Wearing khadi was a badge of honour. It was something one was proud to do.
Even as satyagraha is a weapon unique of its kind and not one of the ordinary weapons used by people, so is Khadi, a unique article of commerce which will not, cannot, succeed on terms common to other articles.
I have pinned my faith to the spinning wheel. On it, I believe, the salvation of this country depends.
The old model for India was to be self-sufficient. It was the ideal India became independent with, that you spin your own thread, make your own clothes.
India as a nation can live and die only for the spinning wheel.
Coal is not dear for the coal-miner who can use it there and then, nor is khadi dear for the villager who manufactures his own khadi.
Khadi has been conceived as the foundation and the image of ahimsa. A real khadi-wearer will not utter an untruth. A real khadi-wearer will harbour no violence, no deceit, no impurity.
Even if masses of people were to burn khadi publicly and say that it is an insane programme, I will declare that those people have gone mad.
Khadi will be the sun of the whole industrial solar system.
Khadi to me is the symbol of unity of Indian humanity, of its economic freedom and equality and, therefore, ultimately, in the poetic expression of Jawaharlal Nehru, 'the livery of India's freedom'.
The art that is in the machine-made article, appeals only to the eye; the art in Khadi appeals first to the heart and then to the eye.
For a firm believer in swadeshi, there need be no Pharisaical self-satisfaction in wearing khadi.
Khadi is the sun of the village solar system.
Boycott of foreign cloth through picketing may easily be violent; through the use of khadi it is most natural and absolutely nonviolent.
I would ask you to come in Khadi, for Khadi links you with the fallen and the down-trodden.
