For Global Peace with Social Justice in a Sustainable Environment

Economic distress 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 distress and Mahatma Gandhi

At the rapid pace things are moving, it is difficult to do full justice to any particular movement. Economic distress, political repression and an awakening amongst the masses in particular in all countries have all played an important part in bringing about the present world conditions where, enquiring of every country, you find them affected without exception by unrest of a deep-seated character. In America, it is class warfare; in England, it is labour unrest; in Russia, Bolshevism, and in India, it is an all round unrest due to repression, famine and other causes. The situation which now faces the western nations was inevitable; for western civilization, based on the basic principle of brute force as a guiding motive, could have ultimately led only to mutual destruction. But in India against all odds, the high principles of our hoary civilization have still a strong hold on the masses; and if the rapidly widespread growth of Bolshevism which is attacking one nation after another in Europe was to be successfully arrested in India, and even any possibility of its finding a congenial soil safeguarded against, it was necessary that the people of India should be reminded of the legacy of their civilization and culture, which is comprised in the one word “satyagraha”—the highest mantra one can know of. 1

The response made hitherto has been generous but not enough to cope with the distress in full. Volunteers are becoming scarce owing to the prolongation of the distress. They have to be replaced by paid workers. The committee has been obliged for want of funds to cut down the number relieved and the Government of Bihar and Orissa will not relieve “economic” distress. The committee needs at least Rs. 50,000. I take that the generous readers who see the appeal will not be slow to respond. An eyewitness who chanced to go to Puri from Calcutta told me that he saw a hungry man die in his presence. He had walked to the place where relief was being given. He was too exhausted to live to get relief. Only the other day an Oriya was found in the act of committing suicide because he was unable to bear the pangs of hunger. He was charged with the crime of attempting to commit suicide. The presiding magistrate practically discharged him and gave him Rs. 20 from the poor-box. 2

I therefore claim for the charkha the honour of being able to solve the problem of economic distress in a most natural, simple, inexpensive and businesslike manner. The charkha therefore is not only useless as the writer ignorantly suggests, but it is a useful and indispensable article for every home. It is the symbol of the nation’s prosperity and therefore freedom. It is a symbol not of commercial war out of commercial peace. It bears not a message of ill will towards the nations of the earth but of goodwill and self-help. It will not need the protection of a navy threatening a world’s peace and exploiting its resources, but it needs the religious determination of millions to spin their yarn in their own homes as today they cook their food in their own homes. I may deserve the curses of posterity for many mistakes of omission and commission but I am confident of earning its blessings for suggesting a revival of the charkha. I take my all on it. For every revolution of the wheel spins peace, goodwill and love. And with all that, inasmuch as the loss of it brought India’s slavery, its voluntary revival with all its implications must mean India’s freedom. 3

Mr. Hodge writes to me to say that you would like to have an hour’s chat with me, and he has suggested that I should open the ground which I gladly do. I will not take up your time by trying to interest you in any other activity of mine except the spinning-wheel. Of all my outward activities, I do believe that the spinning-wheel is the most permanent and the most beneficial. I have abundant proof now to support my statement that the spinning-wheel will solve the problem of the economic distress in millions of India’s homes, and it constitutes an effective insurance against famines. 4 Do I believe in the capacity of the charkha to solve the problem of the economic distress of the starving millions of India and, in order to make hand-spun khaddar universal, am I prepared to spin religiously for half an hour at least per day, except when actually travelling continuously for twenty-four hours? And am I prepared to use nothing but hand-spun khaddar? 5 The same day that I received the friend’s letter, I received another from another friend who says that he has ten years, experience of the mill industry. He has tested power-spinning and hand weaving and is now engaged in the trade of hand-spinning and hand-weaving. He gives the palm to the last as a solution for the economic distress. I give this experience for what it is worth. The whole experiment is in too nebulous a state for giving a firm opinion on it. But this much is clear that the spinning-wheel is today the only comforter in many a poor home to which no substitute can be taken. Of the spinning-wheel it can be truly said, as of no other: ‘in this there is no waste of effort, there is any disappointment, Even a little of it saves one from great distress. 6

