"I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills."

Gandhi was a leader of social reform in India. His central concept in his works was Sarvodaya which meant `uplift of all.' He wanted to benefit the world, but most of all he wanted to help India which was in a state of economic distress due to British rule and a high percentage of rural population. In an attempt to strengthen India's economy and even out the economic inequality between India's cities and villages, Gandhi developed the Svadeshi movement.

Svadeshi is defined as the duty to patronize goods produced in ones own country. The Svadeshi movement was a mass movement undertaken by the Indian National Congress under Gandhi's leadership to encourage people, especially those living in cities, to develop the habit of consuming Indian rather that foreign products, and products of village industry rather than mill made products. They were urged in particular to wear khaddar (clothing woven from yarn spun by villagers using the charkha or spinning wheel). Gandhi believed that this simple practice could help India in numerous ways which we will explore in this paper.

One motive of Svadeshi was that it be used as a political expedient to weaken the British hold on the Indian market for textiles thereby embarrassing the British rulers. One aspect of this was the boycott of foreign cloth. Picketing foreign cloth stores became an essential part of svadeshi but it required discipline.

Gandhi outlined what not to do when picketing foreign cloth merchants as the following:

1. We should not abuse either the seller or the buyer and should never be discourteous in our behavior.
2. We should not lie down before a shop or a vehicle.
3. We should not cry out "shame, shame"
4. We should not take out effigies for burning or burring.
5. Even while ostracizing people we should not obstruct their obtaining food or any other service. But we should not take meals in their homes or accept any service from them. How far service should be rendered, however, requires careful consideration.
6. We should not fast in protest against them in any circumstances. The commonly accepted rule regarding fasting is as follows: Where there is a bond between two parties, one of them may fast if the other violates a condition or a moral law, just as Raihana fasted in Patna.

Gandhi wrote exactly what he thought should be done in order to boycott foreign cloth through khadi. It is as follows:

1. Congress organizations should call for volunteers to go from door to door in every town and village having a Congress committee and collect foreign cloth in the possession of the householders, and deliver or receive orders for khadi required by such households.
2. All khadi should bear the stamp of the All Indian Spinners' Association, and prices should be distinctly marked on them.
3. Voluntary preachers should be called for to popularize the use of khadi and to advocate complete boycott of foreign cloth.
4. Foreign cloth collected should be publicly burnt wherever possible.
5. Foreign cloth dealers should be individually visited with a view to enlisting their help and inducing them to stop further purchase of foreign cloth and to cancel all cancellable orders.
6. Picketing of foreign cloth shops may be undertaken when-ever possible and where there is no danger of violence being committed by Congress pickets, the latter being reliable and seasoned volunteers.
7. All units should from day to day report to the central office details of work done in terms of foregoing, and the latter should circulate to the press for publication a weekly digest of day to day progress.
8. Help and co-operation of all political and all other organizations should be solicited in the campaign.
9. Help of patriotic ladies should be enlisted to prosecute the boycott campaign.
10. The All Indian Spinners' Association should be asked to furnish the central office with a list of where genuine khadi is available and to open stores where there is a demand for khadi.
11. A small committee called the Foreign Cloth Boycott Committee should be formed and entrusted with an initial fund with power to collect more funds. The committee should be under obligation to publish duly audited statements of income and expenditure every quarter.
12. The committee proposed in para 11 should publish and distribute, broadcast leaflets showing the necessity and possibility of boycott, giving full details as to the method of achieving it by individuals.
13. Resolutions should be moved in the provincial legislatures as well as the central, calling upon their respective governments to make all their cloth purchases in khadi irrespective of its so-called costliness. Resolutions should also be moved demanding a prohibitive duty on imports of foreign cloth.

As with all of Gandhi's political actions, Svadeshi had to be justified in terms of fundamental moral principles. Gandhi believed that `An individual's service to his country and humanity consists in serving his neighbors.' He believed that by serving ones neighbors one not only contributes to the welfare of his neighbors but to the whole of humanity. Gandhi said, "provided the service to neighbors was not itself exploitive of others, the neighbor himself would in turn serve his neighbors and in this way the chain of service would be extended to include the world, rather than shut it out."

Gandhi believed that for Indians there was a moral obligation to use products made in India whenever they can get them, even if they are inferior to their foreign counterparts. Gandhi said, "We attend flag-hoisting ceremonies and are proud of our national flag. Let me tell you that our pride has no meaning if you do not like things made in India and hanker after foreign ones." Gandhi did however realize that India could not be completely self- sufficient and gave his consent to buy foreign goods that were not available Indian made. Gandhi said, "I buy useful healthy literature from every part of the world. I buy surgical instruments from England, pins and pencils from Austria, and watches from Switzerland."

