Hind Swaraj, or Indian Home Rule

Answers

• Q17LABOR

  Does introducing labor-saving machinery improve workers' lives?

  No. machinery ruins workers. Machinery has impoverished India by destroying handicraft and has begun to desolate Europe; India should do without it.

  It is machinery that has impoverished India. It is difficult to measure the harm that Manchester has done to us. It is due to Manchester that Indian handicraft has all but disappeared. But I make a mistake. How can Manchester be blamed ? We wore Manchester cloth, and this is why Manchester wove it, I was delighted when I read about the bravery of Bengal. There are no cloth-mills in that Presidency. They were, therefore, able to restore the original hand-weaving occupation. It is true, Bengal encourages the mill-industry of Bombay. If Bengal had proclaimed a boycott of all machine-made goods, it would have been much better. Machinery has begun to desolate Europe. Ruination is now knocking at the English gates. Machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilisation; it represents a great sin. The workers in the mills of Bombay have become slaves. The condition of the women working in the mills is shocking. When there were no mills these women were not starving.

  OCR corrected

  Chapter XIX: Machinery · Opened Internet Archive text of the 1919 English edition; confirmed Chapter XIX 'Machinery' and its opening.

• Q25DEPENDENCE

  Does relying on machinery for ordinary necessities reduce people's ability to provide for themselves?

  Yes. machine goods destroyed India's capacity to clothe itself. Argues machinery has impoverished India by destroying hand industry and that Indians should reduce their use of mills and machines and return to hand-spinning and hand-weaving.

  EDITOR: By raising this question, you have opened the wound I had received. When I read Mr. Dutt's Economic History of India I wept; and, as I think of it, again my heart sickens. It is machinery that has impoverished India. It is difficult to measure the harm that Manchester has done to us. It is due to Manchester that Indian handicraft has all but disappeared. But I make a mistake. How can Manchester be blamed? We wore Manchester cloth, and that is why Manchester wove it. I was delighted when I read about the bravery of Bengal. There are no cloth-mills in that Presidency. They were, therefore, able to restore the original hand-weaving occupation. It is true Bengal encourages the mill-industry of Bombay. If Bengal had proclaimed a boycott of _all_ machine-made goods, it would have been much better. 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. The workers in the mills of Bombay have become slaves. The condition of the women working in the mills is shocking. When there were no mills, these women were not starving. If the machinery craze grows in our country, it will become an unhappy land.

  Chapter XIX, "Machinery" · Internet Archive 1921 Natesan edition, table of contents and Ch. XIX text read.

• Q32CIVILIZATION

  Is widespread use of machinery evidence that a society is more civilized?

  No. machinery is a mark of false civilization. Argues modern civilization, whose chief symbol is machinery, is an irreligious condition; true civilization is moral conduct, and India's ancestors chose not to pursue machinery.

  The Gujarati equivalent for civilisation means "good conduct." If this definition be correct, then India, as so many writers have shown, has nothing to learn from anybody else, and this is as it should be. We notice that mind is a restless bird; the more it gets the more it wants, and still remains unsatisfied. The more we indulge our passions, the more unbridled they become. Our ancestors, therefore, set a limit to our indulgences. They saw that happiness was largely a mental condition. A man is not necessarily happy because he is rich, or unhappy because he is poor. The rich are often seen to be unhappy, the poor to be happy. Millions will always remain poor. Observing all this, our ancestors dissuaded us from luxuries and pleasures. We have managed with the same kind of plough as it existed thousands of years ago. We have retained the same kind of cottages that we had in former times, and our indigenous education remains the same as before. We have had no system of life-corroding competition. Each followed his own occupation or trade, and charged a regulation wage. It was not that we did not know how to invent machinery, but our forefathers knew that, if we set our hearts after such things, we would become slaves and lose our moral fibre.

  OCR corrected

  Chapter VI, "Civilisation"; Chapter XIII, "What is True Civilisation?" · Internet Archive 1921 edition; table of contents and chapter text read.

• Q33CIVILIZATION

  Can a society adopt another society's machinery without adopting its ways of life?

  No. machinery carries the civilization with it. Machinery is the chief sign of modern civilization and has impoverished India; India cannot take it up and remain itself.

  Machinery has begun to desolate Europe. Ruination is now knocking at the English gates. Machinery is the chief symbol of modern civilisation; it represents a great sin. The workers in the mills of Bombay have become slaves. The condition of the women working in the mills is shocking. When there were no mills, these women were not starving. If the machinery craze grows in our country, it will become an unhappy land. It may be considered a heresy, but I am bound to say that it were better for us to send money to Manchester and to use flimsy Manchester cloth, than to multiply mills in India. By using Manchester cloth, we would 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. And those who have amassed wealth out of factories are not likely to be better than other rich men. It would be folly to assume that an Indian Rockfeller would be better than the American Rockfeller.

  OCR corrected

  Chapter XIX, Machinery · Wikipedia entry for Hind Swaraj; Sevagram Ashram online text of Chapter 19 'Machinery'; Cambridge edition listing.