E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi’s Philosophy of Swadeshi 252trans-national and multi-national corporations has createdgenuine fear of a second coming of the syndrome. In spite ofdecades of aid and trade and development, the net outflow fromour country is far higher than what we received through tradeand aid, and unemployment and disparities are increasing.It is in such circumstances, and in the face of anImperialist Government that used Governmental power innaked and subtle ways to destroy Indian industry, Indian skillsand the Indian economy itself that Swadeshi or the SwadeshiMovement became an instrument of struggle for the defence ofour economy and for freedom from exploitation and eventualimpoverishment and slavery. It became an effective answer tothe tactics of those who wanted to dominate our economy, andexploit our masses by creating an addiction for foreignconsumers' goods. Depending on foreign goods also meanttuning oneself to foreign tastes and patterns of thought andvalues. It led to the atrophy of Indian skills and the Indiangenius for originality and variety, and to attraction for thegoods and fashions of the West in the induced belief thatconformity with the ways of the West is a sign of modernityand progress.Like Dadabhai Naoroji, Ranade, Gokhale, Tilak,Rabindranath Tagore, Lala Lajpat Rai and other Titans of ourstruggle for freedom, Gandhi also saw Swadeshi as an answerto the Western strategy of economic domination andexploitation. But to him, Swadeshi was more than an answer toBritish strategy. It was part of his philosophy of non-cooperationand self-reliance. He pointed out that there was anelement of co-operation that the victim unwittin.gly extended tothe exploiter, and it was the duty of a rebel or revolutionary orSatyagrahi therefore to withdraw this co-operation, - refuse toco-operate to bring about one's own ruin. It was also the duty ofthe Satyagrahi to build up an alternative to the system withwhich he non-cooperated.