Mahatma Gandhi's Ideology of Swadeshi

ÎIÉiÉÒVÉ: ¦ÉÉ®úÊiÉªÉ ºÉÉ¨ÉÉÊVÉEò ºÉÆ¶ÉÉävÉxÉ {ÉÊjÉEòÉ VÉÚxÉ -ºÉ{]åõ¤É®ú 2015 ´É¹ÉÇ 5 ´Éä +ÆEò 3 ®úÉ ISSN:2250-0790

MAHATMA GANDHI’S IDEOLOGY OF SWADESHI

Dr.Sunita Kalakhe, Assistant Professor & Head Economics Department, Shri.Shivaji College, Chikhli Dist.Buldana-443 201(M.S.)

Ms. Prachi Bhamburkar Home Economics Department, Shri Shivaji Arts, Commerce and Science College, Akola

Introduction: such industries even though profits initially The concept of Swadeshi as developed by might be minimal or non-existent."'As against Gandhi to become a major weapon in his anti this definition, an imperialistic definition colonial strategies had both political and terms Swadeshi to mean anything from the economic dimensions. For Gandhi, Swadeshi perfectly legitimate and commendable centered around handspun khaddar and encouragement of Indian industry to the extended to everything that could beproduced complete exclusion of foreign and especially indigenously by the rural masses.1 English goods by a national and often forcible Swadeshi as a concept has been boycott as part of a political campaign against defined aptly by Sumit Sarkar in its British specifically economic aspect as "a sentiment rule. 2 closely associated with many phases of Indian nationalism— that indigenous goods should The concept of Swadeshi: be preferred by consumers even if they were The Dictionary meaning of Swadeshi more expensive than or inferior in quality to [swәˈdeɪʃɪ] their imported industries and that it was the adj(Economics) (in present-day India) patriotic duty of men with capital to pioneer produced within the country; not imported

n(Historical Terms) (in British India) the Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided encouragement of domestic production and that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers boycott of foreign goods as part of the or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. campaign for independence

[from Bengali svadesī, from Sanskrit on the economic sub-structure and finally svadeśin, from sva one's own + deśa country] what was the ideological base of Gandhi's 'charisma? How did he resolve the various The concept of Swadeshi had a dual contradictory forces and their interplay during aspect to perform under the leadership of the period 1920-'50?For example, the Gandhi: One, an ideological aspect and complex competition between the mills and another an economic one. The problem of the handloom, the All India Spinners' handloom industry although in Association (hereafter AISA) Visa-Vis the essence was an economic one, had in reality Co-operative societies and between the two components: One human' and the other dallals, middleman and the Congress ? functional'. The human element consisted in With Gandhi's entry into Indian politics after fact, of a large number of people who were the First World War, a gauntlet was thrown solely or mainly dependent on the hand- not only to Hindu orthodoxy but also to the woven industry for their livelihood and were British authority. But shrewdly, he stressed suffering from certain disabilities and political issues when he launched his hardships. The functional aspect was Satyagraha campaigns against the imperial concerned with the situation where in rule and raised social issues during periods of methods of producing handloom fabrics and political dormancy. The khaddar movement their marketing during the nationalist phase also was in its full swing and had its most became increasingly, uneconomic, lasting impact during the periods between the unprogressive and was generally seen as two major movements, (i.e., Non Co- unorganized. This is linked up with the operation and the Civil Disobedience). question of how Gandhi himself developed Therefore, what is observed is that both for the idea of khadi gradually. Earlier, his aim of his political and social reform campaigns providing Gandhi tried to reconstruct tradition so as to only employment which would earn the the cause of reform. This could be mainly weaver a minimum of three pies a day, to the achieved, primarily due to his deep final stage of the weaver forming the understanding of the nature and mode of apex/pinnacle of the samagra seva discourse and structural on straints of the movement, is discussed in detail. What was Hindu tradition. Traditional concepts such as the primary and final impact on technology or 'satya', Swadeshi, 'bramhacharya' were

