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We often think that we have carried out the full message of Swadeshi when we have adopted Khadi. We treat it as a passport for the use of everything else from non-Indian sources and for the introduction of the latest fashions from Paris. This is a travesty of Swadeshi and a denial of the message of Khadi. Whilst Khadi is an obligation for all time in India, surely it is equally an obligation to use India-made things wherever we can get them even though they may be inferior to foreign articles. There are several Swadeshi things on the market which are in danger of disappearance for want of patronage. They may not be up to the mark. It is for us to use them and require the makers to improve them wherever improvement is possible. Rule of the best and the cheapest is not always true. Just as we do not give up our country for one with a better climate but endeavour to improve our own, so also may we not discard Swadeshi for better of cheaper foreign things.1 Even as a husband who being dissatisfied with his simple-looking wife goes in search of better-looking woman is disloyal to his partner, so is a man disloyal to his country who prefers foreign-made things, though better, to country-made things. The law of each country’s progress demands on the part of its inhabitants’ preference for their own products and manufactures.
Young India: May 30, 1929 |
1 “To use foreign articles, rejecting those that are manufactured in India, is to be untrue to India. It is an unwarranted indulgence. To use foreign articles because we do not like indigenous ones, is to be a foreigner. It is obvious that we cannot reject indigenous articles, even as we cannot reject the native air and the native soil because they are inferior to foreign air and soil.”
- Young India: May 13, 1919 |
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