MILL CLOTH

[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]

 

 

 

MILL CLOTH

 

 

 If hand-spun and hand-woven khaddar, whether cotton, wool or silk is to be the order of the day, what is the place of mill cloth in the national economy, is the question often asked. If millions of villagers could receive, understand and take up the message of the spinning-wheel today, I know that there is no room for mill cloth whether foreign or Indian in our domestic economy and that the nation will be all the better for its entire disappearance. This statement has nothing to do with machinery or with the propaganda for boycott of foreign cloth. It is purely and simply a question of the economic condition of the Indian masses. But unless Providence comes to the rescue and miraculously and immediately drives the masses to the spinning-wheel as to a haven of refuge, the Indian mills must continue to supplement the khaddar manufacture for a few years to come at any rate. It is devoutly to be wished that a successful appeal could be made to great mill-owners to regard the mill industry as a national trust and those they should realize its proper place. The mill-owners cannot wish to make money at the expense of the masses. They should on the contrary model their business in keeping with the national requirements and wipe out the reproach that was justly levelled against them during the Bengal Partition agitation. Even now complaints continue to come from Calcutta and elsewhere that Indian mills are charging for their dhotis more than Manchester although their dhotis are inferior to the Manchester. If the information is correct it is highly unpatriotic and such a policy of grab is likely to damage both the cause and the country.

At the moment when the country is going through the travail of a new birth, surely it is wicked to charge inordinate prices and thus not merely to stand aloof from the popular movement but actually to be callously indifferent to it. The mill-owners might also, if they will take a larger view of the situation, understand, appreciate and foster the khaddar movement and study the wants of the people and suit their manufactures to the new needs of the country. But whether they do so or not, the country’s march to freedom cannot be made to depend upon any corporation or groups of men. This is a mass manifestation. The masses are moving rapidly towards deliverance and they must move whether with the aid of the organized capital or without. This must therefore be a movement independent of capital and yet not antagonistic to it. Only if capital came to the aid of the masses, it would not redound to the credit of the capitalists and hasten the advent of the happy day nor was it otherwise before. India’s history is not one of strained relations between capital and labour. The conception of four divisions is as religious as it is economic and political. And the condition has not been affected ‘for the worse by the admixture of Islamic culture which is essentially religious and therefore beneficial to the poor. Islam seems to forbid the hoarding of capital as it literally forbids usury. And even at the present moment it is not possible to say that capital is standing out. It was the modest capitalist who subscribed so liberally to the Tilak Swaraj Fund. But it has to be admitted with pain that the bulk of the mill-owners unfortunately stood out. Manufacture of piece-goods is the largest industry in the country. It is time for it to make its choice. Will it or will it drift ?