Part 3

Therefore true Swadeshi consists in introducing the spinning wheel in every household and every household spinning its own yarn. Many a Punjabi woman does it to-day. And though we may not supply our own cloth entirely, we shall be saving yearly crores of rupees. In any event there is no other Swadeshi than increased manufacture by hand-spinning and hand-weaving. Whether we take up hand-spinning and hand-weaving or we do not, it is at least necessary to understand what true Swadeshi is.

How to kill swadeshi--We are familiar with the official ban put upon the Khadi cap in various parts of India. In Bihar, I heard that a magistrate actually sent hawkers to sell foreign cloth. Mr. Painter of Dharwar fame has gone one better, and has issued an official circular in which he says:

"All officers subordinate to the Collector and District Magistrate are desired to take steps to make people realise, that in as much as India produces less than her population requires, a boycott of foreign cloth and its destruction or export must inevitably lead to a serious rise in prices, which may lead to a serious disorder and looting, and that these consequences will be the result, not of any action on the part of Government but of Mr. Gandhi's campaign."

In two other paragraphs means are indicated of combating the Swadeshi propaganda i.e. by holding meetings, and by dealers who are opposed to boycott attending the Collector's office at stated hours. The Madras Government have issued a still more pedantic circular. The meaning of these circulars is obvious. Pressure is to be put upon the dealers and others not to countenance boycott. The subordinate officials will take liberties which the authors of circulars may not even have contemplated. Fortunately for the country, these threats now produce little or no impression upon the public, and the Swadeshi movement will go on in the teeth of the official opposition, be it secret or open, unscrupulous or honourable.

The officials are so ignorant and obstinate, that they will not take the only effective course for avoiding the feared 'disorders and looting,' viz. making common cause with the public and stimulating production. Instead of recognising the agitation against foreign cloth as desirable and necessary, they regard it as an evil to be put down. And then it is complained, that I call a system which seeks to thwart healthy public agitation, satanic. Why should there be any dearth of indigenous cloth? Is there not enough cotton in India? Are there not enough men and women who can spin and weave? Is it not possible to manufacture all the required number of wheels in a few days? Why should not each home manufacture its own cloth, even as it cooks its own food? Is it not enough in times of famine to distribute uncooked grain among the famine-striken? Why should it not be enough to distribute raw cotton among those who need clothing? Why this hypocritical or false alarm about the dearth of cloth, when it is possible in India to manufacture enough for India's needs in a month even without the aid of the mills? The people have been purposely or ignorantly kept in the dark hitherto. They have been wrongly taught to believe, that all the cloth needed cannot be manufactured in India's homes as of yore. They have been figuratively amputated and then made to rely upon foreign or mill-made cloth. I wish the people concerned will give the only dignified answer possible to these circulars. They will forthwith burn or send out all their foreign cloth, and courageously make up their minds to spin and weave for their own requirements. It is incredibly easy for every one who is not an idler.

Y. I.--18th Aug, 1920.

SWADESHI IN THE PUNJAB

The Joint Secretaries of the Bharat Stri Maha Mandal, Punjab Branch, send a report of the Swadeshi activities of Shrimati Saraladevi Chaudhrani ever since her return to Lahore from Bombay. Miss Roy and Mrs. Roshandal, the Secretaries, state that meetings of women were held respectively on the 23rd, 24th and 25th June at three different places in Lahore. All the meetings were attended by hundreds of women who were deeply interested in what Shrimati Saraladevi had to say. The burden of her discourses was India's deep poverty. She traced the causes and proved that our poverty was primarily due to the abandonment of Swadeshi by the people. The remedy therefore lay in reverting to Swadeshi.

Saraladevi herself writes to say that her Khaddar Sari impressed her audiences more than her speeches, and her songs came next, her speeches last. The good ladies of Lahore flocked round her and felt her coarse but beautifully white Sari and admired it. Some took pity on her that she who only the other day was dressed in costly thin silk Saris now decked herself in hand-woven Swadeshi Khaddar. Saraladevi wanted no pity and retorted that their thin foreign scarves lay heavier on their shoulders with the weight of their helpless dependence on foreign manufacture whereas her coarse Khaddar lay light as a feather on her body with the joy of the knowledge that she was free because she wore garments in the manufacture of which her sisters and her brothers had laboured. This statement so pleased her audience that most of the women present resolved to discard foreign clothes. Saraladevi has now been charged by these ladies to open a shop where they could buy Swadeshi goods. She has since addressed more audiences. She spoke at the District Conference at Sialkot and to a meeting exclusively devoted to ladies numbering over one thousand. I hope that the men of Punjab will help Saraladevi in her self-imposed mission. They may harness her talents and her willingness in founding Swadeshi Sabha and organising Swadeshi propaganda on a sound basis. Both men and money are needed to make the work a success.

Swadeshi is more than reforms. There is much waste over reforms. There is none in Swadeshi. Every yard of yarn spun is so much labour well spent and so much wealth added to the national treasury. Every drop counts. Swadeshi spells first production and then distribution. Distribution without production means the raising of prices without any corresponding benefit. For to-day demand exceeds the supply. If we will not manufacture more cloth, more foreign imports must continue a painful and sinful necessity.