Dharalas are a fierce military tribe in Gujarat. Their occupation is chiefly farming. But through economic distress they have taken to thieving. Murder is not an uncommon thing among them. The wave of self-purification that passed through India in 1921 could not fail to touch them. The class of workers that has come into being are working in their midst with the sole intention of carrying out internal reform among them. The brilliant Satyagraha movement initiated and led so successfully by Vallabhbhai during 1923 brought about great awakening among these people. Their Conference at Sojitra was one of the fruits of the reform. They assembled in their thousands. They listened to the proceedings in perfect silence. The resolutions carried were about abstaining from intoxicating drinks and drugs, from selling their daughters in marriage and from abduction, a habit which seems to be rampant among them. 7 You will laugh when I tell you what that one thing is and say that this old man, whether he talks of politics or social service or alleviating economic distress, cannot help harping upon the charkha. Yes, it is true, I cannot help doing so. This time at Calcutta I was privileged to meet a larger number of people, some of them engaged in missionary work, others in commercial undertakings, and after all these talks, my conviction has grown deeper that social service on a large scale is impossible without a thorough knowledge of the science of the charkha. The disease from which we as a nation are suffering is idleness enforced at one time, now grown in habit and a nation living in idleness does not deserve to live. The middle class people will slave away for their maintenance for eight hours, but a man who slaves away like that for 8 hours is not necessarily industrious. They have no sense of time. I know this to my cost. I have lived in the midst of thousands of labourers in South Africa and, ever with my rickety constitution; I was able to overtake them in their work because they lost so many idle moments. A friend, who is a Collector, once wrote to me; “I detest your politics,” meaning non-co-operation about which he had read little, known less but he loves the charkha. “As an Englishman I do not understand Indian economics,” he wrote, “but I like this hobby of yours because by delivering your message of the charkha, you have rendered a great social service.” With me it is not a mere hobby though I should prize it even as a hobby but a life-giving thing which has revolutionized the lives of thousands of men and women, and if I could carry you educated people with me, if I could make the Englishman agree with me, millions of people should go with a smile on their faces where there is a look of blank despair now and why?

Simply because they have no work and so starve. They feel the pinch of hunger, but they cannot go to the costly works that the Government has opened for them. The work there mostly consists of breaking stones for the roads or carrying metal. And what are the conditions under which this work has to be done. The majority of them are women and they have to work under the supervision of overseers, who have no character to lose or to keep, and who are lustful. The rest you can understand. I would not describe it to you. These women, who ought to be as dear to you as your mothers or sisters, if you have any regard for them, have been weaned from this class of labour. The charkha gives them all that they need. An old lady of 60 years walks two miles to obtain slivers from my son and says, “Tell your father he has given me something which is a blessing to me because it has given me a dignity which I did not have before.” Today there are millions of such men and women in Champaran to whom the charkha would give independence. The wages of women there are anything between 5 and 6 pice per day, those of boys between 3 and 4 pice and those of men between 8 to 10 pice. The average annual income of an Indian today, I am told, is Rs. 50. I do not know that. But I know that Dadabhai Naoroji calculated it at Rs. 26. The late Lord Curzon, who challenged the accuracy of this figure, set it down at Rs. 33. Even if we accept the late Lord Curzon’s figure, including as it does, the crores of the millionaires like the Tatas, as correct, just consider what it would mean to put two to three rupees per month in the pockets of these people and through what agency? Not the insolent overseers who rob these sisters of their shame and take one rupee as their dasturi of the three rupees that they give to them, but by working under the observation of clean lads who will regard their honour as sacred as of their own sisters and give them money with a smile. It makes all the difference in the world whether you receive 8 or 10 annas from insolent hands or four pice from hands sanctified with work. 8

