Rural Industries and Social Change: Odisha's Influence on Gandhi

- By Ananya Behera*

Abstract

The paper highlights Madhusudan Das's influence on Gandhi, who sought to bring about changes in rural economy and rehabilitate the untouchables. Gandhi's views on rural reconstruction, development and social transformation through the promotion of village and cottage industries, vocational education, removal of untouchability were closely related to his broader vision of socio-economic transformation, in general and development of rural areas, in particular. He had travelled across the length and breadth of the country to understand people's problems. His several visits to Odisha had helped him understand the reasons for which the province was languishing under abject poverty. During these visits he saw first-hand the experiments carried out by Madhusudan Das, known to be the architect of modern Odisha, in his Utkal Tannery, and was deeply influenced by the latter's vision of and approach to industrialization.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's engagement with Odisha began in 1915, shortly after he returned from South Africa. On receiving the news of famine and widespread distress in the province, he deputed one of his associates, Amrit Lal V. Thakkar, popularly known as Thakkar Bappa, to undertake relief work there.¹ From that time onwards, being constantly moved by Odisha's acute poverty, Gandhi believed that the best way to move out of such terrible deprivation was development of agriculture, animal husbandry, khadi and cottage industries.

While Gandhi's tours to various parts of the country have been well documented, what may not be common knowledge is the fact that Gandhi made eight trips to Odisha between 1921 and 1946 to gain first-hand knowledge of the province and other specific objectives like ameliorating the conditions of dalits. He visited Odisha for the second time in 1925 at the invitation of Madhusudan Das, the foremost leader of Odisha at that time. Madhusudan had invited him to his tannery, which was known as Utkal Tannery or Utkal Charmalaya. After Gandhi visited the place in Cuttack, he was convinced that this kind of leather industry would not only be an important instrument for poverty removal in the entire country, it would also achieve objectives like upholding the dignity of labour and rehabilitation of the depressed classes. On these issues, the views of Gandhi and Madhusudan remarkably converged. During his Harijan Padayatra in 1934, Gandhi interacted with thousands of people and closely observed their conditions of living. He stressed the need for the abolition of untouchability and popularization of charkha.² While the charkha was one of Gandhi's high priorities, in Odisha, Madhusudan's concern was promotion of local industries.

Development of local industries had always fascinated Madhusudan. During his visit to London, he had tried to study different manufacturing processes and was convinced that his country would never progress unless its industries were also well developed. In the 19" century, Cuttack had earned some fame for its filigree works, but this industry was languishing. In order to revive it, he spent a lot of money for teaching the artisans how to improve their skills. He set up a workshop within the compound of his house, where 150 artisans worked. He brought master trainers from all over the country to teach the craftsmen of Cuttack arts in which they were found deficient. His factory was called the "Orissa Art Wares". Here, he started many other activities such as sola work, horn and ivory work, cabinet-making and other kinds of woodwork.³ To produce cotton clothes he grew cotton plants in his garden. A variety of hand-looms were brought from different places in India, and even from Japan, and hand-woven cloth was manufactured in his factory as early as in 1902. He encouraged Swadeshi goods but had to contend with tough competition from the machine-made ones imported from the West.⁴ He found that a major reason for indigenous industries languishing was the preference given to European-made articles over goods produced by Indians. He was determined to change this situation by promoting local industries of Odisha.

Way back in 1904, Madhusudan started putting in a lot of effort for developing the leather industry in Odisha. He saw that raw hides were exported in large quantities from Odisha to Calcutta and from there to England and France and these were brought back to India in the form of finished goods, thus inflicting a heavy loss on Odisha's economy, especially in terms of workers' wages. He started a tannery in order to remedy this situation. At first, work was carried out on an experimental basis in his house. Shortly thereafter, it was transferred to his garden house at a place called Chauliaganj near Cuttack, where all kinds of finished leather goods were turned out in large quantities from hides and skins collected mostly from the surrounding princely states.⁵ In the tannery, besides 100 skilled cobblers and tanners, nearly 300 semi-skilled and unskilled dalits were engaged. This kind of enterprise was the first of its kind in the entire country.⁶ Madhusudan was also clear about the need for reservation for the depressed classes in industrial undertakings. This shows that he was deeply committed to the cause of improving the condition of alienated untouchables and underprivileged minorities.

