The Test Of Swadeshi

A medical friend from far off Burma writes: “Why do you emphasize Khaddar and not Swadeshi? Is not Swadeshi the principle and Khaddar a mere detail?”

I do not regard Khaddar to be a detail. Swadeshi is a theoretical term. Khaddar is the concrete and central fact of Swadeshi. Swadeshi without Khaddar is like the body without life, fit only to receive a decent burial or cremation. The only Swadeshi cloth is Khaddar.¹ If one is to interpret Swadeshi in the language of, and in terms of, the millions of this country, Khaddar is a substantial thing in Swadeshi like the air we breathe. The test of Swadeshi is not the universality of the use of an article, which goes under the name of Swadeshi, but the universality of participation in the production or manufacture of such article. Thus considered, mill-made cloth is Swadeshi only in a restricted sense. For, in its manufacture only an infinitesimal number of India’s millions can take part. But in the manufacture of the Khaddar, millions can take part. The more the merrier. With Khaddar, in my opinion, is bound up the welfare of millions of human beings. Khaddar is, therefore, the largest part of Swadeshi and it is the only true demonstration of it. All else follows from it. India can live, even if we do not use brass buttons or tooth picks made in India. But India cannot live if we refuse to manufacture and wear Khaddar. Khaddar will cease to have this paramount importance when a more profitable employment is discovered for the idle hours of India’s millions.

Foreign Drugs

The friend then asks: “Should doctors cease to prescribe foreign drugs and instead learn the use of Ayurvedic and Unani drugs?”

I have never considered the exclusion of everything foreign under every conceivable circumstances as part of Swadeshi. The broad definition of Swadeshi is the use of all home-made things to the exclusion of foreign things, in so far as such use is necessary for protection of home-industry, more especially those industries without which India will become pauperized. In my opinion, therefore, Swadeshi which excludes the use of everything foreign, because it is foreign, no matter how beneficial it may be, and irrespective of the fact that it impoverishes nobody, is a narrow interpretation of Swadeshi. Foreign drugs, therefore, where they are highly efficacious and not otherwise objectionable, I should use without the slightest hesitation; that is, if I did not object to drugs altogether. But there is no doubt that there is among many a medical men with Western diploma a fashion, altogether harmful, of decrying Ayurvedic and Unani drugs, some of which are indeed of great potency and cheap withal. Any movement, therefore, on the part of those who have received a training in Western medicine to explore the possibilities of Ayurvedic and Unani systems would be most welcome and desirable.

- Young India: June 17, 1926

1 “I suspect that the true meaning of Swadeshi is missed in the forest of words that surround that simple but life-giving word. Let us adhere to its root-meaning and we shall discover nothing but Khadi in it. Swadeshi is ‘of one’s own country.’ Among things of the villagers’ daily use, cloth is the only thing that is ‘not of one’s own country.’ That which they can easily make themselves is also cloth. Hence the Swadeshi that they can realize and without which they must starve is Khadi and nothing else. Hence is Khadi the only real Swadeshi for every patriot.”

- Young India: Mar. 29, 1928