WANTED EXPERTS

[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]

 

 

 

WANTED EXPERTS

 

 

 Attacks on hand-spinning notwithstanding, I cling to the belief, that swaraj is unattainable without the beautiful art becoming universal in India. The reasoning applied to the proposition is incredibly simple. India cannot live unless her homes become self-supporting. They cannot become so, unless they have a supplementary occupation. It will, therefore, not avail if all our cloth was manufactured in our mills. If hand-spinning became universal, every home would get a share of the crores and without any complicated machinery being necessary. And India is able to manufacture all her own cloth. It is understood, that when spinning becomes universal, the millions of weavers and lakhs of carders will revert to their original occupation. This is the economic aspect of hand-spinning. It will save our women from forced violation of their purity. It will, as it must, do away with begging as a means of livelihood. It will remove our enforced idleness. It will steady the mind. And I verily believe that when millions take to it as a sacrament, it will turn our faces Godward. This is the moral aspect of spinning. And when it has become universal and traffic in foreign cloth has become a thing of the past, it is the surest sign that India is earnest, sober, and believes in the non-violent and religious character of her struggle. At present outsiders do not believe in our ability to boycott foreign cloth and to manufacture enough for our requirements by hand-spinning and hand-weaving. But when it becomes an established fact, India’s opinion, too, will become an irresistible force, and if necessary, she can then, but not till then, resort to civil disobedience in order to bend a recalcitrant Government to its will.

This is the political aspect. Therefore I was sad to see, that in all Bengal I found no one who was a spinning-expert and who devoted his whole time and attention to nothing but spreading the gospel of hand-spinning, teaching, organizing and advising. I found, that the masses were ready to take it up but they did not know how to go about it. What is true of Bengal is perhaps true of most provinces. We should have in each province a standard charkha and a body of experts to whom one can refer for advice and guidance. Much splendid talent could be utilized, if there was expert knowledge available. Who is to decide upon the utility or otherwise of over fifteen inventions that were exhibited in the National College Hall at Calcutta? I saw everywhere different kinds of charkhas in use. But I saw no attempt to test the capacity of these wheels. Thousands are spinning today in Bengal, but there is nobody to measure their work. I therefore advise all Congress Committees to set apart at least six men and six women with faith in their mission in this direction. They need not look to Satyagraha Ashram for personal guidance.

What can be given is being imparted through the special articles that are being published weekly in these pages. I ask those who would become experts to study them with careful attention. But no one need expect to become an expert by merely studying those articles. Practice alone will make one perfect. Millions will spin for supplementing their resources, all will spin as a sacrament, and some must spin for reducing it to a science. These latter must spin during the initial stage for eight hours per day. And as they spin on, they must match the quality of the yarn. They must measure every day their output and the exact time they have worked. They must learn the process of carding and weaving. They must know the different qualities of cotton, they must know the different types of wheels, and they must be able to execute ordinary repairs. We will not attain swaraj, unless we have organized ourselves in a methodical, intelligent and co-operative manner. Swadeshi means non-co-operation in the second great department of national life. We are boycotting because we are now ready for manufacture of our cloth by hand-spinning and hand-weaving. But we will not be able to sustain the boycott, unless each one of us becomes a spinner during the transition period and unless each province begins to organize its own production. This cannot be done if we have not a number of experts in each province.