The Wheel of Fortune · Mahatma Gandhi
THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE
The picture of the crowd of men, women, and children, with their fleshless ribs under the very shadow of Jagannath, haunts me. If I had the power, I would suspend every other activity in schools, and colleges, and everywhere else, and popularise spinning; prepare out of these lads and lasses spinning teachers: inspire every carpenter to prepare spinning wheels; and ask the teachers to take these life-going machines to every home, and teach them spinning. If I had the power, I would stop an ounce of cotton from being exported and would have it turned into yarn in these homes. I would dot India with depots for receiving this yarn and distributing it among weavers. Given sufficient steady and trained workers, I would undertake to drive pauperism out of India during this year. This undoubtedly requires a change in the angle of vision and in the national taste. I regard the Reforms and everything else in the nature of opiates to deaden our conscience. We must refuse to wait for generations to furnish us with a patient solution of a problem which is ever-growing in seriousness. Nature knows no mercy in dealing stern justice. If we do not wake up before long, we shall be wiped out of existence.
I invite the sceptics to visit Orissa, penetrate its villages, and find out for themselves where India stands. They will then believe with me that to possess, or to wear, an ounce of foreign cloth is a crime against India and humanity. I am able to restrain myself from committing suicide by starvation, only because I have faith in India's awakening, and her ability to put herself on the way to freedom from this desolating pauperism. Without faith in such a possibility, I should cease to take interest in living. I invite the questioner, and every other intelligent lover of his country, to take part in this privileged national service in making spinning universal by introducing it in every home, and make it profitable for the nation by helping to bring about a complete boycott of foreign cloth during this year. I have finished the questions and endeavoured to answer them. The most important from the practical stand-point was the one regarding spinning. I hope, I have demonstrated the necessity of home-spinning as the only means of dealing with India's poverty. I know, however, that innumerable difficulties face a worker in putting the doctrine into execution. The most difficult, perhaps, is that of getting a proper wheel. Save in the Punjab where the art is still alive, the difficulty is very real. The carpenters have forgotten the construction and the innocent workers are at their wit's end. The chief thing undoubtedly, therefore, is for the worker to make himself acquainted with the art and the handling of spinning wheels. I lay down some simple tests for testing them. No machine that fails to satisfy the tests should be accepted or distributed.
(1) The wheel must turn easily, freely, and noiselessly. (2) The turning handle must be rigidly fixed to the axle. (3) The post must be properly driven home and joints well-fixed. (4) The spindle must turn noiselessly and without a throb in its holders. Jarring sound cannot be avoided unless the holders are made of knit straw as in the Punjab, or of tough leather. (5) No machine is properly made unless it manufactures in the hands of a practised spinner at least 2-1/2 tolas of even and properly twisted yarn of six counts in an hour. I know a youngster, who has not had more than perhaps three months' practice, having been able to spin 2-1/2 tolas of the above quality of yarn in 35 minutes. No machine should be given until it has been worked at least full one hour in the manner suggested and found satisfactory. _Y. I.--6th April 1921._ [On February 15, 1922, Mahatma Gandhi has addressed the following letter to Sir Daniel Hamilton from Bardoli on the Spinning Wheel.]
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.