Swadeshi in the 21st Century

“Swadeshi is that spirit in us which requires us to serve our immediate neighbors before others, and to use things produced in our neighborhood in preference to those more remote. So doing, we serve humanity to the best of our capacity. We cannot serve humanity by neglecting our neighbors” — Mahatma Gandhi, Young India

The wheel in the center of India’s flag is the Ashoka Chakra — which represents the Wheel of Dharma, a symbol of the teachings of the Buddha. But in the original design the central image was of a charkha or spinning wheel. This is because the movement for independence from the British that finally proved successful was through economic and not military means. Spinning one’s own cloth and buying only textiles spun in India — of only Indian wool, silk or cotton — was swadeshi in action. Swadeshi is about self-sufficiency, and in early twentieth century India it was possible to use only locally produced goods and eat only locally grown food.

But what about today? Take the internet, which itself blurs the line between what is global and what is local. Access to the internet means access to humanity’s collective knowledge and allows communities to form between people thousands of kilometers apart from each other. If for example I spun my own cloth and sold it over the internet would I be practicing swadeshi? Sure, for this transaction to happen we need large companies to design and fabricate the semiconductors, circuit boards and accessories that make up the computers and cell phones that we use to connect to the internet, but I’m not one to discount all large companies as inherently evil. The central question is who we consider to be our neighbor. In the original context of swadeshi a neighbor was anyone in the immediate surroundings, which in early twentieth century India mostly meant the village. When it comes to food this model still fits — and food cooperatives (CSA‘s) are becoming more popular in the US.

If we accept that some of our goods are more efficiently produced using economies of scale and centralization we should think about which goods and services are most effectively produced locally. Renewable energy comes to mind as one such good. For this to happen electricity grids need to be optimized for net metering. Additionally, if the price of a kilowatt hour of electricity reflected the environmental cost incurred in its generation, coal fired power plants would simply be priced out of the game and replaced by suburban families that decide to invest in rooftop photovoltiac systems, farmers that install wind turbines in their fields, and smaller scale power plants in the the form of wind, wave or sun farms. Communities would focus on becoming self-sufficient and using their electricity more efficiency in hopes of selling power to other regions. Local engineers and designers will play an important role in meeting both goals. Many futurists are looking at electric cars not only as a means of transportation, but also as a means of energy storage. If city planners can get residents to rely less on their cars, the local grid’s storage capacity is increased with no direct investment by the city. This means fewer centralized big box stores and many smaller establishments within walking distance of people’s homes or at least one bus stop away. Construction companies will also be forced to rely less on one size fits all buildings made comfortable by HVAC systems, and instead hire architects that know how to mitigate the effects of local climates. These examples may be expanding the scope of swadeshi, but I would argue that they are remaining true to the basic underlying idea.

I also see another form of swadeshi playing an important role in the twenty-first century, one which takes place online. Many are quick to dismiss the efforts of programmers collaborating on open source software as a waste of time — these critics don’t understand why someone would work without direct monetary compensation. The same criticisms can be aimed to those that pour hours of their own time into communities such as Appropedia or Wikipedia. To anyone that has used Linux or appreciates the quality of user created resources like Wikipedia, the motivation for contribution is obvious. Rather than being at the mercy of Microsoft or having to pay an arbitrary fee to access digital content, communities have popped up to create resources that allow users to create value in ways that commercial companies focused primarily on monetary profit may never have imagined. If we take swadeshi to mean self-sufficiency within a community (rather than a geographical area) does the development of open source software (or the distribution of information in general) not reflect and honor the core principals of swadeshi?

Related Reading
A Return to Yeomanry
The Desktop Manufacturing Revolution

Related Links
The RepRap Open Source 3D Printer
The Gandhi Rural Rehabilitation Center

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Tags: India, Local, Open Source, Sustainability, Swadeshi