Gandhiji in Ahmedabad
- Journal of Social and Economic Development
- 23(1), Jun, 2021: 4-24
This essay deals with M.K. Gandhi’s experiments in practicing swaraj by him and his companions living in an ashram environment. He conceptualized ashram as a social laboratory for community living. It was to be the place to train volunteers for rebuilding India as a nonviolent society. He had begun the experiments in South Africa and continued it after returning to India in 1915. His experiments were aimed at training individuals for self-rule and for rebuilding rural society with decentralized economy consisting of agriculture, dairy (which included leather work), hand-spun cloth making which included weaving and dying. He named this entire process: swadeshi and swavalamban—self-reliance. This essay describes experiments he carried out at two locations: Kochrab and Sabarmati in Ahmedabad. He named his ashrams as Satyagraha Ashram. This essay gives a brief sketch of three institutions Gandhiji founded: Gujarat Vidyapith—a nationalist university for educating the new generation and turning them into volunteers for rural reconstruction, Majoor Mahajan Sangh, a unique trade union where cloth mill workers and owners came together to resolve industrial disputes; and a publishing house to propagate his thought and actions on swaraj, swavalamban, swadeshi, emancipation of women, Hindu-Muslim harmony and removal of untouchability based on Truth and Non-violence. This essay finally analyses his emergence as the leader of the common people and the Indian National Congress between 1915 and 1930. – Reproduced
Ashram, Swaraj, Practice of observances, Engaging India, Emerging leadership