Tag: Gandhiji

Fighting the Disease, Fighting the Stigma: Marking Leprosy Day

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Humanity spent a few years in fear of Covid. A few decades were spent in fear of AIDS. But millennia have been spent in fear of leprosy.

Leprosy is oft-mentioned in texts of yore. In Hindu mythology, it is often the result of a curse. Samba, son of Krishna and Jambavati, was cursed with the disease by his own father for constantly harassing his stepmothers (even otherwise, he seems to have been a pretty painful character). Later, when Krishna learnt that Samba was himself led into the misdemeanor by Narada, he wanted to take back the curse, but could not. Krishna advised Samba to pray to the Sun God for a cure. Samba did so—in fact, the Sun Temple at Konark and Multan (the temple does not exist and its exact location is unknown, but may have been in present-day Pakistan) are supposed to have been built by him. As a result of his devotions, he was cured.

The tale of Reunka is a fairly typical misogynistic one. She was the devoted wife of Sage Jamadagni, cursed with leprosy by her husband for a momentary lapse—for a moment being attracted to the Gandharva King. She was advised to bathe in Jogala Bhavi a nearby lake, and was cured. But sadly, when she returned home, her husband was still furious, and commanded his sons to kill her. The first four refused and were cursed by their father to die, but the fifth, Parashuram (yes, he who was an Avatar), obeyed his father. Jamadagni, pleased with Parashuram, granted him a boon. Good sense prevailed and Parashuram begged for the revival of his mother and brothers. A repentant Jamadagni is supposed to have foresworn anger, and lived happily with his wife ever after.

Leprosy also plays a key role in the Mahabharatha. Shantanu, father of Bhisma, Chitrangada and Vishitravirya came to the throne because his elder brother Devapi had leprosy. If it had not been for Shantanu’s attraction first to Ganga and then to Satyavati, the Mahabharat war may never have taken place.

Islamic and Biblical references to leprosy also abound, and Jesus is supposed to have cured the disease with his touch.

Through the ages, leprosy was feared as a curse of the Gods, and the only salvation was a boon from them. The social ostracism and rejection by friends and family was as much a suffering as the disease itself.

Gandhiji Leprosy
Gandhiji viewing what is presumed to be Mycobacterium leprae

In the last few centuries, many brave souls have worked hard for the relief of these sufferings. Gandhiji was at the forefront of the fight against the fear of leprosy. Pictures of him tending to Shri Parchure Sastry, a learned man whom Gandhiji respected very much, are often seen. Sastry even made his home in Sewagram with the agreement of all the Ashram inmates.

Vinobha Bhave was another Gandhian leader who worked in this field. He and Manoharji Diwan established Kushthadham (Leprosy Centre) at Dattapur in 1936.

And of course, the selfless work of Baba Amte and his wife Sadhantai, is legendary. He was a Gandhian and active in the freedom struggle. But how he came to leprosy work is interesting. He encountered a leprosy patient one day, and it is the fear and revulsion he felt that led to deep introspection, and the decision to devote his life to this work. He not only wanted to help the patients, but also create a society free of “Mental Leprosy”, ie., the fear and misunderstandings associated with disease. He founded three ashrams for patients and devoted his life to them. The Gandhi Peace Prize and the Ramon Magsaysay award were only a few recognitions of his service.

Dr. Noshir Antia is another individual who contributed enormously to the rehabilitation of leprosy patients. He is known as the father of Plastic Surgery in India and established the first department in the country devoted to this—the Tata Department of Plastic Surgery at the J.J. Hospital in Mumbai. . His interest in this subject began when he saw the disfigurement of leprosy patients, and started to pioneer surgical techniques for correcting these. Apart from surgery, he also started research facilities to study the disease and fought against the discrimination against the sufferers of this disease, and for their rehabilitation. Dr. Antia passed away in 2007, but his legacy continues not only through the generations of doctors and surgeons trained by him, but also through the NGO he founded—the Foundation for Research in Community Health

World Leprosy Day is observed on the last Sunday of January. In India, with a slight tweak, and to mark Gandhiji’s contribution in this field, it is observed on 30 January, coinciding with his death anniversary.   

The theme for the day this year is “Beat Leprosy” which calls attention to the dual objectives of the day: to eradicate the stigma associated with leprosy and to promote the dignity of people affected by the disease.

As Vinobhaji put it, the critical thing is to beat mental leprosy—the fear of leprosy. And our experience of recent diseases has shown us that fear is not the way to react to any disease. Scientific understanding and empathy are!

