Part 4 (2/2)
If you are determined to have the freedom of your country, if you want to see the cessation of our slavery in which we are living for close upon two centuries, it requires from you a peaceful battle--the battle of the _Charka_.
_Y. I.--9th Feb. 1921._
THE MESSAGE OF THE CHARKA
The _Indian Social Reformer_ has published a note from a correspondent in praise of the spinning-wheel. The correspondent in the course of his remarks hopes, that the movement will be so organised that the spinners may not weary of it. Mr. Amritlal Thakkar in his valuable note (published in the _Servant of India_) on the experiment which he is conducting in Kathiawad, says that the charkha has been taken up by the peasant women. They are not likely to weary, for to them it is a source of livelihood to which they were used before. It had dried up, because there was no demand for their yarn. Townspeople who have taken to spinning may weary, if they have done so as a craze or a fas.h.i.+on. Those only will be faithful, who consider it their duty to devote their spare hours to doing what is to-day the most useful work for the country. The third cla.s.s of spinners are the school-going children. I expect the greatest results from the experiment of introducing the charkha in the National Schools. If it is conducted on scientific lines by teachers who believe in the charkha as the most efficient means of making education available to the seven and a half lacs of villages in India, there is not only no danger of weariness, but every prospect of the nation being able to solve the problem of financing ma.s.s education without any extra taxation and without having to fall back upon immoral sources of revenue.
The writer in the _Indian Social Reformer_ suggests, that an attempt should be made to produce finer counts on the spinning-wheel. I may a.s.sure him that the process has already begun, but it will be some time before we arrive at the finish of the Dacca muslin or even twenty counts. Seeing that hand-spinning was only revived last September, and India began to believe in it somewhat only in December, the progress it has made may be regarded as phenomenal.
The writer's complaint that hand-spun yarn is not being woven as fast as it is spun, is partly true. But the remedy is not so much to increase the number of looms, as to persuade the existing weavers to use hand-spun yarn. Weaving is a much more complex process than spinning. It is not, like spinning, only a supplementary industry, but a complete means of livelihood. It therefore never died out. There are _enough weavers and enough looms in India to replace the whole of the foreign import of cloth_. It should be understood that our looms--thousands of them in Madras, Maharashtra and Bengal--are engaged in weaving the fine yarn imported from j.a.pan and Manchester. We _must_ utilize these for weaving hand-spun yarn. And for that purpose, the nation has to revise its taste for the thin tawdry and useless muslins. I see no art in weaving muslins, that do not cover but only expose the body. Our ideas of art must undergo a change. But even if the universal weaving of thin fabric be considered desirable in normal conditions, at the present moment whilst we are making a mighty effort to become free and self-supporting, we must be content to wear the cloth that our hand-spun yarn may yield. We have therefore to ask the fas.h.i.+onable on the one hand to be satisfied with coa.r.s.er garments; we must educate the spinners on the other hand to spin finer and more even yarn.
The writer pleads for a reduction in the prices charged by mill-owners for their manufactures. When lovers of Swades.h.i.+ begin to consider it their duty to wear khaddar, when the required number of spinning-wheels are working and the weavers are weaving hand-spun yarn, the mill-owners will be bound to reduce prices. It seems almost hopeless merely to appeal to the patriotism of those whose chief aim is to increase their own profits.
Incongruities pointed out by the writer such as the wearing of khaddar on public occasions and at other times of the most fas.h.i.+onable English suits, and the smoking of most expensive cigars by wearers of khaddar, must disappear in course of time, as the new fas.h.i.+on gains strength. It is my claim that as soon as we have completed the boycott of foreign cloth, we shall have evolved so far that we shall necessarily give up the present absurdities and remodel national life in keeping with the ideal of simplicity and domesticity implanted in the bosom of the ma.s.ses. We will not then be dragged into an imperialism, which is built upon exploitation of the weaker races of the earth, and the acceptance of a giddy materialistic civilization protected by naval and air forces that have made peaceful living almost impossible. On the contrary, we shall then refine that imperialism, into a common wealth of nations which will combine, if they do, for the purpose of giving their best to the world and of protecting, not by brute force but by self-suffering, the weaker nations or races of the earth. Non-co-operation aims at nothing less than this revolution in the thought-world. Such a transformation can come only after the complete success of the spinning-wheel. India can become fit for delivering such a message, when she has become proof against temptation and therefore attacks from outside, by becoming self-contained regarding two of her chief needs--food and clothing.
_Y. I.--29th June 1921._
THE CHARKA IN THE GITA
In the last issue I have endeavoured to answer the objections raised by the Poet against spinning as a sacrament to be performed by all. I have done so in all humility and with the desire to convince the Poet and those who think like him. The reader will be interested in knowing, that my belief is derived largely from the Bhagavadgita. I have quoted the relevant verses in the article itself. I give below Edwin Arnold's rendering of the verses from his Song Celestial for the benefit of those who do not read Sanskrit.
Work is more excellent than idleness; The body's life proceeds not, lacking work.
There is a task of holiness to do, Unlike world-binding toil, which bindeth not The faithful soul; such earthly duty do Free from desire, and thou shalt well perform Thy heavenly purpose. Spake Praj.a.pati In the beginning, when all men were made, And, with mankind, the sacrifice--”Do this!
Work! Sacrifice! Increase and multiply With sacrifice! This shall be Kamadhuk, Your 'Cow of Plenty', giving back her milk Of all abundance. Wors.h.i.+p the G.o.ds thereby; The G.o.ds shall yield ye grace. Those meats ye crave The G.o.ds will grant to Labour, when it pays t.i.thes in the altar-flame. But if one eats Fruits of the earth, rendering to kindly heaven, No gift of toil, that thief steals from his world.”
Who eat of food after their sacrifice Are quit of fault, but they that spread a feast All for themselves, eat sin and drink of sin.
By food the living live; food comes of rain.
And rain comes by the pious sacrifice, And sacrifice is paid with t.i.thes of toil; Thus action is of Brahma, who is one, The Only, All--pervading; at all times Present in sacrifice. He that abstains To help the rolling wheels of this great world, Glutting his idle sense, lives a lost life, Shameful and vain.
Work here undoubtedly refers to physical labour, and work by way of sacrifice can only be work to be done by all for the common benefit.
Such work--such sacrifice can only be spinning. I do not wish to suggest, that the author of the Divine Song had the spinning wheel in mind. He merely laid down a fundamental principle of conduct. And reading in and applying it to India I can only think of spinning as the fittest and most acceptable sacrificial body labour. I cannot imagine anything n.o.bler or more national than that for say one hour in the day we should all do the labour that the poor must do, and thus identify ourselves with them and through them with all mankind. I cannot imagine better wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d than that in His name I should labour for the poor even as they do. The spinning wheel spells a more equitable distribution of the riches of the earth.
_Y. I.--20th Oct. 1921._
SPINNING AS FAMINE RELIEF
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