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Graduated Boycott
THE opponents
of the New Spirit have discovered that boycott is an illusion. An entire and
sweeping boycott, they say, is a moral and physical impossibility; and their
infallible economic authority, Mr. Gokhale, has found out that a graduated
boycott is an economic impossibility. They point to the failure of the
thorough-going boycott in Bengal as a proof of the first assertion; the second,
they think, requires no proof, for how can what Mr. Gokhale has said be wrong?
This assertion of the impossibility of a graduated boycott is an answer to
the reasoning by which Mr. Tilak has supported the movement in Maharashtra. In
the first
days of the movement Mr. Tilak published a series of
vigorous and
thoughtful articles in the Kesari on Boycott as a political Yoga. He
advocated the entire exclusion of British goods, the preference of Swadeshi
goods at a sacrifice when they were attainable, and, when unattainable, the
preference of any foreign goods not
produced in the British Empire. To the argument that this programme was not
immediately practicable in its completeness, he replied that as in Yoga, so in
the boycott, "even a little of this dharma saves us from a mighty
peril". The mighty peril is the entire starvation of the country by foreign
exploiters and its complete and hopeless dependence on aliens for almost all
articles of common use. Even a slight immediate diminution of this dependence
would be a great national gain and could by degrees be extended until the full
boycott policy became an accomplished fact. Mr. Tilak, with his shrewd
practical insight, was able to see clearly that immediate and complete success
of a thorough-going boycott was not possible in India, but that a gradually
efficacious boycott would naturally result from a thorough-going boycott
campaign. What Mr. Tilak foresaw, is precisely what is happening.
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Is it a fact that as an economic weapon a graduated boycott is impossible?
Boycott may be graduated in several ways. First, by the gradual growth of the
idea of excluding foreign goods a steadily increasing check may be put on the
import of particular foreign articles and a corresponding impulse given to the
use of
the same articles produced in India. A Government by imposing a gradually
increasing duty on an import in successive tariffs may kill it by degrees
instead of immediately imposing a prohibitive rate; the growth of the boycott
sentiment may automatically exercise the same kind of increasing check. The
growth of the sentiment will help on the production of the indigenous article
and the increased production of the indigenous article will help on the growth
of the sentiment. Thus mutually stimulated, Swadeshi and Boycott will advance
with equal and ever more rapid steps, until the shrinkage of the foreign import
reaches the point where it is no longer profitable to import it. The process can
only be checked by the insufficiency of capital in the country available or
willing to invest itself in Swadeshi manufacture. But the growth of
the boycott sentiment will of itself encourage and is encouraging capital
to invest in this direction; for so much boycott means so much sure market for
Swadeshi articles and therefore an increase of capital willing to invest in
Swadeshi manufacture. The increased production of the Swadeshi article in its
turn means more money in the hands of the mercantile class and of investors in
Swadeshi Companies and therefore more capital available for investment in
Swadeshi manufacture. We fail to see how in this sense an automatically
graduated boycott is impossible; on the contrary, it seems to us economically
inevitable, provided only the boycott sentiment is increasingly embraced by the
people.
Page-293 in its extent and range. The graduation of a specific boycott may be partly artificial and partly automatic. It is artificial when the leaders of the people preach an economic Jehad against particular foreign goods and the people accept their decision. But this artificial boycott can only succeed when there is already an incipient industry in the corresponding Swadeshi article or some existing means of supply however partial, which may be stimulated or extended by the boycott. Liverpool salt has been affected because ‘Karkach’ is available; British piece-goods have been affected because there was already a mill-industry and a handloom industry which have been enormously stimulated by the boycott, as is shown by the wholesale return of the weaver class to their trade in Bengal and by the increase in the number of weaving mills and the splendid dividends which the existing concerns are paying. On the other hand the campaign against foreign sugar has not been successful, because the proper substitute is not available. Yarns have not been affected because the spinning industry in India is a negligible quantity while the demand for yarn has enormously increased. In time a Jehad against foreign yarn will become feasible. But the specific boycott may also be automatic when the general sentiment of boycott attacks a particular article for which a substitute exists in the country. To take a small instance, the market for steel trunks sent ready-manufactured from England is decreasing to such an extent that failures of dealers in steel trunks are beginning to be recorded. Here again, we fail to see the impossibility of a graduated boycott. It is quite true that in the very beginning the increase of the stimulated Swadeshi article may not be sufficient to blot out entirely the increase in the import, and the superficial and hasty may proclaim the failure of the boycott. But by the growth of the boycott the increase of the Swadeshi article must progressively swell and the increase of the import must progressively shrink until it is turned into an actual decrease. The fact that the success of the boycott is progressive and not miraculous, need not frighten or disappoint any sensible and determined boycotter. It is true also that the growth of Swadeshi may actually stimulate for a time the import of particular foreign articles, such as machinery or yarns; but the stimulation is temporary
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and, as soon as part of our growing capital is free and willing to invest in new
fields, the graduated boycott will naturally extend itself in these directions
sooner than in others. Bande Mataram, April 26, 1907
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