Oil Pressing 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

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

 

Oil Pressing and Mahatma Gandhi 

Among the village industries noted by the Committee are paddy-husking, flour-grinding, oil-pressing, gur-making, sugar manufacture, bee-keeping, pottery, glass-work, soap-making, cotton processes (i.e., picking, ginning, carding, spinning, weaving), washing, dyeing, wool-spinning, weaving, sheep-breeding, carpentry, smithy, sericulture, mat-weaving, rope-making, tanning, disposal of carcasses, piscine culture, poultry-breeding, dairy-farming, shoe-making, brass and metal wares, toy-making, goldsmith, paper-making, transport, lac industry, bamboo, match manufacture, etc. Among the industries is bidi-making. 1

These stand on a different footing from khadi. There is not much scope for voluntary labour in them. Each industry will take the labour of only a certain number of hands. These industries come in as a handmaid to khadi. They cannot exist without khadi, and khadi will be robbed of its dignity without them. Village economy cannot be complete without the essential village industries such as hand-grinding, hand-pounding, soap-making, paper-making, match-making, tanning, oil-pressing, etc. Congressmen can interest themselves in these and, if they are villagers or will settle down in villages, they will give these industries a new life and a new dress. All should make it a point of honour to use only village articles whenever and wherever available. Given the demand there is no doubt that most of our wants can be supplied from our villages? When we have become village minded, we will not want imitations of the West or machine-made products, but we will develop a true national taste in keeping with the vision of a new India in which pauperism, starvation and idleness will be unknown. 2 

I myself cannot say that I know it for certain. But what I am quite clear about is that khadi should not be for sale but for self-consumption. Hence the necessity of changing the present policy of khadi works. We have before us the task of reconstructing our whole country, and in this khadi is an important item. So also there are oil-pressing and other industries. It is only if we look at the problem from the point of view of production for use rather than for sale that the country has everything to gain by our work, and we shall be able to meet the situation squarely without withdrawing a single step when we obtain control over the reins of Government. 3

You can use machines to manufacture cars, engines, aeroplanes and things of that kind. But I am strongly opposed to the use of machines for grinding corn, manufacturing cloth and ploughing the land. The consumption of mill-ground floor has deprived us of all vitality, for machine-grinding destroys all the vitamins. In the old days in Kathiawar we didn’t have even water-taps. The women used to fetch water from the river, with shining pots resting on supports studded with bright beads; it would be early morning and the women thus had a sun-bath daily and that kept them healthy. They used to grind the corn in the early dawn, singing bhajans the while, including prayers to God. These simple innocent songs containing useful moral wisdom taught them some music and the grinding provided they exercise. Afterwards the whole family would go to work in the fields, so that hardly anybody knew what illness was or even the names of the diseases of lungs so widespread these days. In such a vast country, or say, rather, a family, containing a variety of communities and races, there is no need for machinery at all. Machinery does the work in very little time and that is harmful in every way, physically and economically. With so much leisure on hand, the people get busy in mischief, for, as the saying is, an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. Or they waste their time in cinemas and theatres. Many people argue with me and try to convince me that the cinema has an educative value. But the argument doesn’t appeal to me at all. For one thing, sitting in a closed theatre one feels suffocated. I had been to such a theatre only once, when I was a small child.

If I had my way, I would see to it that all the cinemas and theatres in India were converted into spinning halls and factories for handicrafts of all kinds. And what obscene photographs of actors and actresses are displayed in the newspapers by way of advertisement! Moreover, who are these actors and actresses if not our own brothers and sisters? We waste our money and ruin our culture at the same time. If I was made Prime Minister of the country, these would be the first things I would do: I would stop all machine-driven flour-mills and restrict the number of oil-pressing factories but install the indigenous mills all over the country. I might not destroy the existing textile mills, but certainly would not help them in any way and, in any case, would not permit new ones to be set up. I would close all the cinemas and theatres, though I might, as an exception, permit exhibition of pictures of educational value or showing scenes of natural beauty. But singing and dancing I would stop completely. I have great regard for dancing and music. I love music indeed. I may even claim that I understand what good music is and what is not. But I would surely prohibit music and dancing which tend to pervert the minds of young men and women. I would stop the sale of gramophone records.

That is, I would suggest to the Government that it should impose heavy taxes on all such life-killing activities. Similarly, harmful drinks and drugs like liquors, tobacco and tea also should be heavily taxed so that their consumption would automatically decrease. Moreover, ideal villages which are self-reliant in regard to food, which have not a single flourmill and in which the residents grow all the cotton they need and manufacture their own cloth, right up to the stage of stitching garments in their own homes, should be awarded prizes and exempted from all taxes. In such an ideal village, every resident will be his own policeman, his own doctor and his own watchman, and the people will have no time then to quarrel and fight among themselves. See, I have given you so much time. What I have described is only my dream of a free India, and idle dream like Sheikhchalli’s. My heart was full and I, therefore, poured it out to you. At present, however, I see no sign of any of the things I have suggested being implemented. I know this and still I cannot keep back my thoughts, and so when people like you come I pour them out. 4

 

References:

1. Harijan, 20-5-1939
2. Constructive Programme: Its Meaning and Place
3. Khadi: Why and How, pp. 182
4. Bihar Pachhi Dilhi, pp. 14-9