–Meena

Two books which may be of interest:

‘Autobiography of a Doctor’ is Noshir Antia’s tale of his life.

‘Covenant of Water’ by Verghese Abraham has leprosy, its treatment and the social discrimination as an important theme.

With Gratitude for Every Morsel of Food…

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The recurrent theme in the last few days has been FOOD.

First, the passing away of Dr. MS Swaminathan, the father of India’s Green Revolution at the age of 98. Today, we have forgotten the first few decades after Independence, when hunger was a reality for many in our country. At Independence, hardly 15 percent of agriculture was under irrigation. The food grain production was 50.8 million tonnes. Agricultural methods, tools and equipment, were centuries if not millennia old, and were grossly insufficient to feed the country’s growing population. On top of that, the vagaries of nature, which saw floods and droughts disrupting cultivation. Food insecurity and shortages were common, and two severe droughts 1964–65 and 1965–66 led to major food shortages and famines. We were dependent on food imports to feed our people, and many people doubted the survival of us as a nation, when we could not even fulfil this basic need.

It is this dismal scenario that pushed people to look for solutions that would make us food secure and food sufficient. And the hero of the hour was Dr. MS Swaminathan. Swaminathan, a student of zoology, who was a witness to the tragedy of the Bengal Famine of 1943 and frequent food shortages, decided to devote his life to improving this situation. And that is what he went on to do just this. He joined the Indian Agricultural Research Institute soon after Independence, and from there went on to do research and post-doctoral work in the subject. At IARI, he learnt about the work of Dr. Norman Borlaug in Mexico, where he had developed a dwarf variety of wheat which yielded more grain, and at the same time had stalks strong enough to hold the weight of the grains. Dr MS saw this as a beacon of hope and worked with Dr. Borlaug to develop improved crop varieties suitable for India. He also worked on fertilizers suitable for our conditions, as well as more efficient farming techniques. This laid the foundation for our Green Revolution, and paved the way for India not only to becoming self-sufficient in food, but becoming a grain basket for the world. Today, our food grain production is estimated at a record 330.5 million tonnes (MT).

The Green Revolution though the saviour, was however not without its flip-side. It needed increased amounts of chemical pesticides and fertilizers thus reducing the soil fertility and quality in the medium term; these crops needed more water; and it led to monocultures based on specific crops and varieties, leading to erosion of agri-biodiversity. Dr. Swaminathan recognized these issues, and for many years led the movement for what he termed ‘the Evergreen Revolution’ which focussed on more environmentally sustainable ways of increasing productivity of the land.

As a part of Centre for Environment Education, we were fortunate to have opportunities to meet and interact with this giant. He came to our campus maybe a few times a year, as Chairman of our sister-institution VIKSAT, and also as guide and mentor to many of our projects and initiatives. I had the good luck to work under his guidance when CEE was putting together Government of India’s official submissions to the World Summit on Sustainable Development, and he was one of the advisors to the process.

And coming to the other food-related events:

Oct 2 marks the birthday of Gandhiji, who believed that farmers, farming and rural India had to be at the core of any development in India. He summed it up with his statement: “To forget how to dig the earth and tend the soil is to forget ourselves. “

It also marks the birth anniversary of Lal Bahadur Shastri, our second Prime Minister, who gave the nation the slogan ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’, seeing soldiers and farmers at the same level when it comes to ensuring the nation’s security.

And Sept 29 also marks the observance of UN’s International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. The goal of this day is to raise awareness on the importance of the problem and its possible solutions, and to promote global efforts and collective action towards meeting

And Sept 29 also marks the observance of UN’s International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste. The goal of this day is to raise awareness on the importance of the problem and its possible solutions, and to promote global efforts and collective action towards meeting Sustainable Development Goal Target 12.3, which aims to halve per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer level by 2030, and reduce food losses along the food production and supply chains.

No more appropriate time to ponder on our relationship to food, those who produce it, and how we interact with it. And lets not forget: the prevalence of undernourishment–the share of people who lack regular access to sufficient calories– is increasing, with as many as 828 million people undernourished in 2021.

With gratitude to all the farmers and farm workers; the policy-makers who understand their importance and respect them for their contribution; those who work on the science of it; and those who cook it.

We owe every mouthful to you all. And may we never forget it.