People unfamiliar with the history of Odisha may not know that, before Gandhi's return from South Africa, Madhusudan, who had pioneered the movement of unifying Odia-speaking tracts into a separate province had already thought about and implemented activities related to leather tanning and manufacturing of leather goods. Later, while carrying out similar experiments, Gandhi drew further inspiration from Madhusudan.

Gandhi's experiments with tanning and leather work come closest to spinning of yarn and weaving of clothes. Gandhi learnt the craft of shoe making in South Africa from his devoted German friend Hermann Kallenbach. Kallenbach became known to Gandhi through a common friend by the name Mr. Khan, a Mahomedan lawyer who had taken upon himself the legal responsibilities of Gandhi when the latter developed his "spirit of service" by voluntary hospital work to nurse indentured labourers coming from the different Indian regions and communities.⁷ About his meeting with Kallenbach, Gandhi said, "We met quite by accident. He was a friend of Mr Khan's, and as the latter had discovered deep down in him a vein of other-worldliness he introduced him to me.⁸ Gandhi reminisces about his time spent with Kallenbach and writes, "he is aman of strong feelings, wide sympathies and childlike simplicity. He is an architect by profession, but there is no work, however lowly, which he would consider to be beneath his dignity".⁹

From June 4, 1910, Kallenbach, Gandhi and his two sons settled in Tolstoy Farm, an eleven hundred acre farm owned by Kallenbach, 22 miles from Johannesburg. Gandhi learnt the art of shoe-making from Kallenbach while living in Tolstoy Farm. On his part, Kallenbach had learnt the art of shoe-making from the German Trappist monks on Mariannhill. After completing the course Kallenbach taught this art to Gandhi and others at Tolstoy Farm.¹⁰

Long after Gandhi had returned from South Africa, one day, he and some of his co-workers witnessed the full process of flaying a dead bull near Sevagram in India where he had set up an Ashram.

The flaying of the dead animal with a village knife without damaging the hide impressed Gandhi. He was told that none, not even surgeons, could do this more skillfully than a village tanner. A thought which puzzled Gandhi was that every medical student who did a dissecting job was respected whereas a sweeper's or a tanner's occupation was despised. This thought led Gandhi to learn the art of tanning and become an expert in this.¹¹

While learning the art of tanning, he decided to use the hide of only those animals that die a natural death. Shoes made from such leather became known as 'ahimsak chappals'. In the course of his engagement with this activity, he learnt that raw hide worth ninety million rupees was being exported from India every year. After being treated scientifically, finished leather articles costing tens of millions of rupees were imported to India from abroad. This did not only mean a loss of money but loss of an opportunity of using native intelligence for tanning raw hides and making good leather articles. Thus, like spinners and weavers, hundreds of tanners and cobblers were being deprived of their livelihood.¹²

To help the tanners and cobblers, Gandhi sought help from tanning chemists for reviving the art of tanning which was fast dying out. Gandhi affirmed from his own experience that scavenging and tanning could be done in a healthy and clean manner. A tannery section was opened by Gandhi at the ashrams in Sabarmati and Wardha. He kept in touch with the research work that was being done in Tagore's Shantiniketan for improving the process in rural areas. Gandhi did not want to abandon the ancient method of tanning, nor did he like to move leather work and such other industries from villages to cities as that would have meant sure ruin for villagers. They would lose the little opportunity they had of making skilled use of their hands and heads. He wanted to find a decent and dignified way of handling dead animals, for example, moving a carcass from one part of the village to another.¹³ At the same time, Gandhi felt the need of a band of dedicated workers who would see that the tanners get proper wages, real education and medical aid.¹⁴

Gandhi's concern about untouchability

One of the features of the Indian society that constantly bothered Gandhi was the caste system in India which looked down upon a sizeable number of people and treated them as untouchables. The other areas of Gandhi's concern included the dignity of labour and self-reliance. From all these perspectives, it was natural that leather work and tannery would attract his attention. Shoes are an essential item of use by almost everyone regardless of caste and class. Yet, processes involved in shoe-making had always been treated as unclean and these were always considered to be the domain of the lower castes. Though these people carried out vital functions in the value chain, they were deprived of dignity.