I am sorry I have not been able to reach your letter earlier. You cannot find satisfaction from the spinning-wheel unless you associate the spinning-wheel with the poor people and believe it to be an instrument for alleviating their economic distress. Is there no satisfaction in helping the poor by labouring for them? There is a Latin proverb which means to labour is to pray, i.e., when you labour for others. 9 The headline is of my making but what follows is an abstract of C. Rajagopalachari’s notes submitted to the Royal Agricultural Commission. The value of the notes lies in their being an accurate record of his experience. After a careful perusal of the note, the reader will answer for himself whether the spinning-wheel is or is not truly the Wheel of Life for India’s millions. C. Rajagopalachari’s second suggestion that the temptation of drink must be removed from the poor people is worthy of serious consideration by those who will solve the problem of economic distress. If the men will use up in drink the hard-earned coppers of their women spinners, even the spinning wheel will be but a frail support. 10

The foregoing resume of four months’ increasing work is proof, if proof be still necessary, of what earnest effort can do. Where the wheel is reported to have failed, it was not the wheel that failed, but the wheel masters that failed because they had no faith. Schoolboy all the world over will respond to honest endeavour as the boys of the Sasavane Ashram have done. And from the figures that are published from time to time in these columns, anyone who cares can work out an arithmetical calculation showing how many children working, say, at least one hour per day at the wheel or the takli can spin enough yarn to clothe the whole nation. Oh for an imagination that will visualize the simple beauty of the wheel as a sure solvent of the economic distress or the country! 11

I do not know if the evil of drink is prevalent among the Panchamas here as it is in other parts. If it is the same here, let me not hesitate to warn my Panchama brothers against the curse of drink, and eating cow’s flesh. I cannot but express my satisfaction at seeing so many of my Panchama brothers being educated here. I am not in the least blind to the economic distress which so many of our Panchamas suffer in common with other communities and the remedy, I have never been tired of suggesting, is khaddar. I appeal therefore to Panchama brothers here to take to khaddar. 12 Organizers should remember that this is a khadi tour undertaken on behalf of the All-India Spinners’ Association. It is the largest national organization run on business lines for the sole purpose of bringing the message of the wheel to the homes of the seven hundred thousand villages of this vast country. On its successful working depends the relief of the growing and grinding economic distress of the semi-starved millions? I want every pie I can get for this work. One rupee in the chest of the A.I.S.A. means a day’s drink or a day’s drink cigar or a day’s sweets bringing diseases in their train. 13

The Gurgaon village houses, says the author, “are the direct successors of the caves of pre-historic man.” He would therefore have the villager to open windows in his house. He will guard against smallpox by free vaccinations. He would guard against plague by inoculation and rat-killing, against cholera by well-cleaning and proper arrangements for drawing water and against malaria by quinine and mosquito-nets. The assurance with which Mr. Brayne speaks of vaccination and inoculation is amazing when one knows that medical authorities speak of both with the greatest caution. Vaccination is daily being proved as an exploded remedy, and plague inoculation and the like, whatever merit they may possess as a temporary relief measure if they do at all, are soul-destroying remedies making man a weakling dying many times before his natural death. There is abundant testimony to show that where there is clean living there is no fear of plague or smallpox, both being diseases born of filth and insinuation. Well-cleaning and a clean method of drawing water are no doubt good not only as a precaution against cholera but many other things. Quinine without milk is a useless remedy, and mosquito-nets, I know from personal experience, are not within the reach of mil lions. More than once has Mr. Brayne betrayed ignorance of the chronic economic distress of the seething millions of India? It is perfectly useless to suggest remedies which are beyond the present means of the people. What the people may be capable of doing when the reformer’s dream is realized is irrelevant to a consideration of what they ought to do whilst the reform is making its way among them. 14

