them that they diminished the prestige of the Government by withdrawing from its educational institutions. It is hard on them now to be told that their boycott to be complete involved manufacture of yarn and khadi, that the preliminary training for the new method the swaraj type of education meant during the war period the learning of hand-spinning and the other processes of cloth manufacture and actual production. But the mistake having been made, I at least must pay the penalty of trying patiently to convince the doubters that it would have been better to have insisted on hand-spinning as a necessary part of the educational item in non-co-operation.

I invite those who share my belief to hasten to repair the mistake and earnestly take up the work of production of yarn and khadi in all national institutions which they influence. They will not ask me to supply them with teachers. I have far too few. But I jot down for them the processes that bale cotton, which is what we usually have today, has to go through. It must be first carded. There is no district in India which has no carders, i.e., pinjaras or dhunias. They can card and a mere watching them for a day or two enables one to understand the process. A week’s practice at the rate of six hours per day will enable one to card moderately well. The carded cotton has to be turned into slivers or punis, an incredibly simple and easy process. The cotton is now ready for hand-spinning, which can be learnt from any spinner. Yarn to be yarn must be free from dirt, even and well-twisted. If it is not well-twisted or even, it cannot be woven. The next process is sizing. It is rather difficult to practice. I have no scientific formula giving the quantity of ingredients. It must be learnt from an experienced weaver. Joining the thread is also a process to be separately learnt.

It requires like cycling a little knack which is easily acquired. Lastly comes weaving which is purely a matter of practice. One learns the principle in a day. The reader must not be surprised at the ease with which I claim processes can be learnt. All natural and necessary work is easy. Only it requires constant practice to become perfect, and it needs plodding. Ability to plod is swaraj. It is yoga. Nor need the reader be frightened of the monotony. Monotony is the law of nature. Look at the monotonous manner in which the sun rises. And imagine the catastrophe that would befall the universe if the sun became capricious and went in for a variety of pastimes. But there is a monotony that sustains and a monotony that kills. The monotony of necessary occupations is exhilarating and life-giving. An artist never tires of his art. A spinner who has mastered his art will certainly be able to do sustained work without fatigue. There is music about the spindle which the practiced spinner catches without fail. And when India has monotonously worked away at turning out swaraj, she will have produced a thing of beauty which will be a joy forever. But it cannot be without the spinning-wheel. Therefore the best national education for India is undoubtedly an intelligent handling of the spinning-wheel.