Swadeshi & Globalisation

K. S. Bharathi

GANDIJHI’S CONTRIBUTION TO most of the Indian freedom struggle was the final effort, in the series of efforts made by Dadabhai Naoraoji, Tilak, and Gokhale in the political field and by many others in the field of social reforms, cultural and religious renaissance, and industrial development. He synthesized the various, cultural and religious renaissance, and industrial development. He synthesized the various thread of national regeneration and gave them a special dimension and intensity with his prescription of self-discipline and nonviolence to be the indispensable ingredients in all activities. Swadeshi tasted its victory with the British colonialists leaving “the jewel of the British Empire” on 15 August 1947. Unfortunately, India’s political freedom did not have an opportunity to be “Swadeshised” as much as Gandhi,” the chief executive” of the movement would have wished it to be, due to his tragic assassination by a fanatic.

Gandhi’s faith in the principles of Satya and Ahimsa , forming a Part of his daily prayer vows, forms the spiritual basis of his concept of Swadeshi. He insisted on the axiom that the Britishers would continue to hold on to their Indian colonial rule only so long as they could exploit it for supply of raw materials for their finished products. Swadeshi, a resurrection of the village economy, thus became his political weapon, as well as his “love’s labour” for ensuring the fulfillment of the basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter to the starving and naked millions.

The early economic concept of Swadeshi was a movement for the growth and expansion of early capitalism in India. The movement got a patriotic boost up, as a reaction of Bengal Partition, resulting in a patriotic boost up, as a reaction of Bengal Partition, resulting in a desire for economic self-reliance of Bengal Partition, resulting in desire for economic self-reaction of Bengal partition, resulting in a desire for economic self-reliance and economic independence Gandhi had, shrewdly, noticed the change in the psychological make-up of the nation, consequent of the inauguration of the Swadeshi movement. Earlier,” People, young and old, used to run away at the sight of an English face; it, now, no longer awes them. They don’t fear even a row, or being imprisonment.”1

And so, we find Gandhi , on his return to India (1951) struggling, at his Satyagraha Ashram, in an earnest search for, and piecing together, step by step, the component for perfecting his dream weapon, “Charkha” for the fight, that was to be nonviolent.

Gandhi identified Khadi with the Swadeshi movement. He remarked: From the very inception, the Khadi movement, Swadeshi movement, as it was then called, evoked much criticism from the mill owners.”2 Swadeshi implied “the use of all home-made things to the exclusion of foreign things, in so far as such use is necessary for the protection of home industry, more especially, those industries without which India will become pauperized.”3

Gandhi elucidated his concept of Swadeshi with its religious, moral, and spiritual connotations in his address, on 14 February 1916, to a missionary conference in Madras. To quote Gandhi: “Swadeshi is that spirit in us, which restricts us to the use and service of our immediate surroundings to the exclusion of the more remote. Thus as for religion, surroundings to the exclusion of the more remote. Thus as for religion, in order to satisfy to myself to my ancestral religion. This is the use of my immediate religious surrounding. If I find it defective, I should serve make use of the indigenous institutions and serve them by curing them of their proved defects….. In … that of economics, I shall use only things that are produced by my immediate neighbors and serve those industries by making them by efficient and complete- where they might be found wanting. Such Swadeshi, if reduced, if reduced to practice, will lead to the millennium.”4

It is apt to see how Gandhi was drawn in to politics. He said: “I work for India's’ freedom , because my Swadeshi teaches me that , being in it and having inherited her culture, I am fittest to serve her, and she has a prior claim to my service.”5

Gandhi regarded Swadeshi as a spiritual law like Nature’s Laws which needed no enacting, He said:” But through ignorance or other causes, man often neglects of disobeys them. It is then that vows are needed to steady hi course…. In its ultimate and spiritual sense, Swadeshi stands for the final emancipation of the soul from her earthly bondage… A votary of Swadeshi, therefore, in his striving to identify himself with the bondage of the body…. Its votary will, as a first duty, dedicated with the bondage himself to the service of his immediate neighbors.”6

Gandhi lamented that lack of Swadeshi spirit in educational led to alienation of the educated class from the masses. He remarked: “We have laboured under a terrible handicapped owing to an almost fatal departure from the Swadeshi spirit. We, the educated classes, have received our education through a foreign tongue. We have therefore not reacted upon the masses. We want to represent the masses, but we fail. They recognize us not, much more than they recognize the English officers, Their recognize us not, much more than they recognize the English officers. Their hearts are an open book to neither. Their aspirations are not ours. Hence there is a break. And you witness not in reality failure to organize but want of correspondence between the representatives and the represented. If during the last fifty years, we had been educated through the vernaculars, our elders and our servants and we would have partaken of our knowledge; the discoveries; as are the Ramayana and the Mahabharat….. As it is, so far as the masses are concerned, those foreigners had instruction in all the branches of learning been given through the vernaculars, I make bold to say that they would have enriched wonderfully.”7

Gandhi advised that Swadeshi was not to be made a fetish, that goes against the principle of ahimsa. He said:” To reject foreign manufactures merely because they are foreign and to go on wasting national time and money in the promotion, in one’s country manufactures for which it is not suited , will be criminal folly and a negation of the Swadeshi spirit. A true votary of Swadeshi will not harbout ill-will towards a foreigner and not be actuated by antagonism towards anybody on the earth. Swadeshi is not a cult of hatred. it is a doctrine of selfless service that has its roots in the purest ahimsa, i. e.; love.”8

India’s misery is the result of our lazy dependence. To quote Gandhi, “Much of the deep poverty of the masses is due to ruinous departure from Swadeshi in the economic and industrial life. If not one article of commerce had been brought from outside India, she would be today a land flowing with milk and honey. But that was not to be. We were greedy and so was England.”9

India’s misery is the result of our lazy dependence. To quote Gandhi, “Much of the deep poverty of the masses is due to ruinous departure from Swadeshi in the economic and industrial life. If not one article of commerce had been brought from outside India, she would be today a land flowering with milk and honey. But that was not to be. We were greedy and so was England.”

If we follow the Swadeshi doctrine, it would be your duty and mine, to find out neighbours who can supply them, where they do not know how to proceed, assuming that there are neifhbours who are in want of healthy occupation. Then every village of India will almost be self0 supporting and self-contained unit, exchanging only such necessary commodities with other villages as are not locally producible. 10 Gandhi remarked from one of the sacred laws of our being , when we leave our neighbour and go out somewhere else, in order to satisfy our wants. If a man comes from Bombay merchant, so long as you have got a merchant at your very door, born and bred in Madras. That is my view of Swadeshi,”11

Motivations the means and not legislation for each and every-thing. Gandhi said: “compulsory, obedience to master is a state of slavery; willing obedience to one’s father is the glory of son-ship.”12 Again,” So long as we have no power, conversion is our weapon of necessity; but after we get power, conversion will be our weapon by necessity; but after we get power, conversion will be our weapon of choice. Conversion must precede legislation. Legislation, in the absence of conversion remains a dead-letter. As an illustration , we have today, the power to enforce rules of sanitation, but we do nothing with it, because the public is not ready.”13

Swadeshi demands austerity. Gandhi explained: ‘’Swadeshi is a religious discipline, to be undergone, in utter disregard of the physical discomfort it may centralization which Mahatma Gandhi and J. C. Kumarappa advocated. For achieving this they gave us the programme of Rural Development through Khadi & Village industries.

Let us realize this before it becomes too late.