E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

255 Contextualising Gandhian Thoughtnot a religion of the prison house." 10The need to be familiar with one's own culturalmoorings before one turns to those of others has been endorsedand annotated by the great savant and orientalist, Dr. AnandaCoomaraswamy: "Just so with all other indigenous arts andindustries; we neglect what lies at our doors, to buy fromabroad what we do not understand and cannot use to advantage.No wonder we are poor; but, what is worse, we areintellectually and aesthetically sterilising ourselves as well. Wewant a Swadeshi of ideas, of music, of art, and commercialSwadeshi is bound to follow. I do not mean a boycott of foreignideas; but I mean that Indians have yet to realise that theycannot adequately appreciate foreign ideas, foreign arts orforeign music, if they can not appreciate their own. Rememberwe have a duty not only to ourselves, but to the world; that dutyis to develop our talents and not bury them."Dr. Coomaraswamy has also pointed out that the spiritof Swadeshi should make us question the senseless adoption ofsystems that originated elsewhere and were once hailed asbeneficial, but later discovered to be injurious to society. Thecountries in which these systems or practices originated werehaving second thoughts and introducing correctives, but somein India were still victims of infatuation. ''Now consider anotheraspect of Swadeshi. Are we going to compete with the West byintroducing a factory system and a capitalist ownership of themeans of productions, corresponding to that prevailing inEurope? The results of the capitalist system, wherein thepossession of the means of production by a few, enables themto exploit the many, are so unfavourable in the West, that weshall do well to question very severely whether it is wise for usto attempt to compete with the West on the same lines;especially as we are quite out of touch with the regenerativetendencies referred to in the West. If Indian industries are tocontinue to benefit the people of India, and not merely a few