A Restatement of Faith

I am going to say nothing new today .The cult of spinning wheel is 18 years old. I said in 1918 that we could win Swaraj through the spinning wheel. My faith in the ability of the spinning wheel is a bright today as when I first declared it in it in 1918. It has become richer for the experience and experiment of all these years.

But you should know the implications of the wheel or Khadi its product. It is not enough that one wears Khadi on ceremonial occasions, or even wears it to the exclusion of all other cloth if he surrounds himself with Videshi in everything else. Khadi means the trust Swadeshi spirit, identification with the starving millions.

Indian economic independence means to me the economic uplift of every individual, male and female, by his or her own conscious effort. Under that system, a men and women will have enough clothing not the mere Ioin cloth, but what we understand by the term necessary articles of clothing and enough food including milk and butter, which are today denied to millions.

Causes of India’s Poverty

Let us now see how India came to be utterly impoverished. History tells us that the East India Company ruined the cotton manufacture and by all kinds of means made her dependent upon Lancashire for her cloth, the next great necessity of man. It is still the largest item of import. It is thus created a huge army of partially unemployed men and women counted in millions, and gave them no other employment in return. With the destruction of hand-ginning, carding, spinning and weaving to a certain extent, perished the other industries of India’s villages. Continuous unemployment has induced in the people a kind of laziness which is most depressing, Thus, whilst the alien rule is undoubtedly responsible for the growing pauperism of the people, we are more responsible for it. If the middle class people, who betrayed their trust and bartered away the economic independence of India for a mess of pottage, would now realize their error and take the message of the wheel to the villagers and induce them to shed their laziness and work at the wheel, we can ameliorate the condition of the people to a great extent. It would be a terrible thing if laziness replaces industry and despair triumphs over hope.

The Economic Solar System

In such a scheme, the spinning wheel becomes its centre. If you call it the solar system, the wheel becomes the golden disc and the industries the planets revolving round it in obedience to the inviolable laws of the system. When the Sun lost its illuminating power by the action of the East India Company, the planets lost their power and became invisible or almost so. The Sun is being reinstated in his past status now, and the planets are regaining their motion inexact proportion to the strength of the Sun.

Now, perhaps, you will understand the meaning and the message of the Charkha.

Harijan: Jan. 2, 1937.