Why Only Khadi?

Several people have recently complained to me that they know men who use Khadi, but use no other village articles. They suggest that many Congressmen wear Khadi because it is required by the Constitution. But having no belief in it, they never think of anything but their convenience so far as other articles of use are concerned. This I call fulfilling the letter and killing the spirit. And where the spirit is killed, the letter is of as much use as a body from which life has ebbed away. I have often said that Khadi is the central sun round which the other village industries revolve like so many planets. They have no independent existence. Nor will Khadi exist without the other industries. They are absolutely interdependent.

Cities Must Sub serve Villages

The fact is that we have to make a choice between India of the villages that are as ancient as herself, and India of the cities which are a creation of foreign domination. Today the cities dominate and drain the villages so that they are crumbling to ruin. My Khadi mentality tells me that cities must sub serve villages when that domination goes. Exploiting of villages is itself organized violence. If we want Swaraj to be built on non-violence, we shall have to give the villages their proper place. This we will never do unless we revive village industries by using the products thereof in place of things produced in the city factories, foreign or indigenous. Perhaps, it is clear now why I identify Khadi with non-violence. Khadi is the chief village handicraft. Kill Khadi and you must kill the villages and with them non-violence. I cannot prove this by statistics. The proof is before our eyes.

Harijan: Jan. 20, 1940.