Colour Bar V. Swadeshi

Thus writes Mr. Spender:

“Gandhi would keep out European goods: the South Africans would go a step further and keep out the Indians. Swadeshi and Colour Bar Bills are the obverse and reverse of the same idea; both follow from the despairing thought that East and West cannot intermingle without destroying each other’s characteristic ways of life. Gandhi, the saint, is full of benevolence, and I listened to him while he earnestly disclaimed all sympathy with violent or anarchical ways of changing any existing order. Yet as he discoursed on the ravages which Western Industrialism had wrought in the Indian village, I had the feeling that if he were Emperor of India invested with plenary powers, the regulations that he would make for the admission of Europeans and their settlement in India might not greatly differ from those which South Africans are attempting to impose on Indians in South Africa today. I have a very real respect for Mr. Gandhi, and I am, of course, aware that the last thing that he desires is to afford excuses for either form of intolerance. It is nevertheless true that ‘Swadeshi’ and ‘Colour Bar’ belong to the same spiritual family.”

This paragraph from Mr. Spender’s article furnishes an extraordinary study in what Tolstoy would call hypnotism. Under the hypnotic influence of the standardized thought of the English official in India, Mr. Spender is unable to see any difference between the Colour Bar Bills of South Africa and the Indian Swadeshi in terms of Khaddar. Mr. Spender is an honest Liberal. He has some sympathy for Indian aspirations. But he cannot escape the influence of his immediate surroundings. What is true of him is no doubt true of every one of us. Hence the necessity for Non-co-operation. When the surroundings are vicious, we must cut ourselves off from contact with those surroundings, in so far at least as our contact is voluntary.

Extraordinary Proposition

But whether Mr. Spender’s extraordinary proposition is an outcome of the hypnotic influence of his surroundings or whether it is really his own original idea, let us examine it. The Colour Bar Bill is aimed at men, not at measures. Swadeshi is aimed at measures only. Colour Bar is indiscriminately against a man’s race or colour. Swadeshi knows no such distinction. The upholders of the Colour Bar would carry out their purpose even violently, if necessary. Swadeshi eschews all form of violence, even mental. The Colour Bar has no reason behind it. Swadeshi, in the form of Khaddar, is a scientific formula supported by reason all along the line. Under the Colour Bar every Indian, no matter what educational qualifications he may possess, even though he may be thoroughly Westernized, is an undesirable person in the estimation of the Europeans of South Africa. The Colour Bar Bills are violent in purpose, for they would keep the natives of the soil and the Asiatic settlers for ever as unskilled labourers and will not allow them to rise above that status. The Colour Bar Bills are intended to do, under the name of civilization and for its protection, perhaps, in a more virulent form, what has been done in the name of Hinduism by Hindus to the so-called untouchables. But it is worthy of note that untouchability, whatever may be said to the contrary, is in fact dying in India. Those who are devoting themselves to the removal of untouchability are also those who are enthusiastically advocating the universalization of the spinning wheel. Untouchability is admitted to be an evil. The Colour Bar is being raised almost to the status of a religion in South Africa. The Colour Bar Bills would harm, and deprive of their possessions innocent men and women without any just cause. Whereas Swadeshi is intended to harm not one single soul. It seeks to return to the poorest of the land what has been taken away from them almost by force. The Colour Bar Bills are exclusive. Swadeshi is never exclusive in the sense in which the Colour Bar Bills are. Swadeshi has no sympathy with the formula that East and West can never intermingle. Swadeshi does not banish all foreign or European goods, nor all machine-made goods, nor for that matter does Swadeshi tolerate all home-made goods .Swadeshi admits of and welcomes the introduction of all foreign goods that cannot or need not be manufactured in India and that would benefit her people. Thus Swadeshi admits all foreign books containing pure literature, all foreign watches, foreign needles, foreign sewing machines, foreign pins. But Swadeshi excludes all intoxicating drinks and drugs, even though they may be manufactured in India. Swadeshi concentrates itself upon the spinning wheel and Khaddar, to the exclusion of all foreign cloth and even cloth manufactured by the mills in India, for the very simple, sufficient, satisfying and moral reason that the destruction of the spinning wheel has meant the destruction of the only supplementary industry of India for the millions of its peasants without furnishing any substitute. Thus Swadeshi in the form of Khaddar and the spinning wheel is a paramount necessity for the very existence of the millions of her paupers. Whereas the Colour Bar Bills are a response to the greed of a handful of Europeans, who are after all exploiting the resources of a land which belongs not to them but to the original inhabitants of South Africa. The Colour Bar Bills have, therefore, no moral foundation whatsoever so far as I can see. The exclusion or the extinction of the Asiatic settlers of South Africa is in no way required, can in no way be proved to be necessary, for the existence of the South African Europeans. Still less can the suppression of the original inhabitants of South Africa be defended on any single moral ground. It is, therefore, painfully surprising to find a person of Mr. Spender’s experience and attainments putting the highly moral Swadeshi in the form of Khaddar in the same category as the Colour Bar Bills. They do not belong to one family, let alone spiritual, but they belong to absolute different families, as different as the North Pole is from the South.

If I Were Emperor of India

Mr. Spender speculates upon what I would do if I were “Emperor of India invested with plenary powers”. Perhaps I can speculate with greater authority. If I were Emperor of India, I would extend the hand of fellowship to the whole of the world irrespective caste, colour or creed, for I claim the whole of mankind to be the children of one God, having absolutely the same capacity for self-realization as the tallest amongst them. I would disband practically the whole of the army of occupation in India, retaining only such police as may be necessary for the protection of her citizens against thieves and robbers. I would not bribe the Frontier tribes as they are being bribed today. But I would cultivate the friendliest relations with them and, to that end, send out reformers amongst them in order to find out ways and means of providing useful occupation for them. I would guarantee the fullest protection for every European living in India and all honest European enterprises. I would impose a prohibitive tariff on all foreign cloth so as to exclude it entirely from India and bring Khaddar under State control, so as to enable every villager, who chooses to spin, feel that the products of his or her spinning wheel would be taken up. I would prohibit the importation of intoxicating liquors and close down every distillery, confining the manufacture of alcohol and opium for proved medical necessity. I would guarantee full protection to all forms of religious worship, save what is repugnant to the moral sense of mankind. I would throw open to the so-called untouchables every public temple and public school to which all other Hindus have right to admission. I would summon the representatives of both the Hindus and Mussalmans, search their pockets and deprive them of all eatables and of all lethal weapons, if they have any, and lock them together in one room and open it only after they have settled their quarrels. There are, of course, many other things that I would do if I was Emperor of India. But since there is little chance of my being one, the foregoing is enough as a fair sample of what one who is miscalled a visionary, but who considers himself a practical man, understanding the wants of the poorest people, would do if he had the power.

- Young India: July 1, 1926