Even now, the social formations engaged in work on animal residues are in general an oppressed lot across the country. Diverse social and economic factors have been impacting them adversely. Long after Gandhi's passing, during the 1970s, when a strong movement towards sanskritisation among those caste-groups engaged in leather work was going on, the caste panchayats took the view that, since the occupation of flaying dead animals was one that made their social status so low, they would refrain from doing so. Since their logic is unassailable and cannot be brushed aside, it is necessary that occupations such as leather works should not remain confined to so-called 'lower castes' and people of all castes should be engaged in them.¹⁵

Gandhi wondered why tanning should be a degrading calling. It could not have been so in ancient times. But today, a million tanners do this work and are looked down on as untouchables. The higher classes despise them and they lead a life deprived of art, education, cleanliness and dignity. Tanners, sweepers and shoe-makers serve the society and do useful work, yet observance of caste rules force a part of the nation to live a life utterly bereft of dignity and wellbeing. However, in other countries, a man does not become a poor illiterate untouchable if he chooses the profession of a tanner or a shoe-maker.

Hence, Gandhi wanted everyone to learn the art of shoe-making. He even tried to be adept at skinning dead animals, using all parts of the carcasses productively. He attached paramount importance to the tannery established by Madhusudan because, according to him, over and above being a great industrial enterprise, the tannery was a practical step towards solving the problems of untouchables and helping them regain their self-respect. Gandhi paid a glowing tribute to Madhusudan in a special article published on 15.11.1932 in Bombay Chronicle in the following manner:

Madhusudan Das, a great philanthropist and had himself learnt the modern process of tanning, had prepared statistics to show what the country was losing annually owing to the superstition of untouchability masquerading under the name of religion....¹⁶

Here, it is important to point to the fact that the landless untouchable classes had always been a source of anxiety to Madhusudan from the early days of his industrial activities. The leather industry, he believed, could benefit all sections of people. Very few people knew how the hide export business affected the poor peasants of Odisha. Every peasant usually owns cattle to cultivate his field. But he fails to know what to do after the cattle dies. According to the custom of the country, the Hindu peasant is not allowed to sell the hides. The result is that they are taken by the chowkidars of the village or by members of some untouchable classes. The poor peasant loses his plough cattle, lands lie uncultivated and he has no means to replace the dead cattle. What Madhusudan suggested was that, if a committee of influential men of the two communities, Hindus and Muslims, be appointed to study the details of hides' trade, a platform could be created where all may join in the development of this industry as a means of improving the economic conditions of many classes.¹⁷

Significance of leather industry in the Indian context

India is endowed with twenty per cent of world cattle and buffalo and eleven per cent of world goat and sheep population. According to the estimates of the Council for Leather Exports, annual availability of leathers in India is approximately three billion sq.ft. The country accounts for 13 per cent of world leather production. India is the fourth largest exporter of leather goods in the world. The total leather and leather products export stood at 3.8 billion dollars in 2019-20. India is the second largest footwear producer after China and also the second largest consumer of footwear after China. The leather industry is an employment-intensive sector providing jobs to 4.2 million people, mostly from the weaker sections of society.¹⁸ As early as 1945 Kumarappa, a Gandhian economist had shown that export of raw hides and skins from India are amongst the largest in the world.If these raw materials can be converted into leather, this would provide occupation to millions of people in rural areas.¹⁹