Punjab has a great opportunity. Punjab grows splendid cotton. The art of spinning has not yet died out. Almost every Punjabi woman knows it. This sacred haunt of the Rishis of old has thousands of weavers. Only the leaders need to have faith in their women and themselves. When Saraladevi wrote to me that she might want goods from Bombay, I felt hurt. The Punjab has all the time and all the labour and the material necessary for producing her own cloth. She has brave merchants. She has more than enough capital. She has brains. Has she the will? She can organise her own Swadeshi in less than a year, if the leaders will work at this great cause. It is playing with Swadeshi for the Punjab to have to import cloth from Bombay.

The Punjab has to right herself by putting her Swadeshi on a proper basis and by ridding herself of Messrs. Bosworth Smith and Company. She will then be both economically and politically sound. Geographically she stands at the top. She led the way in the older times. Will she again do so? Her men are virile to look at. Have they virility enough to secure without a moment's delay purity of administration? I have not strayed from Swadeshi to politics. My Swadeshi spirit makes me impatient of garments that denude India of her wealth and equally impatient of the Smiths, the O'Briens, the Shri Rams and the Maliks who denude her of her self-respect and insolently touch women's veils with their sticks, chain innocent men as if they were beasts, or shoot them from armoured cars or otherwise terrorise people into subjection.

Y. I.--7th July 1920.

SWADESHI STORES

In a previous issue I endeavoured to show how stores for the sake of selling mill-manufactures did not advance Swadeshi in any way whatsoever but on the contrary, tended to send up the price of cloth. I propose to show in this article how with a small capital, it is possible to advance true Swadeshi and earn a modest livelihood.

Suppose that there is a family consisting of husband, wife and two children one of whom is ten years old and the other five. If they have a capital of Rs. 500 they can manage a Khaddar Bhandar in a small way. They can hire, say in a place with a population of 20,000 inhabitants a shop with dwelling rooms for Rs. 10 per month. If they sell the whole of the stock at 10 p.c. profit they can have Rs. 50 per month. They have no servants. The wife and the children in their spare time would be expected to help in keeping the shop tidy and looking after it when the husband is out. The wife and children can also devote their spare time to spinning.

In the initial stages the Khaddar may not sell at the shop. In that case the husband is expected to hawk the Khaddar from door to door and popularise it. He will soon find a custom for it.

The reader must not be surprised at my suggesting 10 p.c. profits. The Khaddar Bhandars are not designed for the poorest. The use of Khaddar saves at least half the cost not necessarily because the Khaddar is more durable (though that it certainly is) but because its use revolutionises our tastes. I know what saving of money its use has meant to me. Those, who buy Khaddar from patriotic motives merely, can easily afford to pay 10 p.c. profits on Khaddar. Lastly the popularising of Khaddar means much care, devotion and labour. And the owner of a Khaddar Bhandar does not buy it at a wholesale shop but he must wander to get the best Khaddar, he must meet the local weavers and induce them to weave hand spun yarn. He must stimulate in his own district hand spinning among its women. He must come in touch with the carders and get them to card cotton. All this means intelligence, organisation and great ability. A man who can exhibit these qualities has a right to take 10 p.c. profits. And a Swadeshi Bhandar conducted on these lines becomes a true centre of Swadeshi activity. I commend my remarks to the attention of the managers of Swadeshi stores that are already in existence. They may not revolutionise their method at once but I have no doubt that they will advance Swadeshi only to the extent that they sell Khaddar.

Y. I.--7th July, 1920.

INDIAN ECONOMICS

A friend has placed in my hands a bulletin on Indian Piece Goods Trade prepared by Mr. A. C. Coubrough C. B. E. by order of the Government of India. It contains the following prefatory note: 'The Government of India desire it to be understood that the statements made and the views expressed in this bulletin are those of the author himself.' If so, why has the Government of India burdened the tax-payer with the expense of such bulletins? The one before me is 16th in the series. Do they publish both the sides of the question?

The bulletin under review is intended to be an answer to the Swadeshi movement. It is an elaborate note containing a number of charts showing the condition of imports and home manufacture of piece goods including hand-woven. But it does not assist the reader in studying the movement. The painstaking author has bestowed no pains upon a study of the present movement or its scope. That the Government of India treats the greatest constructive and co-operative movement in the country with supreme contempt and devotes people's money to a vain refutation instead of a sympathetic study and treatment is perhaps the best condemnation that can be pronounced upon the system under which it is carried.

The author's argument is:

(1) The movement if successful will act not as a protective but a prohibitive tariff.

(2) This must result in merely enriching the Indian capitalist and punishing the consumer.

(3) The imports are non-competitive in that the bulk of the kind of piece goods imported are not manufactured in India.

(4) The result of boycotting such piece goods must be high prices without corresponding benefit.

(5) The boycott therefore being against the law of supply and demand and against the consumer must fail in the end.