Early in the year, if not immediately after my convalescence last year, I was called upon by those who were interested in Swadeshi to frame a definition so as to answer the many difficulties that faced them. I had to bear in mind the various shades of Swadeshi in textiles. I put together the definitions that were suggested. I failed to frame a definition that would suit all cases and found that it was impossible to frame an exhaustive definition. As I was traveling far and wide, I had the opportunity of observing things and of seeing how Swadeshi organizations were functioning. I came to the conclusion that the existing practice was an unconscious fraud upon the public and that many workers of ability were wasting their energy in a vain effort. They were practicing self-deception. This strong language, whilst it correctly describes my mental attitude, is not intended to cast any reflection whatsoever upon the workers in Swadeshi organizations. They were doing their best without realizing that they were moving in a vicious circle and labouring under self-deception.

Revival of Village Industries

Let me explain what I mean. We were holding exhibitions of things that were in no need of special help or of advertisement for their sale. In their case, our interposition can either stimulate the prices of their wages or set up unhealthy rivalries between flourishing but competing firms.

We may profess to gratuitously help textile, sugar and rice mills and, respectively, kill the village, spinning wheel, the hand-loom and their product, Khadi, the village cane crusher and its product, the vitamin-laden and nourishing gud or molasses, and the hand-pounder and its product, unpolished rice, whose pericarp, which holds the vitamins, is left intact by these pounders. Our clear duty is, therefore, to investigate the possibility of keeping in existence the village wheel, the village crusher and the village pounder, and, by advertising their products, discovering their qualities, ascertaining the condition of the workers and the number displaced by the power-driven machinery and discovering the methods of improving them, whilst retaining their village character, to enable them to stand the competition of the mills. How terribly and criminally we have neglected them! Here there is no antagonism to the textile or the sugar or the rice mills. Their products must be preferred to the corresponding foreign products. If they were in danger of extinction from foreign competition, they should receive the needed support. But they stand in no such need. They are flourishing inspite of foreign competition. What is needed is protection of the village crafts and the workers behind them from the crushing competition of power-driven machinery, whether it is worked in India or in foreign lands. It may be that Khadi, gud and unpolished rice have no intrinsic quality and that they should die. But, except for Khadi, not the slightest effort has been made, so far as I am aware, to know anything about the fate of the tens of thousands of villagers who were earning their livelihood through crushing cane and pounding rice. Surely, there is in this work enough for an army of patriots. The reader will say: ‘But it is very difficult work’. I admit. But it is most important and equally interesting. I claim that this is true, fruitful and cent per cent Swadeshi.

But I have as yet merely touched the fringe of the question. I have merely sampled three big organized industries and shown how voluntary Swadeshi agencies need to concentrate their attention solely on the corresponding unorganized village industries that are dying for want of voluntary and intelligent, organized help.

Village and Town Crafts

There are numberless other village, and even town, crafts that need public support, if they are to live and thus maintain the thousands of poor artisans depending upon them for their daily bread. Every ounce of work in this direction tells. Every hour given to this work means the subsistence of some deserving workers.

It is my certain conviction that, if work is done on a systematic basis in this direction, the department doing it will become self-supporting, new talent will be stimulated, the educated as well as the uneducated unemployed will find honourable employment without displacing anyone, and crores will be added yearly to the wealth of this country which is getting progressively impoverished.

Here is enough profitable and entertaining work and to spare for all the Swadeshi Leagues put together. The recent resolution of the Working Committee on Swadeshi¹ means all this and much more. It provides limitless work for the creative genius in the country.

Harijan: Aug. 10, 1934

1. The following resolution was passed by the Working Committee at Benares on 30^th July, 1934:

“Doubts having arisen on the Congress policy in regard to Swadeshi, it has become necessary to re-affirm the Congress position on it in unequivocal terms. Notwithstanding what was done during the Civil Resistance struggle, no competition is permissible on Congress platforms and in Congress exhibitions between mill-made cloth and handspun and hand-woven Khadi. Congressmen are expected to use and encourage the use of only hand-spun and hand-woven Khadi to the exclusion of any other cloth.

“In regard to articles other than cloth, the Working Committee adopts the following formula for the guidance of all Congress organizations:

‘The Working Committee is of opinion that the activities of Congress organization relating to Swadeshi shall be restricted to useful articles manufactured in India through cottage and other small industries which are in need of popular education for their support, and which will accept the guidance of the Congress organizations in regulating prices and in the matter of the wages and welfare of labour under their control.’

The formula must not be interpreted to mean any modification of the unbroken policy of the Congress to promote the Swadeshi spirit in the country and to encourage the personal use of only Swadeshi articles. The formula is a recognition of the fact that the large and organized industries, which can or do command State aid, are in no need of the services of Congress organizations or any Congress effort on their behalf.”