It has been well documented that Gandhi and Kumarappa, working together closely during the 1930s and 1940s, proposed a theory and practice of low-cost, labour-intensive, low-environmental impact, and decentralized industrialization, which they both argued was crucial to restoring employment, autonomy, and dignity to every Indian. In the words of Venu Madhav Govindu and Deepak Malghan, "while Gandhi laid out the broad contours of an argument for swadeshi, it was Kumarappa who out of prolonged engagement shaped it into a theory of decentralization". It has also been shown by them how Kumarappa favoured small and decentralized production whenever possible, and how his position is in stark contrast to the one taken by Jawaharlal Nehru, who advocated large-scale production and centralization of resources. Gandhi's vision of a just and non-violent decentralized economic order centered on village republics was developed within a moral-material framework. He sought to guarantee dignity of the individual by securing dignity of labour.²⁰

The village has always remained at the centre of Gandhian economics, and domestic animals are an integral part of self-sufficient villages. In death, too, they become veritable sources of useful materials and wealth. Men and women belonging to certain social formations engage in recovering the skins, bones and hooves of these animals. These materials find their use in downstream industry. As in all lines of business, there are interest groups in the value chain of animal skins and hides. Each rung in the value chain tends to exploit the lower rungs. The leather or leather product exporters remain at the top of the pyramid and the leather flayers find themselves at the bottom. While the occupation of leather flayers is essential to the functioning of the rural economy, those who practise the occupation are grossly exploited and neglected.²¹

Convergence between Madhusudan Das and Gandhi

Madhusudan had exerted a deep influence on Mahatma Gandhi, the effect of which remained undiminished throughout the latter's entire life. Gandhi had regarded Madhusudan as his mentor at the time of formulating his recuperative programmes for economic resurgence of the country, for spearheading his Swadeshi industrial movement embracing the entire country and for the rehabilitation of untouchables as a measure of social reformation and regeneration. Madhusudan had started implementing his innovative programmes since 1895 long before Gandhi took such initiatives. The former laid a lot of stress on introduction of rural industries and handicrafts in the village which would have an invigorating effect on rural society. It may be noted here that for Gandhi the most important lesson learnt from John Ruskin's Unto his Last was the precept that "the life of labour, that is, the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman is the life worth living.²² Madhusudan had also highlighted the effectiveness of basic education combined with vocational training.

While paying a fulsome tribute to Madhusudan in an article on "Village Tanning and its Possibility" published in Harijan on 7.9.1935, Gandhi memorably observed:

The divorce of intellect from body labour has made us perhaps shortest lived, most resourceless and most exploited nation on the earth. The state of village tannery is perhaps the best proof of my indictment. It was late Madhusudan Das, who opened my eyes to the great crime against a part of humanity. He sought to make reparation by opening what might be called an educational tannery.²³

It is also true that prominent leaders and associates of Madhusudan were also deeply influenced by Gandhi. Foremost among them were Gopabandhu Das and Gopabandhu Choudhury. Gopabandhu Das is widely known for his contribution to the freedom struggle, education, journalism and humanitarian work. He had taken the lead to set up a unique school at Sakhigopal near Puri with the objective of inspiring young minds to dedicate themselves to the nation-building project. Realising that the prevailing pattern of education was responsible for creating a chasm between formal learning and people's lived reality, Gopabandhu Das was keen that children did physical labour, learnt various crafts and skills while acquiring bookish knowledge. He felt that "a human being can do wonders if he/she combines mental and physical faculties.²⁴ Taking note of Gandhi's insistence on children spinning yam at national schools, Gopabandhu wrote:

Activities such as growing cotton, making spinning wheels, carding cotton, weaving clothes and preparing dyes are integrally connected to occupations such as carpentry, farming, dyeing and weaving. The chief objective of national education is therefore to link book learning to vocational activities.²⁵

Madhusudan had visited the school at Sakhigopal and blessed the initiative. It may be noted here that there was an inimitable complementarity between the leadership roles and works of Madhusudan and Gopabandhu Das. Long after the departure of Madhusudan and Gopabandhu Das, Manmohan Choudhury, son of landlord turned freedom fighter, Gopabandhu Choudhry, went to Calcutta in the mid 1930s to learn the craft of leather tanning and shoe-making in a tannery. He used his knowledge and skills acquired in Calcutta to set up a tannery at Bari in Odisha which was a hub of freedom struggle as well as other constructive activities being carried along Gandhian principles.²⁶ In a significant way, Manmohan was continuing the legacy left by Madhusudan and Gandhi.