–Meena

Fabrics for Freedom: Khadi and Beyond

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We are all aware of how central khadi was to our struggle for independence. It was not only about defying the British and refusing to buy their imported cloth, but a potent symbol that it was not mere freedom from colonial rule that was critical, but also economic independence—a means of livelihood for millions of people of the country. In the words of Divya Joshi: ‘Gandhiji presented khadi as a symbol of nationalism, equality and self-reliance. It was his belief that reconstruction of the society and effective Satyagraha against the foreign rule can be possible only through khadi….The spinning wheel was at one time the symbol of India’s poverty and backwardness. Gandhiji turned it into a symbol of self-reliance and non-violence.’

Khadi

But India is not the only country where spinning and weaving of textiles were a core part of a movement for independence. Another large British colony also used this as a weapon. This was the USA!

Britain saw its colonies including the American territories, as suppliers of raw material, insisted that they export all cotton to it, and buy all finished cloth from it. And of course it imposed huge taxes on all these products including fabric.

In defiance, the people in the American colonies started spinning their own cloth, and the spinning wheel because as important a symbol of patriotism in Americanin the 1760s and 1770s as the charkha was to the become in the 20th century in India.

Women were at the forefront of the spinning movement in the American War of Independence, and created their own homespun cloth to disrupt the British monopoly.  Fabric made this way was called “homespun.” Wearing homespun was a symbol of patriotism.  

In certain areas like New England, women showed their protest by going to ‘spinning bees’ where they would set up spinning wheels and keep each other company while they spun yarn. And these were not isolated events—for instance, in a single area, from Harpswell, Maine to Huntington, Long Island, over 60 spinning meetings were held over 32 months starting in March 1768.

The Daughters of Liberty, a group of political dissidents who got together to fight for liberty, were at the forefront of these spinning bees. They organized boycotts of British goods, especially tea, and they manufactured replacement products, especially cloth.

As in India, spinning was at the centre of a lot of publicity and was a rallying point for the freedom fighters. Newspapers reported elaborately on the smallest cloth-making development to amplify the message. Spinning schools were set up and awards were offered for the person who wove the most cloth. Old and young learnt to spin—it is reported that a 70-year-old woman in Newport, R.I., learnt to spin for the first time during the movement. Competitions were held—‘in 1769, two Connecticut women held an all-day spinning contest in which the winner spun seven skeins and two knots of fine linen yarn, just a little more than her competitor’.

The boycott of imported fabric and other goods from tea to molasses, worked, and it is estimated by some sources that the value of imported goods from Great Britain to the US fell by half in 1769 over the previous year, from 420,000 to 208,000 pounds.

So ‘swadeshi’ proved a potent war cry against imperial colonizers halfway across the world!

As it did in India almost 150 years later–rallying self-confidence, morale, giving a sense of identify.

Happy Independence Day!

Buying one pair of Khadi clothes a year can contribute to livelihoods for our millions of weavers. And they need it more than ever now, as the spinning of the national flag, which was their monopoly, has been taken away.

–Meena

When Social Responsibility was Risky Business!

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Philanthropy has been garnering headlines in the world media for some years now, with the most successful entrepreneurs speaking more about their giving initiatives than their businesses. And it has indeed set off a virtuous cycle.  

But lest we think giving by industrialists is a new phenomenon …

In continuation of last week’s blog which marked 13 November (designated as World Kindness Day), and November 16 (International Day for Tolerance and Peace), here is a look at a few examples of Indian industrialists whose philanthropy exhibited a sense of enlightenment and responsibility that was path-breaking . The critical thing to remember is that most industrialists of the late 18th and the early 19th centuries saw building up India’s industry and infrastructure and supporting the freedom movement as their most critical social responsibilities. They were flying in the face of the Raj in doing this, and the Raj had the power to destroy them! But that did not stop them.

The Vision of Jamsetji Tata

Shri Jamsetji Tata was a pioneer in setting India on the path to industrial self-reliance. But it was not just about technology. His vision for the well-being of his workers was truly enlightened. Way back in the 1880s, he offered facilities like crèches for workers in his mills, as well as short working hours, properly ventilated workspaces, fire safety, etc. In 1886 he instituted a Pension Fund, and in 1895, began to pay accident compensation.

The story of Jamshedpur is another testimony to his vision. The work on this township for housing the workers of the Steel Mills was commenced in 1908. Shri Jamsetji dreamt of more than basic housing for his workers. He wanted to build a proper modern planned city. His instructions regarding the city were:  “Be sure to lay wide streets planted with shady trees, every other of a quick-growing variety. Be sure that there is plenty of space for lawns and gardens; reserve large areas for football, hockey and parks; earmark areas for Hindu temples, Muslim mosques and Christian churches.”

