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Swadeshi and Boycott
Mr. Gadre and fellow countrymen, There are four subjects which usually form the subject matter of a Nationalist’s speech. They are, first, Swadeshi; second, boycott; third, Swaraj; and fourth, national education. Swadeshi is the method, the way, the road by which the nation advances. Boycott is only the other side of Swadeshi, and both the Swadeshi and the boycott movements are actually encouraged in principle in the greater part of this country. National education is the training of the mind and heart of the younger generation. Swaraj is the goal of our national life. Our political efforts are directed to Swadeshi, boycott, Swaraj and national education, which have been recognised by all in Bengal. Today I wish to speak to you about two of these subjects because they go together. Swadeshi and boycott, as we understand them in Bengal, have been put as a single expression. There is no difference of opinion in Bengal as regards Swadeshi and boycott. Both parties entirely agree that boycott is an essential part of political progress. When we speak of Swadeshi, we ought clearly to understand the meaning of the word. Swadeshi is the preference for articles produced by Indian labour in India itself. The use and consumption of such articles defines the Swadeshi movement. When we speak of boycott, it is generally understood that boycott is the determination to exclude foreign products, the determination not to use articles of foreign manufacture. Now the meaning of Swadeshi and boycott, as we Nationalists understand them, is wider and larger than Swadeshi and boycott as defined by others, owing to the commercial and industrial circumstances of the country. There are three kinds
Delivered in Dhulia on 26 January 1908. Text noted down in shorthand and later typed by a police agent. This transcription was submitted as evidence in the Alipore Bomb Trial (1908-09).
Page – 837 of Swadeshi. When Swadeshi was first started in Bengal, Lord Minto said at the Commercial Exhibition in Calcutta that he approved of Swadeshi. Our Swadeshi, according to Lord Minto, is the determination to encourage Indian manufacture and the use of Indian goods when they are as good as English manufactures and can be got at a cheaper price. That is the economic principle preached by English economists. Lord Minto says that if Swadeshi excludes the goods of other countries it ceases to be an honest attempt for the industry of this country. There is another kind of Swadeshi which is more developed. We shall encourage Indian labour, Indian manufacture, Indian articles, preferring our own goods by giving them a little stimulus. This idea of Swadeshi brings in the principle of preference and protection. The third kind of Swadeshi adopts the principle of using our own Indian manufactures, our own Indian goods, and not using foreign articles if Indian articles can be had. These are the three kinds of Swadeshi and the third kind of Swadeshi absolutely depends upon the boycott. Boycott, it is objected, brings in an element of hatred, political struggle and of political animosity. Boycott has a double aspect. There is a commercial boycott which is used as a political weapon. It is not open to the charge that it brings in animosity, hatred and political struggle. The management of our own country is not in our hands. It is in the hands of a people whose trade interests are opposed to ours. The management is in the hands of a people who have adopted the doctrine of free trade, an unalterable principle which they are not going to sacrifice for any reason. It is the principle of free trade which has been unanimously adopted by Englishmen. They want free trade. England gets every advantage of free trade. But other countries cannot accept the principle of free trade. This is not an expression of political hatred of one nation to another. Boycott is not an expression of political hatred but a means of self-defence. The Governments of countries such as France and America declare that they will not use English tea. We want tea produced and developed in our own country; therefore we want to pass a law that no English tea is to be brought in unless it pays a heavy duty.