© ºÉÆ¶ÉÉävÉxÉ |ÉEòÉ¶ÉxÉ, ¦ÉÉ®úiÉ  28 ÎIÉiÉÒVÉ: ¦ÉÉ®úÊiÉªÉ ºÉÉ¨ÉÉÊVÉEò ºÉÆ¶ÉÉävÉxÉ {ÉÊjÉEòÉ VÉÚxÉ -ºÉ{]åõ¤É®ú 2015 ´É¹ÉÇ 5 ´Éä +ÆEò 3 ®úÉ ISSN:2250-0790 imparted new meanings by Gandhi and of Bengal in 1905. The view stressed was that thereby redefining the traditional institution. Indians should unite irrespective of their This ransmutation of raditional concepts religion or other differences and "wake up to enabled him to make social and political the national cause by abjuring the use of campaigns intelligible to the teeming masses Lancashirecloth." Interesting and significant who could scarcely have been reached by an to note, was the fact that the notion of entirely new rationalist or odern terminology. protecting indigenous handicrafts against the Some of his interpreters claim that as a severe competition with native machine method Satyagraha itself contain positive manufacturers found no place inthis phase of elements of coercion'. The tools of Non Co- Swadeshi agitation. 4 operation, boycott and strike which were used By 1907-08, the emphasis on in Satyagraha involved elements of Swadeshi efforts was beginning to shift away compulsion which may have affected a from industrial production towards banking, change on the part of the opponent which is insurance and inland trade where profits actually against his will. 3 seemed much easier tomake and capital correspondingly less shy. Therefore, History of ideology of Swadeshi : Swadeshi ideas as propagated from mainly By the 1870s the concept of Swadeshi the economic point of view did not gain the started gathering a momentum- with support of every sector. The industrialist class emphasis on the promotion of the use of forexample, was opposed to these ideas of indigenous manufactured goods. In 1872 M. Swadeshi clashing with their entrepreneurial G. Ranade delivered a series of public needs and they found it to be an unnecessary lectures at Poona on economic issues waste of public energy and this discontent propagating the use of goods produced in found expression in their lack of total support one's country even though they may prove to to the movement . 5 be dearer or less satisfactory than finer The nineteenth century therefore foreign products.12This agitation for increasingly witnessed the demand for rapid Swadeshi was given a fresh lease in 1896 industrialization as a compensation assuming when the whole country protested against the national proportions all over the country. No countervailing excise duties on Indian cloth single newspaper or public worker denied the and received a fresh impetus after thepartition

© ºÉÆ¶ÉÉävÉxÉ |ÉEòÉ¶ÉxÉ, ¦ÉÉ®úiÉ  29 ÎIÉiÉÒVÉ: ¦ÉÉ®úÊiÉªÉ ºÉÉ¨ÉÉÊVÉEò ºÉÆ¶ÉÉävÉxÉ {ÉÊjÉEòÉ VÉÚxÉ -ºÉ{]åõ¤É®ú 2015 ´É¹ÉÇ 5 ´Éä +ÆEò 3 ®úÉ ISSN:2250-0790 advantages to be gained by promoting mills, improved handlooms, river transport Western technology in India. 6 concerns, match and soap factories, As early as 1900 there was only one earthenware factories, tanneries, etc., national voice raised against this mad rush to education through muffassil schools industrialize. Satish Chandra Mukherjee the (Aug.1906), the Tarakanath Palit Society for Editor of the Dawn had the foresight to the promotion of technical education and visualize that it would produce small, highly efforts to translate Rabindranath Tagore's organized minorities of the capitalist class Swadeshi samaj into practice became the that would reduce the millions of workers highlights of this age. 9 The chief centres of into mere machines and wage slaves and lead economic thinking were founded by Gopala the workers to combine in gigantic labour Krishna Gokhale, the Servants of India organization Society and in Bengal, The Dawn Society that were bound to be permanent social and which inspired not only a first class institute political dangers in a country as vast as India. for higher technical education at Jadhavpur The remedy lay, he propagated, in organizing near Calcutta, but was known for its villages on a corporate basis confining it to a pioneering works in modernized industry and few enterprises like engineering projects, commerce. This gave an added impetus given mines, railways, etc. 7 Along with these to this movement. 10 indigenously sprouting ideas, the War of One of the most appealing arguments Independence of the U.S., and the French used by the Indian nationalists to defend and revolution inspired the youth of India to react popularize the concept of Swadeshi was that more strongly on the corroding effects of since the Government of India had refused to colonial rule on the national character. 8 give them the much needed protection to the This was also a period in which the growing industries of India, the people three major potential streams emerged: themselves should undertake to provide Moderates following constructive Swadeshi, protection through the vigorous campaigning political extremists using extended boycott for Swadeshi goods. Therefore to sum up the and side-by-side the growth of the terrorist nationalist attitude prior to 1905: was one of a movement. By July 1905, the creed of "compound of general indifference, ositive atmasliakti/self reliance filled the air of hostility to measures as the factory acts, Bengal. With Swadeshi schemes of textile which were felt to be threatening the interests

