Gandhian economic thought (5)

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