Page – 838 But the Government in India is not in our hands and it is not for our protection. Therefore the only remedy, the only weapon is to boycott foreign goods. We are simply following the same policy as other Governments. We will not use the manufactured articles of Manchester. We want to develop the cotton industry in India. The whole of India will be employed for producing our own goods. We shall not use Manchester goods at all; we shall use goods produced and manufactured in our country. The object of the boycott of foreign goods is self-protection. When boycott comes by an effort of a nation and by an effort of its people, it protects the trade of the country. Every nation has a right to protect its life from starvation and famine, just as everyone is entitled to the right of self-defence. It is the exercise of a natural right which no one can prevent. It is allowed by the principles of political economy and there is no law and there can be no law to prevent this. This is a perfectly legitimate duty allowed by the law and sanctioned by the principles of political economy. There is nothing to be afraid of, if we follow these principles. There is another aspect of boycott— the political aspect. Certain people think that commercial boycott is not possible and is contrary to the principles of economy, but that boycott can be used as a political weapon. Mr. Gokhale holds that opinion and he strongly supported the principle of boycott at the Benares Congress. He said that the boycott of all foreign goods is not possible, but he thought that this political boycott will be effective in bringing a redress of certain grievances of our country. This political use of boycott has special relation to the Partition of Bengal. It is proved that in Bengal boycott was first declared as a protest against the Partition; it was declared when there was a great agitation in Bengal. Meetings were held to protest against the Partition; petitions were presented but with no success. When there was no remedy left, somebody suggested that boycott would be very good and the whole of Bengal accepted boycott. It was accepted by leaders who were of all political opinions. Meetings were held and the leaders of the Moderate parties accepted it as a political weapon, as a means
Page – 839 of bringing pressure upon the British Government to annul the Partition. Everything had failed, our petitions and protests were not heard, so we wanted to bring pressure upon the British people. We thought that boycott was the only pressure which told upon the pockets and material interests of England. This was the idea which was approved by all in Bengal, and boycott was first adopted in Bengal for a period of six months as a form of political agitation. If it was successful, boycott would become a prominent part of our political activity. But since the British public might feel that after six months we would give up, a sort of proviso was attached: we would boycott British goods until the Partition was rescinded. But when the leaders signed and returned the paper, that proviso was crossed out and they all took oath without limit of time or proviso. What induced them? Why should they strike out the proviso? The reason was that we in Bengal held that boycott was not really a political weapon, but was something wider and deeper. It was about national activity, which had nothing to do with the Partition. Partition was an exciting cause. It was merely the blow which opened our eyes suddenly. It induced the people enthusiastically, unanimously to seize upon the boycott. I have told you that Swadeshi and boycott are the road, the way which leads to the goal. Swadeshi and boycott are the way to the goal of Swaraj. There has been much discussion about the definition of Swaraj. Swaraj has been defined as self-government. It has been defined by Dadabhai Naoroji as a self-governing colony. In our view, self-government is merely one aspect of Swaraj. We believe that India itself is entirely a separate nation. As a nation it is not part of the Anglo-Saxons. When we speak of Swaraj we mean the principle of national life independent of any form of government. The word Swaraj is not a new word but an old one. It is as old as literature and civilisation. The meaning of Swaraj, in our ancient literature, is the spiritual condition of the soul which attains to Mukti. When the soul is independent of everything but itself, when it exists in the joy of its light and greatness, when it is Mukta, that is Swaraj. According to our ancient philosophy, sarvam paravasham duhkham sarvam
Page – 840 atmavasham sukham: All dependence upon others is misery; all dependence upon ourselves is bliss. This is the fundamental truth. To get rid of Maya, bondage, is the ideal of our ancient religion. It is the sole object of human existence, human life. Let us apply the word Swaraj to national life. The national soul desires a reformed life. The national self is our Swaraj. The national self magnifies the national soul, that is, the soul of three hundred millions. The history of the world teaches us that when a nation is dependent it begins to decay, it begins to lose its power; it loses its strength, it loses its manhood and lastly it is broken to pieces and becomes weak and helpless. This is what history teaches us and what reason tells us. Our nation does not depend upon itself but depends upon others; therefore it is in an unsound, unhealthy and diseased condition. The end of a disease is death and if the nation consents to that disease it will decay and death is certain. Before the Swadeshi movement was started, we were in a state of perfect dependence. Even now, the entire management of our country is in the hands of foreigners; we have become absolutely like Fakirs; we have become dependent upon foreign food and guidance. The management of India is entirely directed by others; we have to look to a foreign nation for our life. The whole life of India would come to a standstill if our food ran short. Sugar, salt and such articles of daily use would be cut off; we would be reduced to a condition never seen before in the history of our country. We have now to look to a foreign nation for our ideals, for what is right and wrong, for the best things to learn. By a foreign way of living, by a foreign education we have sought to cease to be Indians, to adopt a new way of life. That was the condition and tendency before the Swadeshi movement was started. Now the boycott is not essentially a political movement, it is a movement of old times; it is the movement to recover the freedom of a nation, a national life; it is the desire to live for ourselves. That is the meaning of Swaraj; that is called Swadeshi. It is an intellectual change, it is a spiritual change, it is a political change. National independence is Swaraj. Swadeshi is that which belongs to our own country. When applied to industry and commerce it means