This is an instance of argument suiting preconceived ideas. The author of the note has evidently not taken the trouble of understanding the implications of what he calls the “Gandhi Movement”, meaning of course the hand-spinning movement. The spinning movement aims at restoring spinning to the millions of cottages of India from which it was removed by unjust, illegal and tyrannical methods. The movement could not have been started, if somehow or other the cottages which were deprived of this universal supplementary industry had had a substitute provided for it. Unfortunately or fortunately no substitute was provided. Hence sheer necessity compelled the students of village life, after having exhausted all other means, to resort to the spinning-wheel as the only immediate solution for the serious economic distress that had overtaken the millions of India’s homes by reason of the extinction of cottage spinning. The moment these millions can have a better substitute, they are at liberty to give up the spinning-wheel, and no one would be gladder than I to see these millions possess a better substitute. No doubt the authors of the movement do think that so far as human understanding can go, there seems to be no hope of finding a better substitute than the spinning-wheel. Indeed their conviction is that, as soon as the existing exploitation of the so-called weaker nations of the earth by the strong nations of the West ceases as it is bound someday to cease, the whole world will have to return to the spinning-wheel. Whether however that event comes to pass or not, unless India becomes an exploiting nation and discovers new nations to exploit, or unless an independent India develops brute strength enough to compel the nations of the West to buy the goods that she may dump down on their soil as India is virtually compelled today to receive goods dumped down on her soil, India must, if she is to rid herself of her economic distress, manufacture the articles of necessity in her own cottages just as she produces her corn, the prime necessity of life, in her own fields. There is therefore no contradiction in the authors of the spinning movement trying to secure a wheel or a machine which would enable the cottagers in their own cottages to spin more or finer yarn in the same given time as the existing spinning-wheel does. The writer of the note should know that this progressive method of improving home machines has been handed down from ancient times. The takli or the distaff was displaced by the spinning-wheel. The spinning-wheel itself underwent gradual improvement as one sees even today from the different old patterns working in different provinces. The process of improvement was suddenly arrested when the spinning-wheel went out of fashion.

The Council of the All-India Spinners’ Association is therefore but following the course that was suddenly stopped by the machinations of the East India Company’s agents. The fact is that neither the Council nor I have any objection to machines as such, but we do submit that it is wrong to carry the process of mechanization of industry so far as to kill the cottage industries and concentrate them within a narrow field; in other words, they are against urbanization of India at the expense of her rural civilization and rural life. The writer in the Textile World states that a machine meeting practically all the requirements of the contest was in use in America more than a century ago. The adverb ‘practically’ is a disturbing factor, but if there is such a machine in America in existence and if any American inventor will take the trouble of so adjusting it as to meet all the requirements of the contest, he will not only receive the prize offered by the Association, but he will earn also the thanks of the dumb millions. But let the critics understand that even if such a machine is not invented and the prize is not won, the spinning movement will still continue its onward march. The Association feels thankful for its ability to serve l, 50,000 women in nearly 2,000-villages of India and through them serve also a number of weavers, washer men, tailors, printers and the like. The Association hopes, too, to cover every one of the seven hundred thousand villages and bring a ray of hope to their cottages where today blank despair reigns supreme. 15

The scheme for full village service does not now need to be elaborately described. Whatever was done during the vacation has now to be put on a permanent footing. The villagers will also be prepared for a fuller response. The village life has to be touched at all points, the economic, the hygienic, the social and the political. The immediate solution of the economic distress is undoubtedly the wheel in the vast majority of cases. It at once adds to the income of the villagers and keeps them from mischief. The hygienic includes insanitation and disease. Here the student is expected to work with his own body and labour to dig trenches for burying excreta and other refuse and turning them into manure, for cleaning wells and tanks, for building easy embankments, removing rubbish and generally to make the villages more habitable. The village worker has also to touch the social side and gently persuade the people to give up bad customs and bad habits, such as untouchability, infant marriages, unequal matches, drink and drug evil and many local superstitions. Lastly comes the political part. Here the worker will study the political grievances of the villagers and teach them the dignity of freedom, self-reliance and self-help in everything. This makes in my opinion complete adult education. But this does not complete the task of the village worker. He must take care and charge of the little ones and begin their instruction and carry on a night school for adults. This literary training is but part of a whole education course and only a means to the larger end described above. 16

