Industrialization- M.K. Gandhi (Mahatma Gandhi)-Part Three

Machinery

 

 'Ideally would you not rule out all machinery?'

 

Ideally, however, I would rule out all machinery, even as I would reject this very body, which is not helpful to salvation, and seek the absolute liberation of the soul. From that point of view, I would reject all machinery, but machines will remain, because like the body, they are inevitable. The body itself, as I told you, is the purest piece of mechanism; but if it is a hindrance to the highest flights of the soul, it has to be rejected.

 

Machinery has its place; it has come to stay. But it must not be allowed to displace necessary human labor. An improved plough is a good thing. But if by some chances, one man could plough up by some mechanical invention of his the whole of the land of India, and control all the agricultural produce and if the millions had no other occupation, they would starve, and being idle, they would become dunces, as many have already become. There is likely danger of many more being reduced to that unenviable state.

 

Machinery must Sub Serve Interests of All.

 

 I would welcome every improvement in the cottage machine, but I know that it is criminal to displace hand-labour by the introduction of power driven spindles unless one is at the same time ready to give millions of people some other occupation in their homes. That use of machinery is lawful which sub serves the interest of all.

 

I would favor the use of the most elaborate machinery if thereby India's pauperism and resulting idleness be avoided. I have suggested hand spinning as the only ready means of driving away penury and making famine of work and wealth impossible. The spinning wheel itself is a piece of valuable machinery, in my own humble way I have tried to secure improvements in it in keeping with the special conditions of India.

 

Against Craze for Machinery & not Machinery

 

'Are you against all machinery?'

                 

 My answer is emphatically, 'No'. But, I am against its indiscriminate multiplication. I refuse to be dazzled by the seeming triumph of machinery. I am uncompromisingly against all destructive machinery. But simple tools and instruments and such machinery as saves individual labor and lightens the burden of the millions of cottages, I should welcome.

 

 What I object to, is the craze for machinery, not machinery as such. The craze is for what they call labor-saving machinery. Men go on 'saving labor', till thousands are without work and thrown on the open streets to die of starvation. I want to save time and labor, not for a fraction of mankind, but for all; I want the concentration of wealth, not in the hands of few, but in the hands of all. Today machinery merely helps a few to ride on the back of millions. The impetus behind it all is not philanthropy to save labor, but greed. It is against this constitution of things that I am fighting with all my might.

 

 'Then you are fighting not against machinery as such, but against its abuses which are so much in evidence today.'

 

  I would unhesitatingly say 'yes'; but I would add that scientific truths and discoveries should first of all cease to be mere instruments of greed. Then laborers will not be over-worked and machinery, instead of becoming a hindrance, will be a help. I am aiming, not at eradication of all machinery, but limitation.

 

 'When logically argued out, that would seem to imply that all complicated power-driven machinery should go.'

 

  It might have to go but I must make one thing clear. The supreme consideration is man. The machine should not tend to make atrophied the limbs of man. For instance, I would make intelligent exceptions. Take the case of singer sewing machine. It is one of the few useful things ever invented, and there is a romance about the device itself. Singer saw his wife laboring over the tedious process of sewing and seaming with her own hands, and simply out of his love for her he devised the sewing machine in order to save her from unnecessary labor. He, however, saved not only her labor but also the labor of everyone who could purchase a sewing machine.

 

Reference: Extract from reported interview, the origin of which is not known

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