It was private philanthropy that led to the creation of institutions like the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore and Tata Institute for Fundamental Research, Mumbai. It is said that Jamsetji mooted the idea of contributing to an institute like IISC as early as 1898, long before Carnegie’s endowment to set up a Technical School (today Carnegie Mellon University).

From Temples to Gods, to Temples of Education

Shri G.D. Birla was a strong supporter of Gandhiji and gave considerable resources to the freedom struggle. Many of us would have at some time or other visited a Birla Mandir–many a large town in India boasts one. Apart from this charitable activity of temple-building, a landmark contribution of Shri Birla is the creation of one of India’s best higher educational institutions—the Birla Institute of Technology. This was started as a school for G.D. Birla and R.D. Birla by their grandfather in 1901. It grew into a high school  in the 1920s. In the forties, the Birla Education Trust was founded and the institution went from strength to strength, adding degree and post-graduate courses in a variety of disciplines.  In 1964, taking advantage of a Ford Foundation grant, the institute formed a partnership with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, and was well on the path to leading India’s achievements in technical education.

Gandhi Ashram is Saved!

When Gandhiji  first came to Ahmedabad, he set up his Ashram at Kochrab. He invited a Dalit family– Dudabhai and Danibehn–to come and live at the Ashram. This led to considerable agitation among the Ashram’s neighbours as well as many funders, leading to a financial crisis, which forced Gandhiji to think of shifting the Ashram.

Kochrab Ashram

And then one day, in Gandhiji’s words: “A car drew up near our quarters and the horn was blown. The children came with the news. The sheth did not come in. I went out to see him. He placed in my hands currency notes to the value of Rs 13,000 and drove away. I had never expected this help, and what a novel way of rendering it!”

This gift saved the Ashram. It is well-known that the ‘Sheth’ was Shri Ambalal Sarabhai, one of the foremost industrialists of the time. However, neither he nor Gandhiji ever admitted this!

Jamnalal Bajaj: Exemplary Patriotism

Jamnalal Bajaj was considered Gandhiji’s fifth son, and adopted all his values—from Ahimsa to his dedication to the poor to his commitment to locally made goods and his patriotic spirit. He fought for admission of Harijans into temples, and in the face of strong objections, opened up his own family temple in Wardha—the first temple in the country to do this.

Shri Bajaj was an active member of the Congress Party, and gave up the Rai Bahadur title conferred on him by the British Government and joined the non-cooperation movement.


Importantly, Jamnalalji, in line with the trusteeship concept propounded by Gandhiji, felt that inherited wealth was a sacred trust to be used for the benefit of the people, and dedicated most of his wealth for the poor and under-privileged.

On the shoulders of giants….

–Meena

 www.tata.com

https://jamnalalbajajfoundation.org/jamnalal-bajaj/about

Gandhiji’s Wisdom on Education

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As we approach Gandhi Jayanti with the New Education Policy (NEP) now a reality, it is an appropriate time to re-visit Gandhiji’s philosophy of education as encapsulated in his Nai Talim (New Education)—Basic Education for All.

The fundamental premise of Nai Talim is that basic education is a holistic process, where all aspects of the individual—intellectual, physical, social, and spiritual—are given opportunity for development.  The curriculum seeks to impart learning through hands-on skill-based work that prepares young people for the real world, rather than creating islands where education has nothing to do with the surrounding community. The centrality of skills aims to reinforce the dignity of labor, the value of self-sufficiency, and strengthen local culture. In this approach to education, craft-skill serves as the center of the holistic development of the student. Other skills such as literacy and mathematics are learned in the context of their craft, and subjects are taught in an interdisciplinary way and never separated from their practical application in the world.

Some other perspectives that under-pinned Gandhiji’s thinking on education were:

  • That education should include a “reverent study of all religions.”
  • Education meant lifelong learning
  • And a re-definition of the role of the teacher, which is summed up by him as : “A teacher who establishes rapport with the taught, becomes one with them, learns more from them than he teaches them. He who learns nothing from his disciples is, in my opinion, worthless. ..In this way, a true teacher regards himself as a student of his students.”

A national education conference held at Wardha on 22–23 October 1937 wherein Gandhiji shared his vision of education led to the setting up of two model schools at Wardha and nearby Segaon.  A few years ago, I was in Wardha and sadly, it did not seem that the school was doing too well, or that it was at the forefront of educational innovation. It would seem that it is not easy to implement the philosophy of Nai Talim in a way that is relevant to today’s world.