© ºÉÆ¶ÉÉävÉxÉ |ÉEòÉ¶ÉxÉ, ¦ÉÉ®úiÉ  30 ÎIÉiÉÒVÉ: ¦ÉÉ®úÊiÉªÉ ºÉÉ¨ÉÉÊVÉEò ºÉÆ¶ÉÉävÉxÉ {ÉÊjÉEòÉ VÉÚxÉ -ºÉ{]åõ¤É®ú 2015 ´É¹ÉÇ 5 ´Éä +ÆEò 3 ®úÉ ISSN:2250-0790 of the nascent Indian bourgeoisie and educated minority group to a mass sympathy for Indians working in British organization with swaraj as its only and owned factories, mines and ultimate goal.25 A search had begun for a plantations. 11 Coming to the 1905 Swadeshi particular path that would preserve the virtues movement, one sees, its economic aspects had of an Indian traditional society but combined two national objectives: (i.) economic self with methods that would solve is economic reliance and (ii.) employment for the people. problems. 13 12 The solution to this was given in The On Aug. 7, 1905 the leaders of Bengal Dawn of April 1900 which explained that the assembled in a public meeting at the Calcutta remedy lay (i.) first in organizing most of the Town Hall under the presidentship of industries on a family handicraft basis Maharaja Mahinder Chandra Nandy. It was confining large scale capitalist industry to resolved to declare a only a few exercises like engineering "general boycott of British goods as a projects, railways, etc., (ii.) second by practical protest against the proposed organizing a corporate ethical life. "By giving partition," after the manner in which the to each class a fixed reorganized and Chinese boycott of American goods had been independent place in the social organism (sic) done. "We" wrote Surendranath Banerjee in but all cooperating in such ordered 1906, "must be Swadeshi in all things, Coordination as to work for the advantage of Swadeshi in our thoughts and ideas and whole as to further the spiritual evolution of aspirations- Swadeshi in our educational each ascending grade and of the whole Indian methods and development." society." 14 The genesis, growth and economic To put this very theory in practice aspects of Swadeshi have been reviewed with came Gandhi, entering the threshold of the specific purpose of understanding its politics in the first quarter of this century. His transformed role under the influence of rise to power was made possible by events Gandhi after 1905. It was during the last that put an end to the isolation between the phase of the Swadeshi movement - Gandhian different layers of politics. The situation that phase (1920-47), that the Congress became was prevalent was, where various groups truly national in its complexion and its were not longer satisfied with political or the composition changed from that of a western economic mode which they were accustomed

© ºÉÆ¶ÉÉävÉxÉ |ÉEòÉ¶ÉxÉ, ¦ÉÉ®úiÉ  31 ÎIÉiÉÒVÉ: ¦ÉÉ®úÊiÉªÉ ºÉÉ¨ÉÉÊVÉEò ºÉÆ¶ÉÉävÉxÉ {ÉÊjÉEòÉ VÉÚxÉ -ºÉ{]åõ¤É®ú 2015 ´É¹ÉÇ 5 ´Éä +ÆEò 3 ®úÉ ISSN:2250-0790 to. The years between the World Wars saw in its own land and culture were all the breakdown of various such barriers, highlighted, thus giving a major impetus to making it both possible and profitable for this domestic industry. Just as centralization previously latent groups to erupt and give and divisions of processes were the law of a their support to Gandhi in Indian politics. large scale industry, the effective Simultaneously the earliest terrorist centralization and integration of processes organization in south India also sprouted in was the key note of the institution of the All Bezawada, established by M.C. Nanjunda India Spinners' Association (AISA) Rao, a close associate of Subrahmania established in 1925 under the leadership of Bharati. They not only provided financial Gandhi. The concrete work of AISA could be assistance but also vociferously wrote in a noticed under several heads: (i.) Production journal Bala Bharata', (Young India) an and sales, effective marketing of the products English language monthly that was edited by by hawking and exhibitions (ii.) Improvement Bharati. 15 in the quality of raw material and cloth, and Gandhi not only helped the masses to lastly, (hi.) reduction in the cost of making find a standard living wage but also an and its price. 17 Khadi presented a competition opportunity for cultivating self-respect by in three phases. One of spectacular flourish, throwing off the symbol of slavery from their one of sad decay and one of optimistic backs and gave the craftsmen "a creative joy revival. Each of this coincided with a major through the exercise of his credit which forms historical period. The revival of the charkha the true index of civilization." 16 Khadi took a different meaning altogether during the therefore was a programme implemented by modern period. Converted into a symbol of Gandhi, a programme remarkable as much for Sivadeshi, it represented the willingness of its political importance, as for its continued the people to labour and sacrifice for national contemptuous dismissal of foreign freedom. domination on economic grounds. It was the first of a series of steps to rehabilitate the Conculsion : under employed rural masses. The role of Swadeshi and all that it entailed, i.e., from its Gandhi's image conjured up before us finer finish, quality and colour of domestic until now has been that of a national leader or cloth to a pride in its productive system and a saint's or an idealist who did not face the