Nor do we fully realize the meaning of economic distress. It is below par in the sense that the distress has reduced man in India below his species. He is an underfed beast of burden in human form and is daily sinking. The money taken from him is never used for his betterment. He is untouched by any moral or other good influence. 17 But there was then deep economic distress among you. Bad as your condition was even in normal times, the unprecedented fall this year in the prices of the crops usually grown by you made it infinitely worse. And Congress workers reported that many of you were utterly unable to pay in full the rents due by you. In several districts inquiries were made in a few hundred villages disclosing a serious state of affairs. It was found that the price of your gross produce had fallen to such an extent that the sales were not enough to pay the rents. It was in this connection that I came to Nainital to see H. E. the Governor. His Excellency gave me a patient hearing and we fully discussed the situation. He was sympathetic. I told him that some Congress workers had assured me that the relief hitherto announced by the Government of the U.P. was hardly equal to the actual distress. And I submitted certain proposals which he kindly promised to consider. 18

By mechanism you mean this tremendous activity based on machinery. What I want to suppress is the supremacy of machine over man. At the present moment the craze for everything to be done by machine has become so great that we are becoming slaves of machinery. Machinery is used for two purposes: (i) for compassing destruction, and (ii) for mass production. I drew your attention to the fact that this economic distress was due to the late War, but this mass production is no less responsible for this economic distress. 19 The Working Committee holds that it is the unquestionable right of all people suffering from grave economic distress, as the tenant of the United Provinces is admittedly suffering, to withhold payment of taxes if they fail, as in the United Provinces they have failed, to obtain redress by other constitutional methods. In the arrest and imprisonment of Mr. Sherwani, the President of the United Provinces Congress Committee, and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the Working General Secretary of the Congress, who were proceeding to Bombay to confer with Mahatma Gandhi and to take part in the meeting of the Working Committee, the Government have gone even beyond the limits contemplated by their Ordinance in that there was no question whatsoever of these gentlemen taking part in Bombay in a non-tax campaign in the United Provinces. So far as the Frontier Province is concerned on the Government’s own showing there appears to be no warrant for either the promulgation of the Ordinance or the arrest and imprisonment without trial of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and his co-workers. The Working Committee regards the shootings in that Province of innocent and unarmed men to be wanton and inhuman and congratulates the brave men of the Frontier Province upon their courage and endurance, and the Working Committee has no doubt that, if the brave people of the Frontier Province retain their nonviolent spirit in spite of the gravest provocations, their blood and their sufferings would advance the cause of India’s independence. The Working Committee calls upon the Government of India to institute a public and impartial enquiry into the events that have led up to the passing of these Ordinances, the necessity of superseding the ordinary courts of law and legislative machinery, and the necessity of several acts committed there under. And thereafter, if a proper enquiry is set up and all facilities are given to the Working Committee for the production of evidence, it will be prepared to assist the enquiry by leading evidence before it. The Working Committee has considered the declaration of the Prime Minister made before the Round Table Conference and the debates in the Houses of Parliament and regards the declaration as wholly unsatisfactory and inadequate in terms of the Congress demand and place on record its opinion that nothing short of Complete Independence, carrying full control over the Defence and External Affairs and Finance with such safeguards as may be demonstrably necessary in the interests of the nation, can be regarded by the Congress as satisfactory. The Working Committee notes that the British Government was not prepared at the Round Table Conference to regard the Congress as representing and entitled to speak and act on behalf of the nation as a whole without distinction of caste, creed or colour.

At the same time, the Committee recognizes with sorrow that communal harmony could not be attained at the said Conference. The Working Committee invites the nation, therefore, to make ceaseless effort to demonstrate the capacity of the Congress to represent the nation as a whole and promote an atmosphere that would make a Constitution framed on a purely national basis acceptable to the various communities composing the nation. Meanwhile, the Working Committee is prepared to tender cooperation to the Government provided His Excellency the Viceroy reconsiders his telegram and adequate relief is granted in respect of the Ordinances and its recent Acts, free scope is left to the Congress in any future negotiations and consultations to prosecute the Congress claim for Complete Independence, and the administration of the country is carried on in consultation with popular representatives pending the attainment of such independence. The absence of any satisfactory response from the Government in terms of the foregoing paragraph the Working Committee will regard as an indication on the part of the Government that it has reduced to nullity the Delhi Pact. In the event of a satisfactory response not forthcoming, the Working Committee calls upon the nation to resume civil disobedience including non-payment of taxes under the following conditions and illustrative heads:

(1) No Province or district or Tahsil or village is bound to take up civil disobedience unless the people thereof understand the non-violent nature of the struggle with all its implications and are ready to undergo sufferings involving loss of life and property.

