The Metta Center – Swadeshi

Nonviolence Glossary

Swadeshi

The word Swadeshi derives from Sanskrit and is a conjunction of two Sanskrit words. Swa means “self” or “own” and Desh means country, so Swadesh would be “own country”, and Swadeshi, the adjectival form, would mean “of one’s own country,” but could be loosely translated in most context as “self-sufficiency.”

Like many of Gandhi’s terms, it has both an inner, psychological meaning, and a secondary meaning in a more outward context. In the psychological sense, swadeshi is the principle that one acts from a position of strength if one focuses on solving one’s own problems, draws on one’s own capacities, and addresses one’s own weaknesses. One person cannot solve another person’s problems or recommend that someone else do something that one has not done themselves.

In the other, more common usage, swadeshi is the focus on acting within and from ones own community, both politically and as a consumer.

In other words, it is localism, self-sufficiency but at the same time interdependence and, in Gandhi’s time, finally leading to independence (swaraj), as British control of India was rooted in control of her indigenous industries. From Gandhi’s perspective, swadeshi was the key to the independence of India, and it was represented by the charkha or the spinning wheel, the “center of the solar system” of Gandhi’s constructive programme. He said:

“The cleanest and the most popular form of Swadeshi is to stimulate hand-spinning and hand-weaving and to arrange for a judicious distribution of yarn and cloth so manufactured.”

“Swadeshi is an eternal principle whose neglect has brought untold grief to mankind. It means production and distribution of articles manufactured in one’s own country… Swadeshi is a constructive programme.”

“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. It is suggested that such Swadeshi, if reduced to practice, will lead to the millennium, because we do not expect quite to reach it within our times, so may we not abandon Swadeshi even though it may not be fully attained for generations to come.”

It seems that Gandhi’s prediction is becoming a reality. Swadeshi is what the progressive movement of the XXI century is calling: think globally, act locally. Swadeshi is a call to the consumer to be aware of the violence he/she is causing by supporting those industries that result in poverty and harm to workers and to humans and other creatures. In a world moving towards decentralized, localized organization, we might adapt Gandhi’s strategy, replacing mass production and consumerism with community, and then form the community of communities: the Earth Community.

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