Gandhi decided that India should not resort to becoming industrialized in order to sustain itself. He had many reasons for this which I feel are best explained in his own words which are as follows, "Machinery has begun to desolate Europe. Ruination is now knocking at the English gates. Machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilization; it represents a great sin." Regarding industrialization already in place in India, Gandhi says, "The mill workers of Bombay have become slaves and the condition of women workers is particularly shocking. If the machinery craze grows, India will become an unhappy land. It would even be preferable to send money to Manchester and to use flimsy Manchester cloth than to multiply mills in India. By using Manchester cloth we only waste our money; but by reproducing Manchester in India we shall keep our money at the price of our blood, because our very moral being will be sapped, and I call in support of my statement the very mill hands as witnesses." It is clear from this statement that Gandhi does not want the Indian population to work in unrewarding soul sucking factory jobs which capitalist America seems to be advocating. Gandhi says, "Machinery is like a snake hole which may contain from one to one hundred snakes. Where there is machinery there are large cities; and where there are large cities, there are tram-cars and railways and there only does one see electric lights." Gandhi goes on to say, "Do not forget the main thing. It is necessary to realize that machinery is bad. We shall then be able to gradually do away with it. Nature has not provided any way whereby we may reach a desired goal all of a sudden. If instead of welcoming machinery as a boon, we should look upon it as an evil, it would ultimately go."

Gandhi's case against industrialism is perhaps more relevant to India than it would be to other countries. In India there was an extreme economic inequality between the cities and the villages, the latter being the worse off. Gandhi believed this to be due to the fact that both economic and moral standards had declined in India through many long years of neglect and that city people as a whole were partly to blame. He believed however, that the main reason was that about three quarters of Indias population lived in rural areas where agriculture was the primary industry. Since agriculture in India is seasonal, three quarters of India's population was unemployed for about four months out of the year. All of this excess labour is one of Gandhi's main reasons for his case against industrialism since he saw that machines would only take away jobs from people and not create them. Gandhi said, "What applies to America and England does not necessarily apply to India. India has in her teaming millions so many superfluous days that she does not need to free the energy of her sons for superior or more remunerative work through highly developed machinery. In her 350 million children she has so many living ready made machines and if she can utilize their labour, half of which is running to waste, the double starvation of the body and mind will cease. That is the problem that faced me when I returned to India in 1915 and has haunted me ever since."

It is clear that Gandhi believed first that the machine displaces human, or animal, labour instead of merely supplementing it or increasing its efficiency. Secondly, that there is no discernable limitation to the growth and expansion of machines. It is unlike human labour which cannot go beyond a certain physical limit. Gandhi concludes from this that machines appear to have a will or genius of their own, which is always antagonistic to human labour. This leads not only to labour being displaced, but to its being displaced at an ever accelerating rate. He believes this to be a consequence of the nature of the technological process itself, not because it is considered by users of machines to be socially or economically desirable. Gandhi said, "And I would be false to you and to India if I do not tell You that the machines more than the mill owners are responsible for India's deep distressing poverty. Addressing India's foreign cloth merchants Gandhi said, "If your trade is a matter of life and death to you, is the countries good less so? Swaraj means that you and I put our countries trade before ours. The appeal to you to refrain from importing foreign cloth is in other words an appeal to you to subordinate your individual gain to the countries."

Regarding the Excess labour in India, Gandhi said, "Idleness is the great cause, the root of all evil, and if that root can be destroyed, most of the evils can be remedied without further effort. A nation that is starving has little hope or initiative left in it. It becomes indifferent to filth and disease. It says of all reforms, `to what good?' That winter of despair can only be turned into the `sunshine of hope' for the millions only through the life giving wheel, the charkha."

Gandhi believed that the spinning wheel was the solution. By having people use their labour to produce yarn unemployment would be greatly reduced and the village economy would gain in strength. He also believed that spinning was healthy for the souls of the people who did it. He called spinning yajna and said, "In doing anything as yajna, one is not concerned with the fruits of ones labour and, therefore, the fruit is immeasurable. By doing that one learns the science and art of working. Anyone, therefore, who would work in the spirit of yajna should have such qualities as purity of heart etc., and should do his sacrificial work with single minded devotion... A person who works in the spirit of sacrifice will be a lover of truth and will, therefore, after he has realized the necessity of working in this spirit, go on voluntarily increasing his knowledge and proficiency without having to make a strenuous effort." Gandhi made many points about the spinning wheel which are as follows:

1. It supplies the readiest occupation to those who have leisure and are in want of a few coppers;
2. it is known to the thousands;
3. it is easily learnt;
4. it requires practically no outlay of capital;
5. the wheel can be easily and cheaply made. Most of us do not yet know that spinning can be done even with a piece of tile and a splinter;
6. the people have no repugnance to it;
7. it affords immediate relief in times of famine and scarcity;
8. it alone can stop the drain of wealth which goes outside India in the purchase of foreign cloth;
9. it automatically distributes the millions thus saved among the deserving poor;
10. even the smallest success means so much immediate gain to the people;
11. it is the most potent instrument of securing co-operation among the people.