Continued relevance of the Gandhian model of rural development

Some of Gandhi's core economic ideas are contained in the book Hind Swaraj written by him in 1909. And these ideas continued to evolve till his last days, but the central ideas remained largely unchanged.

One such idea was providing gainful employment to each and every individual in self-sufficient village republics.²⁷

Just before independence Gandhi had questioned the economic model which the Orissa government wanted to follow. For instance, in 1946, when Odisha government was actually considering a proposal for establishing a textile mill, Gandhi wrote to Harekrushna Mahatab, the then Prime Minister of Odisha, to reconsider it. He wrote:

I hardly appreciate your reasoning that Orissa, because it is poor, needs a mill that would mean that every poor region or villages, should have mills to remove its poverty......Big mills are not going to revitalize the Orissa villages and the real India lives in its villages. Now that the government is in the hands of the people, it is the duty of the people's representatives to turn their full attention to villages and see that the wheel hums in every house and all the local industries are revived everywhere. This is my cherished dream and I assume yours too.²⁸

What Gandhi was opposed to was blind imitation of the Western model of development. He wanted India to follow its own path of progress taking into account its unique characteristics. Elaborating on the ideas of Gandhi, Kumarappa held that, to develop our own country, the path chosen by developed nations need not be followed as this may not be appropriate to our conditions. The results are urbanization, mechanization, industrialization, consumerism and centralization. Thus, there is a dark side to this kind of western model of development. According to him, there are several problems such as increasing unemployment, poverty, black money and corrupt political system, which are growing in our country.

Taking a cue from Gandhi, Kumarappa was always concerned with autonomy of the individual. To him, a "well-conceived" economy is one that allows "free play to all creative faculties of every member of society". Kumarappa's insistence was on "permanence" (what might be called sustainability), and in his view, economic growth cannot be unlimited, and the principal task is to create institutions that organize the human economy in an equitable way that minimises ecological imbalance. The influence of his most well-known book, Economy of Permanence, is seen in E. Fritz Schumacher's Small is beautiful. Schumacher's book went on to become a manifesto of sorts for the local economy movements in the developed world.²⁹

Current mainstream economic theory and practices lay disproportionate emphasis on growth, which is expected to result in prosperity for all in due course. But what is being experienced is that in both the capitalist system and the command and control system, there is excessive concentration of wealth, increasing inequality, growing unemployment and severe contraction of human autonomy. What is worse is that these models of economic development have paid scant attention to environment issues and sustainability. Under these circumstances, especially when climate change crisis looms large posing a threat to all the achievements of mankind, the development models pursued over the last two centuries or so appear to be transient and unsustainable. Therefore, the need of the day is an alternate vision encapsulated in the lifework of Gandhi. Far-sighted leaders like Madhusudan and Gandhi had a vision which needs to be rediscovered so that every person's potential is fully realized, autonomy and agency are restored in society and the dream of a sustainable world is achieved.

Notes and References:

1. Sangram Jena, 'Introduction' in Gandhi's Odisha: The Mahatma's writings and speeches on Odisha, ed. Sangram Jena (Bhubaneswar: Pandulipi, 2019), p.17.
2. Ibid., p.28.
3. Shoilabala Das, "His Efforts for the Industrial Development of Orissa", in Madhusudan Das: The Man and his Missions, ed. Debendra K. Dash (Cuttack: Pragati Utkal Sangha, 1998), p.35.
4. Ibid., p.36.
5. Ibid., 41.
6. Surasinha Patnaik, "Tributes and Statements of Mahatma Gandhi on Madhusudan", Orissa Review, www.magazines.odisha.gov.in/Orissareview/sept-2005/engpdf/Tributes%20and%20Statements%200f%20Mahatma%20Gandhi.pdf, accessed on 5 October, 2019.
7. Isa Sarid and Christian Bartolf, Hermann Kallenbach: Mahatma Gandhi's Friend in S. Africa, www.archive.org/details/hermannkallenbacO0isas, chap.2, p.14, accessed on 29 July 2021.
8. Ibid., p.14.
9. Ibid., p.16.
10. M.K. Gandhi, An Autobiography or the Story of My Experiments with Truth (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Mudranalaya,1927), chap.32, p.280.
11. Anu Bandopadhyaya, Bahuroopee Gandhi, www.mkgandhi.org/ebks/bahurupi.pdf, chap.7, p.20, accessed on 9 August 2021.
12. Ibid., pp.20-21.
13. Ibid., p.21.
14. Ibid., p.22.
15. Sanju Phansalkar, "How leather workers are choking under the burden of social stigma, exploitation and inadequate government policies" www.huffingtonpost.in/village-square/how-leather-workers-are-choking-under-the-burden-of-social-stigma-exploitation-and-inadequate-govt-policies_a_23255034/, accessed on 9 October 2019.
16. Surasinha Patnaik, "Tributes and Statements of Mahatma Gandhi on Madhusudan", Orissa Review, http:/ /magazines.odisha.gov.in/Orissareview /sept-oct-2005/engpdfTributes%20and%20Statements%200f%20Mahatma%20Gandhi.pdf, accessed on 5 October 2019.
17. Madhusudan Das, "Dignity of Labour", in Madhusudan Das: The Man and his Missions, ed. Debendra K. Dash (Cuttack: Pragati Utkal Sangha, 1998), p229.
18. www.leatherindia.org , accessed on 7 August 2021.
19. J.C. Kumarappa, Economy of Permanence:A quest for a social order based on non-violence, www.mkgandhi.org/ebks /economy-of-permanence.pdf, accessed on 10 October 2019.
20. Amit Basole, "Championing the Village Movement", review of The Web of Freedom: J C Kumarappa and Gandhi's Struggle for Economic Justice by Venu Madhav Govindu and Deepak Malghan, Economic and Political Weekly, 52,23 (10 June 2017).
21. Sanju Phansalkar, "How leather workers are choking under the burden of social stigma, exploitation and inadequate government policies" www.huffingtonpost.in /village-square /how-leather-workers-are-choking-under-the-burden-of-social-stigma-exploitation-and-inadequate-govt-policies_a_23255034/, accessed on 9 October 2019.
22. Pulin B. Nayak, "A K Dasgupta on Gandhi and the Economics of Austerity", Economic and Political Weekly, 52, 50 (16 December, 2017), pp. 40-45, p.42.
23. Surasinha Patnaik, "Tributes and Statements of Mahatma Gandhi on Madhusudan", Orissa Review, http://magazines.odisha.gov.in/Orissareview/sept-oct-2005/engpdf/Tributes%20and%20Statements%200f%20Mahatma%20Gandhi.pdf, accessed on 5 October 2019.
24. Basanta Kumar Panda, "Manual Labour and Education", in Gopabandhu Das Thoughts on Education, ed. Basanta Kumar Panda (Bhubaneswar: Sikshasandhan, 2021), p. 61.
25. Ibid., p.62.
26. Manmohan Chaudhury, Kasturi Mrugasama (Cuttack: Kahani, 2002).
27. Pulin B. Nayak, "A K Dasgupta on Gandhi and the Economics of Austerity", Economic and Political Weekly, 52, 50 (16 December, 2017), pp. 40-45, p.42.
28. M.K. Gandhi, 'Letter to Harekrushna Mahatab' in Gandhi's Odisha: The Mahatma's writings and speeches on Odisha, ed. Sangram Jena (Bhubaneswar: Pandulipi, 2019), p.587.
29. Amit Basole, "Championing the Village Movement", review of The Web of Freedom: J C Kumarappa and Gandhi's Struggle for Economic Justice by Venu Madhav Govindu and Deepak Malghan, Economic and Political Weekly, 52,23 (10 June 2017).

Courtesy: This article has been adapted from Gandhi Marg, Volume 43, Number 2, July-September 2021.

* Ananya Behera is an independent scholar based in Odisha. Email: ananyabehera49@gmail.com