They say the NEP has some influences from Nai Talim. How far these elements are implementable or how seriously they will be implemented is yet to be seen. My feeling is that it will take very creative re-interpretation of the philosophy of Nai Talim, if we want the spirit of it to infuse our education system. And as of now, I am not aware of any exciting experiments in this direction.  

I often find myself returning to these two quotes from Gandhiji after discussions and debates on education. To me, they are the touchstone by which any educational initiative must be evaluated:

“By education I mean an all-round drawing out of the best in child and man–body, mind and spirit. Literacy is not the end of education nor even the beginning. It is only one of the means by which man and woman can be educated. Literacy in itself is no education.’

“The real difficulty is that people have no idea of what education truly is. We assess the value of education in the same manner as we assess the value of land or of shares in the stock-exchange market. We want to provide only such education as would enable the student to earn more. We hardly give any thought to the improvement of the character of the educated.’

 

–Meena

My Gandhi Year

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One of the first assignments that marked my transition from Environmental Educator to Editor-at-Large as it were, was to work on redoing an exhibition gallery at the Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad. The Gallery aptly called My Life is My Message was a chronological walk-through of Gandhiji’s life. I had, long ago read Gandhi’s Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth. As a student of political science, I had also studied Gandhi’s role in making an independent India. Now I was excited to be a part of this project because I felt it would give me a better understanding of the entire life and thought of Mahatma Gandhi.

And it was indeed a year when I discovered the many many facets of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi!

These facets were revealed in Gandhi’s own words through the incredible collection of over 34,000 letters, articles and speeches, which have been complied in 100 volumes titled Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (CWMG). They have also been published in Hindi as Sampurna Gandhi Vanghmay and Gujarati as Gandhijino Akshardeh.

As fascinating as the contents, is the process that culminated in the volumes.

The mammoth project on translating and compiling all of Gandhi’s writings and speeches covering the period from 1884-1948, and almost 60 years of very active public life, in South Africa, England and India, was launched in 1956 by the Government of India under the supervision of a one-time advisory board formed of Gandhi’s closest associates. Most of the works were collected between 1960 and 1994 under the chief editor the late K. Swaminathan—who started the project when he himself was 64 years old. He continued on the project till he lost his eyesight when he was in his early 90s. The English CWMG project closed in 1994 with the publication of the 100th volume.

Gandhi wrote and spoke in three languages—English, Gujarati and Hindi. So the project involved not just collecting but also translating from the original to the other two languages. The compilation was to be published in all three languages. For each individual version there was a 25-35 member team including proof readers, translators and editors carefully handpicked for their knowledge of world literature, world religions and world history besides their professional expertise. They took around 40 years to translate the collected material.

The arrangement of materials is chronological with all items of a particular date, whether article, speech or letter being placed together. This gives the reader a picture of how Gandhi functioned and how he dealt with issues as they came up—dealing on the same day with matters of great public importance as well as concerning himself with intimate personal problems of individuals.

It is also astounding to find what a prolific writer Gandhi was, and how much writing he could manage in a tightly-packed day. For a great period of his life he did not take the assistance of any stenographer or typist and used to write in his own hand. When he was physically unable to write with his right hand he trained himself to write also with his left hand.

The 100 volumes of the English edition run into more than 50,000 pages; and CWMG has long been recognised as one of the finest examples of editorial and translation work undertaken anywhere in the world.

I had the incredible experience of working with the tireless and dedicated team in the Archives at Sabarmati Ashram, to track what Gandhi did, said and wrote day after day, through the original editions of the CWMG. To flip through the fragile yellowing pages and to read about the amazing variety of topics that Gandhi could think over, and write about, on any single day was uplifting and at the same time humbling. (We who feel so smug at turning out a 500 word piece in a day!).

It was the year I discovered Gandhi—a friend to children and the challenger to the Raj; the gentle nurse and the Satyagraha planner; the nature cure experimenter and the shrewd negotiator….and so much more.

Today this awe-inspiring treasure is available at the touch of a button through the Gandhi Heritage Portal—a digital platform that hosts the all the works of Gandhi, writings on Gandhi by other authors including books, tributes, journals and other media such as videos, photos, among others in 28 different languages from across the globe.

This in itself is a project that is as big in scale as the original compilation. Take a look at the world’s largest digital repository on Mahatma Gandhi www.gandhiheritageportal.org

–Mamata

Swadeshi and My Ratnam Pen

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“(Swadeshi) means production and distribution of articles manufactured in one’s own country.”