Gandhi believed that Svadeshi was absolutely necessary in gaining liberation from England. Gandhi wrote in "Indian Home Rule"(1909), the following:

1. Real home rule is self-rule or self-control.
2. The way to it is passive resistance; that is soul- force or love force.
3. In order to exert this force, Svadeshi in every sense is necessary.
4. What we want to do should be done, not because we object to the English or because we want to retaliate but because it is our duty to do so. Thus, supposing that the English remove the salt-tax, restore our money, give the highest posts to Indians, withdraw the English troops, we shall certainly not use their machine-made goods, nor use the English language, nor many of their industries. It is worth noting that these things are, in their nature, harmful; hence we do not want them. I bear no enmity towards the English but I do towards their civilization.

That is my view on Svadeshi. In your village you are bound to support your village barber to the exclusion of the finished barber who may come to you from Madras. If you find it necessary that your village barber should reach the attainments of the barber from Madras you may train him to that. Send him to Madras by all means, if you wish, in order that he may learn his calling. Until you do that you are not Justified in going to another barber. That is Svadeshi. So when we find that there are many things that we cannot get in India we must try to do without them. We may have to do without many things; but, believe me, when you have that frame of mind you will find a great burden taken off your shoulders, even as the Pilgrim did in that inimitable book Pilgrim's Pride. There came a time when the mighty burden that the Pilgrim was carrying unconsciously dropped from him, and he felt a freer man than he was when he started on the journey. So will you feel freer men than you are now, if immediately you adopt this Svadeshi way of life. We have also."

For Svadeshi to be successful in India, Gandhi realized that he needed to change the values of the Indian people. They would have to shift their whole mind set towards desiring a simple way of life. They could place no value on material goods which were not essential to survival. They had to learn to take pride in producing goods they needed to survive rather than simply buying them even if they could be acquired at a very cheap price. Gandhi said, "Svadeshi carries a great and profound meaning. It does not mean merely the use of what is produced in ones own country... there is another meaning implicit in it which is far greater and much more important. Svadeshi means reliance on our own strength." Svadeshi entails simplicity of life, self reliance, limiting of ones wants, and especially the ability to appreciate the worth of manual labour. All of these things, though they may seem to contradict our own values, require a tremendous amount of self discipline and strength. It would be a tremendous challenge for everyone who was to participate in it. Gandhi himself had a tremendous capacity for self discipline. He also was confidant that the Indian people as a whole were as capable as he was to have the discipline to execute the svadeshi movement.

Gandhi believed that the material process as commonly understood was in fact the enemy of real, moral advancement. Indians should fight the disease of materialism by holding fast to their ancient civilizations and cherish a simple life-style where the principles of sufficiency and compassion would overcome the evils of grievous poverty, over- consumption, and economic violence.

To convey these ideals to the Indian population over the long-run, Gandhi believed that there needed to be a great change in the education system of India. He believed that the education system that was in place in India perpetuated immoral ideas, leading India's youth to want to conform to the imperialist system in place in England. He believed that if this did not change, that India as a whole would turn into an evil civilization within a generation or two. All that he had been working for would be lost. He said that one of the most important boycotts was that of the English language. If the English language continued to be taught in India's schools, their native languages would slowly fade away. Along with the languages, their history would also fade away. For Gandhi, this would be devastating to India since he believed that India needed to revert back to the way of life as recorded in their history and not to adopt the immoral English way of life. Speaking on education, Gandhi said:

As we have seen, svadeshi is a very complex issue. It encompasses areas such as economics, ethics, religion and many more. It is a subject that Gandhi found to be of extreme value in gaining liberation from England, uniting India's people, and helping India both economically and morally, thus he spent a great deal of effort developing a version of it suitable for use in India. It must be remembered that svadeshi was only one aspect of Gandhi's innumerable works. I hope that who ever reads this paper learns something about the philosophy of Gandhi; I most certainly did in doing the research for it. You may notice the large number of quotations included in this paper. The reason for this is that I believe that the words of Gandhi can more accurately express his ideas and deeds than my interpretations of them.