© ºÉÆ¶ÉÉävÉxÉ |ÉEòÉ¶ÉxÉ, ¦ÉÉ®úiÉ  32 ÎIÉiÉÒVÉ: ¦ÉÉ®úÊiÉªÉ ºÉÉ¨ÉÉÊVÉEò ºÉÆ¶ÉÉävÉxÉ {ÉÊjÉEòÉ VÉÚxÉ -ºÉ{]åõ¤É®ú 2015 ´É¹ÉÇ 5 ´Éä +ÆEò 3 ®úÉ ISSN:2250-0790 cruel realities of life. It is not the attempt here of California, p.9, cited in Thomas to make him appear as a charismatic leader or Weber, as a remote superhuman saint."Though, such 4. "The Lessons from the Disciples: Is men are innovation and acknowledge their there a contradiction in Gandhi's role as pioneers it should be recognized that Philosophy of Action?", Modern Asian their roots and strengths of their greatness lie Studies, (hereafter MAS ), Vol. 28, No. in the epoch or more concretely in the ethos 1,1984, pp. 195-214. of the period of material and cultural 5. Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement history".18 in Bengal: 1905-1908, p. 131. Nevertheless, what this study has aimed at is 6. Bipan Chandra, The Rise and Growth of that, Gandhian ideology and charisma stuck Economic Nationalism in India, p. 90. resonant chords in various elements of the 7. Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement Andhra handloom economy. The cult of in Bengal, p. 100. Swadeshi manifesting itself in the economic, 8. Pyarelal, Mahatma Gandhi: The Early social and cultural planes shaped the lives of Phase, Vol. I, Ahmedabad, 1965, p.188. the Indian weavers in the twentieth century. 9. Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement This it has been demonstrated, had not been in Bengal, p. 33-36 . as a consequence of an individual power 10. Shib Chandra Dutt, Conflicting (here Gandhi's) to make history but was a Tendencies in Indian Economic result of a conjuncture of larger impersonal Thought, Calcutta, 1939, p. 12. historical forces. 11. Ibid 12. Pyarelal, T. A. Mahatma Gandhi: Early References: Pliase, p. 152. 1. Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement 13. This point is borrowed from Sumit in Bengal: 1905-1908, New Delhi, Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement, p. 1973, p.92. 104. 2. For further details see, Valentine Chirol, 14. Satish Chandra Mukherjee (ed.), ' The Indian Unrest, Delhi, 1979, p. 254. Indian Economic Problem', The Daum, 3. J.V. Boundurant, Conquest of Violence: April 1900, pp. 265-266 cited in Bipan The Gandhian Philosophy of conflict, Chandra, The Rise and Croirth of (revised edition), Berkeley, University Economic Nationalism in India , p. 14.

15. See, Madras Secret Police Abstract of 17. Judith Brown, Gandhi's Rise to Intelligence, Madras, 1910, Para 21, P. Power;Indian Politics, 1915-22, 14. See B. N. Ganguli, Gandhi's Social Cambridge, 1972 . Philosophy, Perspective and Relevance, 18. Rajababu Gawande (ed.),Towards Delhi,1973, Understanding Gandhi, Bombay, 1975, 16. Haridas Mukherjee and Uma p.ll Mukherjee, India's Fight for Freedom, Calcutta, 1958, p. 198. ***************