“Swadeshi is that spirit in us which restricts us to the use and service of our immediate surroundings to the exclusion of the more remote…  In the domain of politics, I should make use of the indigenous institutions and serve them by curing them of their proved defects. In that of economics, I should use only things that are produced by my immediate neighbours and serve those industries by making them efficient and complete where they might be found wanting.”

Mahatma Gandhi

For Gandhiji, swadeshi was the key to independence. To him, swadeshi had several dimensions including the political—revolving around revival of indigenous institutions and their strengthening; and the economic—as a powerful tool for local production and therefore decentralized livelihoods.

Which brings me to the story of my Ratnam/Guider pen. Inspired by Gandhiji’s call for swadeshi, K.V. Ratnam started manufacturing fountain pens in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh in 1932. Mr. Ratnam sent one of the pens to Gandhiji in 1935, and Gandhi wrote back to him (presumably with the gifted pen).  The shop(s) proudly display the quote: “I have used it and it seems to be a good substitute for the foreign pens one sees in the bazars.” Nehru is said to have made a trip to the shop during one of his visits to AP, to get himself a pen or two. One wonders which of his literary works were penned with a Ratnam! Ratnam pens were symbols of self-reliance and national pride!

My Rajahmundry Trip Helped Me With an Innoavtive Birthday Gift for My Husband

AFFD4873-7031-484F-8189-C6EF792B50F3

Today, Rajahmundry boasts more than one shop which are offshoots of this legacy of hand-made pens—two Ratnam Pen shops run by Mr. K.V. Ratnam’s two sons, and the Guider pen shop which also claims its lineage to this.

I have had the fortune of visiting Rajahmundry and two of these shops. It was an experience to go to the back of the shop and see a workman turning the pen and shaping it by hand! I bought more pens in more sizes and colours than I know people who still write with fountain pens! But those to whom I have gifted them, cherish them.

Not only for the historical connection, but also these pens write beautifully and are beautifully hand-crafted. They are highly prized by pen collectors and orders come in from across the world.

I may not be written about in history, but I can write with a piece of history!

–Meena

P.S: Even as the nation gears up to mark Gandhi Jayanti, here is a sad piece of news:

97-year-old school founded by Bapu closes as funds dry up – https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/rajkot/97-year-old-school-founded-by-bapu-closes-as-funds-dry-up/articleshow/65987400.cms?utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=iPadapp&utm_source=email

 

Well Spun!

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Ponduru, a village in Srikakulam, Andhra Pradesh, arguably produces the best khadi in India. Well, at least Gandhiji thought so. He was highly impressed with the fineness of the khadi produced here and preferred it to other khadis. The best dressed (khadi-mode) contemporary politicians even today get their saris, dhotis and shirt material from here.

Ponduru khadi is hand-carded, hand spun and hand woven—truly khadi in letter and spirit.

What makes it special? Well, more than one factor, it seems. For one, the raw material itself is of a special quality—it is made from special varieties of hill cotton and red cotton which are grown in Vizianagaram and Srikakulam districts. For another, Ponduru khadi is very smooth, especially the higher count variety. This is because the jawbone of the Valunga fish found in Srikalkulam is used to comb the cotton  fibers to separate them from the seeds, and the process lends a soft sheen  to the cotton.

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There was a time when every home in this village had a loom. But like in most of India, the number of khadi workers in Ponduru is falling. The low remuneration is of course a major reason. Those involved in the sector do not want their children to follow them—they would much rather they got a ‘professional’ degree and got a ‘secure’ job.

Fortunately, there are some efforts to improve the situation, including dedicated NGOs working in the sector. Chitrika is one such which has been working closely with the Ponduru khadi sector for over a decade now. They are helping the workers organize themselves into Producer Cooperatives, find newer markets, and improve their capacities. New and innovative designs are being brought in. All this is enhancing the incomes of the weavers, almost doubling them in the last decade.

But without a pull from the market, no government subsidies or NGO efforts are going to lead to sustainable results. An eminent Gandhian once mentioned that if every Indian bought one khadi garment a year, the sector would thrive and all our khadi workers would be able to earn decent incomes.

A small thing to ask! And this is in our hands.

So this piece today is a call to action. We are about a month away from Independence Day. Go out and buy some khadi! It is a practical and easy ‘good deed’ for 15 August!

Buy khadi, and specially buy Ponduru khadi, best of all khadis!

–Meena