University of Virginia Library

HAND-SPINNING AGAIN

The Servant of India has a fling too at
spinning and that is based as I shall presently
show an ignorance of the facts. Spinning does
protect a women's virtue, because it enables
women who are to-day working on public roads
and are often in danger of having their modesty
outraged, to protect themselves, and I know
no other occupation that lacs of women can
follow save spinning. Let me inform the
Jesting writer that several women have already
returned to the sanctity of their homes
and taken to spinning which they say
is the one occupation which means so such
barkat (blessing). I claim for it the properties
of a musical instrument, for whilst a
hungry and a naked woman will refuse to
dance to the accompaniment of a piano, I
have seen women beaming with joy to see the
spinning wheel work, for they know that they
can through that rustic instrument both feed
and clothe themselves.

Yes, it does solve the problem of India's
chronic poverty and is an insurance against

famine. The writer of the jests may not know
the scandals that I know about irrigation and
relief works. These works are largely a fraud.
But if my wise counsellors will devote themselves
to introducing the wheel in every home,
I promise that the wheel will be an almost
complete protection against famine. It is
idle to cite Austria. I admit the poverty
and limitations of my humanity. I can
only think of India's Kamadhenu, and
the spinning wheel is that for India. For
India had the spinning wheel in every
home before the advent of the East India
Company. India being a cotton growing
country, it must be considered a crime to import
a single yard of yarn from outside. The
figures quoted by the writer are irrelevant.

The fact is that inspite of the manufacture
of 62-7 crores pounds of yarn in 1917-18 India
imported several crore yards of foreign yarn
which were woven by the mills as well as the
weavers. The writer does not also seem to
know that more cloth is to-day woven by
our weavers than by mills, but the bulk
of it is foreign yarn and therefore our weavers
are supporting foreign spinners. I would
not mind it much if we were doing something

else instead. When spinning was
almost compulsorily stopped nothing replaced
it save slavery and idleness. Our mills cannot
to-day spin enough for our wants, and if they
did, they will not keep down prices unless
they were compelled. They are frankly Moneymakers
and will not therefore regulate prices
according to the needs of the nations. Hand-spinning
is therefore designed to put millions
of rupees in the hands of poor villagers. Every
agricultural country requires a supplementary
industry to enable the peasants to utilise the
spare hours. Such industry for India has
always been spinning. Is it such a visionary
ideal—an attempt to revive an ancient
occupation whose destruction has brought
on slavery, pauperism and disappearance of
the inimitable artistic talents which was
once all expressed in the wonderful fabric of
India and which was the envy of the world?

And now a few figures. One boy could,
if he worked say four hours daily, spin ¼ lb. of
yarn. 64,000 students would, therefore, spin
16,000 lbs per day and therefore feed 8,000
weavers if a weaver wove two lbs of hand-spun
yarn. But the students and others are required
to spin during this year of purification by

way of penance in order to popularise spinning
and to add to the manufacture of hand-spun
yarn so as to overtake full manufacture during
the current year. The nation may be too lazy
to do it. But if all put their hands to this work,
it is incredibly easy, it involves very little
sacrifice and saves an annual drain of sixty
crores even if it does nothing else. I have discussed
the matter with many mill-owners,
several economists, men of business and no
one has yet been able to challenge the position
herein set forth. I do expect the `Servant of
India' to treat a serious subject with seriousness
and accuracy of information.