The 'charkha' is a spinning wheel that enables one to spin yarn especially from natural fibers such as cotton.
As an intimate and ubiquitous part of India's village economy, the charkha has historically been a tool that had afforded its villages the ability to be self-sufficient, sustainable, and contextually relevant in terms of the respective needs and tastes of its populations.
Until the18th century when the British started dumping into India, cheaply produced yarn and textiles from their steam-driven mechanized mills of Birmingham and Manchester, at a fraction of the cost of India's village spun yarn.
While for purely economic reasons this onslaught of British goods and produce needed to be stopped, Gandhi saw this economic calamity as an opportunity to present the charkha not only as an artifact of economic necessity, but also as a potent symbol of resistance to "foreign-made" goods that were being implanted on to our economy, thus threatening our hitherto ability to be a self-sufficient society.
This follows a historical timeline, whereby, in 1917 Gandhi procured a 'charkha'/spinning wheel with help of Gangabehn Majmndar, who found the charkha in Vijapur located in the erstwhile State of Baroda. While Vijapur had a significant number of its population owning spinning wheels at their respective homes, these wheels had long since been put out of practice on account of the unfortunate and cheaply available machine-made British-made yarns and textiles.
Ironically, an object that had lost all economic relevance for the village economy of India on account of purely external factors and had already been reduced to being seen as a mere piece of wood stacked away out of disuse now found revival as a useful piece of political tool.
Sensing opportunity, Gandhi took up this turn of events (the unfortunate but steady replacement of the "local" for cheap foreign-made goods) as a call to boycott all things non-indigenous/"foreign," thereby planting seeds of protest that now went beyond the mere economic issues to become political, whereby the people's sense of pride as a matter of self-esteem through self-sufficiency now got translated into the larger question of political self-determination - the right and freedom to choose one's own.
On Gandhi's clarion call for boycott and reestablishing self-sufficiency, the locals now expressed their readiness to resume spinning, provided someone facilitated the process of providing them with a regular supply of slivers, and after that, to help sell the yarn spun by them.
Umar Sobani, a mill owner, agreed to supply the much-needed slivers and soon enough, yarn begun to pour in at such a rate that the quantum of yarn had to be dealt with. This was simultaneously followed up by spinning wheels being brought over to Sabarmati Ashram (one of Gandhi's dwellings), the charkha being improved upon by Maganlal Gandhi, and systematizing the process of making the wheels and the accessories of the charkha at Sabarmati Ashram itself.
That an artifact of such humble origin could become such a singularly potent symbol of 'self' and self-sufficiency goes down to Gandhi's ability to reimagine India's freedom movement as being driven by the concept of peaceful boycotts to attain self-sufficiency.
Significantly, the first piece of yarn, or the Khadi, spun at the Ashram cost 17 annas per yard. Upon Gandhi's urgings, this very coarse Khadi was being willingly bought at the above "princely" price by his peer and friends.
And soon enough, an iconic photograph of Gandhi and the charkha clicked in 1946 by Margaret Bourke-White of LIFE magazine as its cover, became emblematic India's Independence movement.
Today, the charkha as an artifact is recognized even and especially by India's young urban youth as a "cool" symbol of self-assertion from all things oppressive. The charkha, though not a part of the urban economy, has assumed new relevance through a renewed use of "khadi" – handloom textiles and apparel that, by serendipity, has become a fashion statement for many. Indeed, one even finds a giant installation of the charkha at the entrance of New Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport.
Gandhi's own words had spelt an intractably important dimension for the charkha when he emphasized in no uncertain terms the following:
"The message of the spinning wheel is much wider than its circumference. Its message is one of simplicity, service of mankind, living so as not to hurt others, creating an indissoluble bond between the rich and the poor, capital and labour the prince and the peasant. That larger message is naturally for all".
This message of inclusion and harmonious living finds even greater resonance with societies around the world today, each fighting various forms of inequities.
