Can Mahatma Gandhi inspire a ‘new deal’ a century after 1924?

In his book Gandhi: the Years that Changed the World (1914-1948), historian Ramchandra Guha quotes from an undated clipping from the Times of India from May-June 1924. The newspaper, British-owned and firmly behind the British Raj, wrote: “The Gandhi Raj has broken up and on all sides we see fighting swamis, truculent maulvis, Bengali admirers of assassins and uncertain quantities like Mr Motilal Nehru vigorously getting back to realities… Gandhi should realise that he can no longer carry the country with him… since huge sections of his followers have already deserted him, he should retire from politics altogether…”

The comment clearly did not age well and Mahatma Gandhi went on to preside over the AICC session in Belgaum (now Belagavi) — the first and only session presided over by him — in December that year.

The rest is history. The Congress accepted Gandhi’s proposal to make it mandatory for Congressmen to spin yarn on the spinning wheel and hand over a certain quantity of yarn to the Congress every month. Hand-spun yarn and cloth woven on handlooms, he believed, would ensure economic freedom and self-sufficiency of villagers, and thereby their prosperity.

Gandhi discussed his dreams of ‘swaraj’ and ‘sarvodaya’ at Belgaum, where he stayed for nine days. It was at this session that he laid down the goals of achieving both social and economic freedom, without which he believed political freedom would be short lived and meaningless.

Besides routine sessions, the Belgaum AICC session held separate conferences against untouchability and in favour of khadi and village industries, students, municipal administration, and formation of states on linguistic grounds. Resolutions were passed to stress upon Hindu-Muslim unity and making khadi-spinning mandatory.

The most important aspect of the session was to focus on khadi and village industries. A resolution was moved making it mandatory for every Congress member to submit 2,000 yards of hand-spun khadi cloth to the party local committee per month. In exceptional circumstances, members could pay someone to spin the cloth instead.

A century later, India’s economy is in poor health, with enormous gaps between the elite and the masses, disproportionate wealth and income gaps separating them. Villages are in dire straits and migration to cities continue in search of work. Agriculture is in bad shape and village economies are collapsing. Consumerism has grown and imports and corporate commerce have replaced home-grown businesses. Rifts in society have grown and India seems to be a country divided.

Gandhi had famously said “political liberty must include economic liberty of the starving millions”. India, he felt, should try to formulate its own humane economic model. Because he realised that unlike the West, India has excessive labour, which results in acute unemployment.

Since capital was scarce, low capital and skill intensive, full employment-oriented industry was needed. He saw the employment opportunities created by the khadi movement as the solution. Even today, though khadi makes up only one per cent or less of the textile industry, it still employs 20 lakh people.

Gandhi foresaw the repercussions of large-scale industrialisation and market economy fed on consumerism. He felt that such economic ethics estranged economic life from moral considerations, “made the pursuit of wealth the ultimate human goal and disturbed the equilibrium between man and nature. He, therefore, advocated the minimisation of wants and emphasised on “a need-based as against greed-based life”.

A century after the Belgaum Congress session, a village in Belagavi, Hudali, continues to practise what Gandhi preached. The village, with 60 per cent Lingayats, 30 per cent SCs/STs and 10 per cent Muslims, has never witnessed any violence or caste or communal conflict.

Around 200 families out of 500 in the village are engaged in weaving khadi by hand. The cooperative society trades in around Rs 3-4 crore of khadi products every year. There is also a cloth mill where thread is woven into cloth by hand. The village doesn’t have a single liquor shop, doesn’t sell cigarettes or bidis either. An Indian Express report this week quoted a villager as saying that while he is routinely asked to identify himself as a Hindu or Muslim and by his caste whenever he goes out of the village, in the village itself, there is no segregation and no questions asked.

Gandhi spoke and wrote extensively on the importance of the charkha and khadi. Here are just a few of his statements that throw light on his convictions and philosophy:

· I claim that in losing the spinning wheel we lost our left lung. We are therefore suffering from galloping consumption 

· Khadi to me is the symbol of unity of Indian humanity, of its economic freedom and equality and, therefore, ultimately, in the poetic expression of Jawaharlal Nehru, "the livery of India's freedom"

· Moreover, khadi mentality means decentralisation of the production and distribution of the necessities of life. Therefore, the formula so far evolved is, every village to produce all its necessaries and a certain percentage in addition for the requirements of the cities

· The millions must have a simple industry to supplement agriculture

· I have often said that, if the seven lakh of the villages of India were to be kept alive, and if peace that is at the root of all civilisation is to be achieved, we have to make the spinning-wheel the centre of all handicrafts

· The Charkha supplemented the agriculture of the villagers and gave it dignity. It was the friend and solace of the widow. It kept the villagers from idleness. For the Charkha included all the anterior and posterior industries-ginning, carding, warping, sizing, dyeing and waving. These in their turn kept the village carpenter and the blacksmith busy

· The Charkha enabled the seven hundred thousand villages to become self-contained. With the exit of the Charkha went the other village industries, such as the oil press. Nothing took the place of these industries. Therefore, the villages were drained of their varied occupations and their creative talent and what little wealth these brought them

· Our mills cannot today spin enough for our wants, and if they did, they will not keep down prices unless they were compelled. They are frankly money-makers and will not, therefore, regulate prices according to the needs of the nation. Hand-spinning is therefore designed to put millions of rupees in the hands of the poor villagers. Every agricultural country requires a supplementary industry to enable the peasants to utilize the spare hours. Such industry for India has always been spinning

· We do not to universalise the Charkha through mass production in one place. Our ideal is to make the Charkha and all its accessories in the locality where the spinners live. Therein lies the value of the spinning-wheel. Anything that goes wrong with it should be put right on the spot and the spinners should be taught how to do so