(2) Non-violence must be observed in thought, word and deed in the face of the gravest provocation, it being understood that the campaign is not one of seeking revenge or inflicting injuries on the oppressor, but it is one of converting him through self-suffering and self-purification.

(3) Social boycott with the intention of inflicting injury on Government officers, police or anti-nationalists should not be undertaken and is wholly inconsistent with the spirit of non-violence.

(4) It should be borne in mind that non-violent campaigns are independent of pecuniary assistance; therefore, there should be no hired volunteers, but their bare maintenance and maintenance of the dependents of poor men and women who might have been imprisoned or killed is permissible wherever it is possible. The Working Committee, however, expects workers in the cause to continue the struggle even though they might have to suffer privations.

(5) Boycott of all foreign cloth whether British or of other countries is obligatory under all circumstances.

(6) All Congressmen and women are expected to use hand-spun and hand-woven khaddar to the exclusion of even cloth manufactured in indigenous mills.

(7) Picketing of liquor shops and foreign-cloth shops should be vigorously conducted chiefly by women but always so as to ensure perfect non-violence.

(8) Unlicensed manufacture and collection of salt should be resumed.

(9) If processions and demonstrations are organized, only those should join them who will stand lathi charges or bullets without moving from their respective places.

(10) Even in non-violent war boycott of goods manufactured by the oppressor is perfectly lawful inasmuch as it is never the duty of the victim to promote or retain commercial relations with the oppressor. Therefore, boycott of British goods and concerns should be resumed and vigorously prosecuted.

(11) Civil breach of non-moral laws and of laws and orders injurious to the people wherever it is considered possible and advisable may be practised. (12) All unjust orders issued under the Ordinances may be civilly disobeyed. 20

I have your memorandum of items of work to be undertaken by your Anti-untouchability League. I notice seven items, of which five relate to the carrying on of agitation or propaganda, one relates to Satyagraha and one relates to the administration of funds. My advice is that all these may be cut out altogether and the activities of the League be confined to actual constructive work by individual workers. It is wholly unnecessary to agitate for waste land, political rights or even about matters of education. What you need today is to educate as many as possible and to relieve economic distress of as many as possible and to have as many temples opened as possible. There may be some propaganda required about this, but that is part of the constructive work itself and cannot absorb the whole of the time of the members. 21 I have no partiality for return to the primitive method of grinding and husking for the sake of them. I suggest the return, because there is no other way of giving employment to the millions of villagers who are living in idleness. In my opinion, village uplift is impossible, unless we solve the pressing economic distress. Therefore, to induce the villagers to utilize their idle hours is in itself solid uplift work. I invite the fair correspondent and those who feel like her to go to some villages live there for some time in the midst of the villagers and try to live like them, and they will soon perceive the soundness of my argument. 22

But what about relief to the peasantry which is oppressed by excessive taxation, rack-renting, illegal exactions, indebtedness which can never be fully discharged, illiteracy, superstition and disease, peculiarly due to pauperism? Of course it comes first in terms of numbers and economic distress. But the relief of the peasantry is an elaborate programme and does not admit of wholesale treatment. And no Congress Ministry that does not handle this universal problem can exist for ten days. Every Congressman is instinctively interested, if largely academically, in this problem. He has inherited the legacy from the birth of the Congress. The distress of the peasantry may be said to be the raison d’être of the Congress. There was and is no fear of this subject being neglected. I fear the same cannot be said of prohibition. It became an integral part of the Congress programme only in 1920. In my opinion, the Congress, now that it is in power, will put itself morally right only by once for all courageously and drastically dealing with this devastating evil. 23

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