Page – 841 the preference for our own articles produced by Indian labour and the exclusion of articles produced by the labour of foreign people. National education:— The object of our educational movement is to establish self-government in India. It is an education which shall create Indians, not Englishmen, citizens of the Indian nation; this will prolong the life of India. It means gradually giving up schools and colleges under foreign control, the objects of which are directed by a foreign element. The schools and colleges in which we are taught give us an education which does not develop our intellectual capacity. Education in English schools and colleges has cut us off from our ancient strength; it is an education which does not fit our ancient strength. The education we receive is narrow, meagre and incomplete. We want to establish an education of our own in India. New movements in Bengal are slowly coming forward one by one. The movement in Bengal took the idea of boycott and applied it to foreign education. Our education is based on Swadeshi. It seeks to establish an educational system which springs from our ancient system so that we do not ruin ourselves, pecuniarily, morally and intellectually, as well as physically. There is also a movement of arbitration, a movement to establish arbitration courts to settle disputes among ourselves, instead of going to law-courts managed under foreign laws. We seek to settle disputes among ourselves in preference to the present costly system, which is doing harm to our nation. Both these movements seek to develop our national energies and the habit of independence; that is the real meaning of Swadeshi as we understand it in Bengal. I am addressing you in the English language. I am an Indian. You are all Indians. I am trying to preach to the nation certain ideas which will bring prosperity to our country. I got my education in England, and so I can express my thoughts best in English. It shows how unnatural was our life which existed in the nineteenth century. When I speak in English, a foreign language, a certain number will understand me, a certain number will partly understand and a certain number will not understand at
Page – 842 all. Those who speak in a foreign language, are not really able to throw themselves out in that language because that language is not their own. There are some people in Bengal who speak no other language than English; this shows how unnatural our way of life has become. This is the result of foreign dependence. Now in Bengal, after the Swadeshi movement, if a speaker rises to speak, he has to speak in Bengali. If he begins in any other language, he is commanded by the audience to speak in Bengali. We are Swadeshi, we want you to speak in Swadeshi language, we want our things Swadeshi; we want that which belongs to us. We want to boycott the things which do not belong to our country. We don’t want foreign government, we want a state of independence. By our medium of expression we shall also be Swadeshi or Bideshi. When we understand the principle of Swadeshi, then we will come to understand what boycott means. It is not hatred; it is not animosity against foreign rulers; it is the other side of Swadeshi. If you want to realise yourselves, seek for yourselves. If you realise the Atman, the real self, you realise the Anatman the not-self. We don’t want anything which is Anatman, and that is boycott. This principle applies to a nation. We have to recover our national independence and for that we want our nation realised. We want to realise our nationalism. It is boycott which leads to national self-realisation, and it is the ideal of Swaraj. It is neither wrong nor illegal but a perfectly legitimate movement, a movement which no law can deny. The ideal of Swaraj is not an ideal which the law can prevent; there can be no human law to prevent it. If you have your own schools and not those that are managed by foreign control, it is not illegal. If I preach to you to boycott foreign schools, there is nothing unlawful in it. You should not go to foreign law-courts. If I preach to you to help your own countrymen, to take your own measures to supply water to your villages, there is nothing illegal or immoral. There is nothing in the word boycott that you need be afraid of. There are people who seek to stop this movement because it affects their interests. We preach passive resistance in Bengal. Whatever obstacles are thrown in your
Page – 843 way, whatever sufferings are inflicted on you, remove those obstacles, bear those sufferings, bear the affliction and go on with your movement, go on with your activities with all your energy. You young men must live for nationalism. In order to preach passive resistance let nothing stop you. Keep your resolution; never mind the obstacles. Never mind the stumbles and pitfalls that will come in your way. Welcome joy or sorrow, welcome victory or defeat. If you have not the courage of self-sacrifice, then do not talk of Swadeshi. If you don’t want to sacrifice, if you want to lie in your armchairs and you think you can save your nation thereby, then you have no right to come forward. It is no use your coming in numbers. Swadeshi, boycott, Swaraj and national education are not at all immoral, illegal or unnatural. The national movement is such that you will live to save your own country. You are asked to save your nation of three hundred million people and you are asked to live a Swadeshi life, not for yourselves but for your country. I ask you to be Swadeshi. Try to buy Swadeshi goods. I ask you to mould your life on Swadeshi. Live for your Swadeshi and die for your Swadeshi.
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