Part 4 (1/2)
Nothing but hand-spinning can banish pauperism from the land. Paupers cannot become willing sufferers. They have never known the pain of plenty to appreciate the happiness of voluntarily suffering hunger or other bodily discomfort. Swaraj for them can only mean ability to support themselves without begging. To awaken among them a feeling of discontent with their lot without providing them with the means of removing the cause thereof is to court certain destruction, anarchy, outrage and plunder in which they themselves will be the chief victims.
Hand-spinning alone can possibly supply them with supplementary and additional earnings. Hand-weaving for many and carding for a limited number can provide complete livelihood. But hand-weaving is not a lost art. Several million men know hand-weaving. But very few know hand-spinning in the true sense of the term. Tens of thousands are, it is true, turning the wheel to-day but only a few are spinning yarn. The cry all over is that hand-spun yarn is not good enough for warp. Just as half-baked bread is no bread, even so ill-spun weak thread is no yarn.
Thousands of men must know hand-spinning to be able in their respective districts to improve the quality of the yarn that is now being spun in the country. Therefore those who offer civil disobedience for the sake of establis.h.i.+ng Swaraj must know hand-spinning. Mark, they are not required to turn out yarn every day. It would be well if they did. But they must know how to spin even properly twisted yarn. It was a happy omen to me, that in spite of the opposition the amendment was rejected by a large majority. One argument advanced in favour of rejection was, that the Sikh men considered it an undignified occupation to spin and looked down upon hand-weaving. I do hope that the sentiment is not representative of the brave community. Any community that despises occupations that bring an honest livelihood is a community going down an incline. If spinning has been the speciality of women, it is because they have more leisure and not because it is an inferior occupation. The underlying suggestion that a wielder of the sword will not wield the wheel is to take a distorted view of a soldier's calling. A man who lives by the sword does _not_ serve his community even as the soldiers in the employ of the Government do not serve the country. The wielding of the sword is an unnatural occupation resorted to among civilized people only on extraordinary occasions and only for self-defence. To live by hand-spinning and hand-weaving is any day more _manly_ than to live by killing. Aurangzeb was not the less a soldier for sewing caps.
What we prize in the Sikhs is not their ability to kill. The late Sardar Lachman Singh will go down to posterity as a hero, because he knew how to die. The Mahant of Nankhana Saheb will go down to posterity as a murderer. I hope therefore that no man will decline to learn the beautiful life-giving art of hand-spinning on the ground of its supposed inferiority.
_Y. I.--10th Nov. 1921._
THE DUTY OF SPINNING
In ”The Secret of Swaraj” I have endeavoured to show what home spinning means for our country. In any curriculum of the future, spinning must be a compulsory subject. Just as we cannot live without breathing and without eating, so is it impossible for us to attain economic independence and banish pauperism from this ancient land without reviving home-spinning. I hold the spinning wheel to be as much a necessity in every household as the hearth. No other scheme that can be devised will ever solve the problem of the deepening poverty of the people.
How then can spinning be introduced in every home? I have already suggested the introduction of spinning and systematic production of yarn in every national school. Once our boys and girls have learnt the art they can easily carry it to their homes.
But this requires organisation. A spinning wheel must be worked for twelve hours per day. A practised spinner can spin two tolas and a half per hour. The price that is being paid at present is on an average four annas per forty tolas or one pound of yarn _i.e._, one pice per hour.
Each wheel therefore should give three annas per day. A strong one costs seven rupees. Working, therefore, at the rate of twelve hours per day it can pay for itself in less than 38 days. I have given enough figures to work upon. Any one working at them will find the results to be startling.
If every school introduced spinning, it would revolutionize our ideas of financing education. We can work a school for six hours per day and give free education to the pupils. Supposing a boy works at the wheel for four hours daily, he will produce every day 10 tolas of yarn and thus earn for his school one anna per day. Suppose further that he manufactures very little during the first month, and that the school works only twenty six days in the month. He can earn after the first month Rs. 1-10 per month. A cla.s.s of thirty boys would yield, after the first month, an income of Rs. 48-12 per month.
I have said nothing about literary training. It can be given during the two hours out of the six. It is easy to see that every school can be made self supporting without much effort and the nation can engage experienced teachers for its schools.
The chief difficulty in working out the scheme is the spinning wheel. We require thousands of wheels if the art becomes popular. Fortunately, every village carpenter can easily construct the machine. It is a serious mistake to order them from the Ashram or any other place. The beauty of spinning is that it is incredibly simple, easily learnt, and can be cheaply introduced in every village.
The course suggested by me is intended only for this year of purification and probation. When normal times are reached and Swaraj is established one hour only may be given to spinning and the rest to literary training.
_Y. I.--2nd Feb. 1921._
THE DUTY OF SPINNING
[Speaking at a monster meeting of students held in Mirzapur Park, Calcutta, Mahatma Gandhi appealed to them to withdraw from educational inst.i.tutions. In the course of that speech he spoke on the duty of spinning, which portion is printed here.]
Our education has been the most deficient in two things. Those who framed our education code neglected the training of the body and the soul. You are receiving the education of the soul but the very fact of non-co-operation for non-co-operation is nothing less and nothing more than withdrawing from partic.i.p.ation in the evil that this Government is doing and continuing to do. And if we are withdrawing from evil conscientiously, deliberately, it means that we are walking with our face towards G.o.d. That completes or begins the soul training. But seeing that our bodily education has been neglected, and seeing that India has become enslaved because India forgot the spinning wheel, and because India sold herself for a mess of pottage, I am not afraid to place before you, the young men of Bengal, the spinning wheel for adoption. And let a training in spinning and production of as much yarn as you can ever do const.i.tute your main purpose and your main training during this year of probation. Let your ordinary education commence after Swaraj is established, but let every young man, and every girl, of Bengal consider it to be their sacred duty to devote all their time and energy to spinning. I have drawn attention to the parallel, that presents itself before us, from the war.
_Y. I.--2nd Feb. 1921._
THE DOCTRINE OF CHARKA
[The opening session of the National College, Calcutta, under the auspices of the Board of Education, formed by Srijuts Chittaranjan Das, Jitendralal Banerjee and other non-co-operation leaders, took place on Friday the 4th February 1921. In opening this College, Mahatma Gandhi addressed the students and professors, from which the following is culled.]
We have sufficiently talked about Charka and how it is going to free India--how a nation that came through the Charka to this country as traders, merchants and travellers settled themselves down as rulers with our co-operation, and how non-co-operation and by means of that very Indian _Charka_ they will go back to their own country if they cannot live as fellow-citizens in India.
There are peoples who say--”how can you expect the Mahomedans to be non-violent.” How, I do not want to speak out. I want the _Charka_ itself to speak out. The whole Europe will know when we place these Charkas in our mosques. Something like 800 Charkas had been ordered for the mosques so that the people who come there should be able to produce Indian yarn with which Indian clothes should be woven by Indian hands in Indian homes to clothe our nakedness or at least to provide home-spun shrouds for us. Thus every revolution of the _Charka_ I can a.s.sure you, will bring the success of this bloodless revolution the nearer every day. That is the doctrine of _Charka_. Therefore I ask you to work up this doctrine which will be a great advertis.e.m.e.nt both of our determination to win freedom, and if possible, through peaceful means.