Apropos the current crisis in Micro-finance, we must return to the example of the Mahatma. This is what he had to say about his own preferred panacea for poverty- viz. hand spinning yarn.
185. HAND-WEAVING AND HAND-SPINNING
(page 136)
Shri Jajuji writes to say that whilst on the one hand hand-spun
yarn is piling up, on the other handloom weavers are day by day
giving up hand-spun yarn in preference to mill yarn. An appeal to the
weavers through the columns of Harijan, whether in English or in any
of the Indian languages, will be good for nothing. Hardly any weaver
reads Harijan and, if attempt is made to read it out to him, he will not
take inte-rest in it. Hence the task of speaking to the weavers on the
suicidal effect of abandoning hand-spun yarn devolves upon the
devoted heads of Charkha Sangh workers. They have to reason out to
the weavers how they will be ultimately responsible for killing their
own occupation by excluding hand-spun yarn. As soon as the mill-
owners can do so profitably, they will certainly stop selling mill yarn
and will weave it themselves. They are not philanthropists. They have
set up mills in order to make money. They will stop selling their yarn
to handloom weavers, if they find weaving is more profitable.
Therefore it is a question of time when handloom weavers will be
starved. These are really fed by hand-spinners even as they in their
turn are fed by handloom weavers. They are twins, complementary of
each other. This fact should be brought home to the weavers by the
Charkha Sangh. With loving patience and knowledge they should try
to appreciate the difficulties of the weavers and learn how to remove
them. Acharya Vinoba has pointed out one remedy, namely, to
double and twist the yarn at the same time that the cones are
unwound. If this practice becomes universal, there would be no
untwisted hand-spun yarn available for weaving. It is found by
experience that twisted hand-spun yarn is any day as weavable as mill-
spun yarn, if indeed it is not more so.
In other words, Gandhi realized full well that the hand yarn he had forced Congress members to spin- as the price of membership in that vehicle to class power as well as their badge of personal servitude to him- was not in fact suitable for the weavers he claimed to be helping. He also understood that his articles in his periodical the 'Harijan' (the name Gandhi gave to the untouchables once he'd decided that what they really needed was him, not Social Justice, not education, just him and his dear and dotty little ways) were of no interest to weavers, just as his wishing to stay in a 'Harijan' colony in Delhi did not enthuse its untouchable residents at all- it was the millionaire Birla whose good offices Gandhi invoked to force himself on them (though he did suggest to Birla that it would look bad if the water supply and electricity connection and so on were removed immediately after he left).
We now understand why Gandhi was so keen for everybody to go to the villages and harass people there with their love and understanding. It was to exercise moral blackmail on the weavers to use the yarn his followers were spinning.
After independence, mills were forced to produce hank yarn for handloom weavers and this was subsidized. However, it was the power loom sector which benefited from the subsidy. The Government's reservation of certain 'Janta' (common man) categories for the handloom sector hastened its deskilling and decline in quality. The stage was set for the starvation of weavers and their hamlets emerging as hot spots for Tuberculosis.
This is not to say hand weaving was or is unviable any more than carpet making. Only Gandhian hand weaving was unviable.
Well done thou good and faithful servant. A bullet was too good for you.
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