IS BOYCOTT SWADESHI?

[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]

 

 

 

IS BOYCOTT SWADESHI?

 

 

 Mr. Baptista has addressed himself to showing that boycott is not only the same as swadeshi in effect but is superior to it. His reasons for saying so are that, whilst it fully serves the purpose of swadeshi in that it stimulates the use of home-made articles, it produces an effect upon the British merchant and manufacturer by touching his pocket. Mr. Baptista adds that my opposition to boycott being purely a spiritual conception, is not understood by the British people, whereas they have always recognized boycott as a perfectly constitutional and legitimate weapon which they understand. To say that boycott is the same as swadeshi even in effect is not to understand either. Swadeshi is an eternal principle whose neglect has brought untold grief to mankind. It means production and distribution of articles manufactured in one’s own country. In its narrow and present form it means the saving of sixty crore rupees annually through the instrumentality of the peasant population. It therefore also means giving 72 p.c. of the population a much-needed supplementary industry. Swadeshi is a constructive programme. Boycott, on the other hand, is a temporary makeshift resorted to in order to compel the hands of the British people by deliberately making an attempt to inflict a monetary loss upon them. Boycott, therefore, operates as an undue influence brought in to secure one’s purpose. It may indirectly result, but not unless it is persistent and prolonged, in greater manufacture at home, but it certainly means the introduction of another disturbing factor, for, boycott does not mean exclusion of all foreign goods. It means exclusion of British goods only. It, therefore, involves greater encouragement of other foreign agencies, as for instance, Japanese and American. I certainly do not contemplate with equanimity the ever-growing influence of Japan upon Indian trade and commerce. Boycott to the effective has to be fairly universal whereas the observance of swadeshi by a single person is so much to the national good. One can make boycott successful only by an appeal to angry passions. It may therefore result in unintended consequences and may even lead to a permanent estrangement between parties. Mr. Baptista, however, denies that appeal to angry passions is a necessary consequence of boycott especially if someone like me were to manage the movement. I venture to challenge the position. A man suffering from an injustice is exposed to the temptations of having his worst passions roused on the slightest pretext. By asking him to boycott British goods you inculcate the idea of punishing the wrongdoer. And punishment necessarily evokes anger. Mr. Zahoor Ahmed who has also written to combat my position says that withdrawal of co-operation is the same in essence as boycott; only it is far less effective because it is almost impossible of execution. Now, if I am serving co-operating with a wrongdoer, I am participating in the wrong. Therefore withdrawal of co-operation becomes a duty when a wrong is serious. And even if one man ceases to co-operate it is effective to that extent because of the performance of his duty by even one man. But since boycott is a punishment and as no punishment can be a duty, boycott unless it produces its effect is wasted energy. And boycott by half a dozen persons is like hitting an elephant with a straw. I admit, however, that my fundamental opposition to boycott is based on a spiritual conception. But that is to say that I am endeavouring to extend the spiritual law to the political world. I deny however that the British people will not understand it. I had no difficulty in making the Europeans of South Africa understand and appreciate it. Nor, in order to render it effective is it necessary to follow the spiritual conception of a spiritual act. My contention is that an act purely spiritual is the simplest to understand and the easiest to execute. Spirituality is nothing if it is not eminently practical. It is not difficult to understand that we must wash our hands when they are dirty. It is equally simple to do so, yet it is essentially a spiritual practice. Mens sana in corpore sano is a doctrine of the soul. And even if we accept the necessity of cleaning dirty hands without a spiritual conception of cleanliness, so may we accept the practical failure of boycott and the practical necessity under definite conditions of non-co-operation without waiting to understand their spiritual basis. Is boycott, then, practical? Mr. Baptista has approved of boycott of the British goods. I hold that if the highest and permanent good of the country cannot be sufficient incentive to our merchants for supporting swadeshi to the exclusion of foreign goods an appeal to the merchants that, in order to bring justice from the British people, they shall temporarily stop their custom, will, I venture to submit, fall flat. Boycott after the event is of no consequence. Boycott to influence the result must be instant action. The area of boycott is too large for any organization that can be brought into being at a moment’s notice. And I can see no difficulty about British manufacturers introducing their wares into India through Japan or America even as Germany years ago introduced into India her goods through England. I swear by swadeshi because it is an evolutionary process gaining strength as it goes forward. Any organization can serve it. It is independent of the justice or the injustice of the rulers or the British people. It is its own reward. “There is no waste of energy; no failure, even a little practice of this dharma saves one from a great danger.” Swadeshi and boycott are, therefore, not the same but are at the opposite poles.