The Concept of Swadeshi
Gandhiji’s himself
defined Swadeshi as “the spirit in us which restricts us to the use and service
of our immediate surroundings to the exclusion of the more remote” (Unnithan
1956 p. 54).
The Swadeshi movement
launched in the 1930s.
It was the direct
outcome of the visible decline of the handicrafts industry, that Gandhi
witnessed around him.
He rightly blamed it as
the root cause of Indian rural poverty.
The movement sought to
buttress the declining demand for ancient crafts by boycott of European goods.
Thus, in effect, was a
programme of the revival of village industries.
The Swadeshi movement
achieved its most explicit manifestation in the Khadi (home spun cloth)
struggle.
It draws inspiration
from Gandhiji’s Ahimsa (non-violence) that was elevated into a moral principle.
Thus, Khadi at once
became a propaganda weapon in the liberation movement with a strong moral
appeal to Indian intellectuals, western sympathisers as well as the rural
masses.
Used from paper of D. M.
Nachane