The Birth of Swadeshi - July 31, 1921.
Gandhi inaugurated the campaign against foreign cloth at Parel, Bombay, on July 31, 1921. In propagating the creed of swadeshi , he said the "greatest outward pollution" of Indians was their foreign clothing. But he emphasised that he was not against everything foreign, as that would be “racial, parochial and wicked.” This British cartoon shows Gandhi at the time of the nationwide tour he undertook to popularize swadeshi goods, symbolized by the spinning wheel in the background. An angry John Bull watches his representative in India, Lord Reading, parleying with Gandhi. On September 21, at Madurai in South India, he had his head shaved. The next morning he shed his cap; shirt, vest and dhoti and put on only a loincloth of khadi.
Credit: Navajivan / GandhiServe
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