Gandhi, Swadeshi, Modi and Trump | SAM Vignette - video Dailymotion

South Asia Monitor

Gandhi, Swadeshi, Modi and Trump: In the midst of palpable tensions with his "friend" US President Donald Trump over tariffs, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expediently invoking the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi’s Swadeshi, a doctrine of national self-reliance not just about economics but about all aspects of life, including religion, culture, language and so on.  | SAM Vignette

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00:00Welcome to an occasional op-ed of Mayank Chhaya Reports. I'm Mayank Chhaya.

00:06In the midst of palpable tensions with his friend, US President Donald Trump over tariffs,

00:12Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expediently invoking the philosophy of Mohandas Gandhi

00:18Svadeshi, a doctrine which to its proponents mind was all-encompassing. It was not just

00:25about economics, but all aspects of life including religion, culture, language and so on.

00:31It was about one's immediate neighborhood and one's village. But in Modi's convenient

00:37interpretation, it is predominantly about economics. The Prime Minister had no choice

00:43but to bring in Gandhi during an election rally in a speech in Bihar where he said,

00:48Harpal Svadeshi Kharidenge. Now every moment we will buy indigenous.

00:54Far be it from me to nitpick over the fact that no one buys things every moment. Modi's focus on

01:02going Svadeshi is clearly in response to Trump's tariff tirade against India and countries around

01:07the world. As someone who has read Gandhi extensively, I know that Gandhi's Svadeshi movement

01:13as a powerful counter to the exploitative and predatory colonial British rule was so much more

01:20than just producing and consuming locally. Sure, that was an important aspect of it because as an

01:26astute political mind, Gandhi understood that the path to a broader spiritual evolution had to factor in

01:34some measure of material comforts. However, those comforts ought to come from local and immediate

01:39surroundings. It's important to bear in mind that Gandhi's idea of Svadeshi also had innate austerity,

01:48sometimes severely so, which may not appeal to people now. For instance, he said, and I quote now,

01:56Svadeshi as defined here is a religious discipline to be undergone in utter disregard of the physical

02:02discomfort it may cause to individuals. A Svadeshiist will learn to do without hundreds of things

02:08which today he considers necessary, unquote. That goes against Hum Harpal Svadeshi Kharidenge.

02:16But in so much as the Prime Minister is invoking the Svadeshi spirit as a long-term counter to being

02:23bullied by a tariffs wielding America, or for that matter any other nation, it has some value. Also,

02:30one must remember that Gandhi Svadeshi was in service to his broader idea of Gram Swaraj,

02:36or rural self-rule where India's villages become self-sustained and self-contained to the exclusion

02:43of any dependence on outside beyond a point. Other loftier ideas also float from Swaraj,

02:50such as Swaraj, which is self-rule, Satyagraha, truth as the core force, Ahimsa, non-violence,

02:57and Sarvodaya, welfare for all. These are staggeringly ambitious goals which have eluded

03:04countries and societies across the world. The idea of Svadeshi picked up pace in the early 1930s,

03:11as Gandhi saw in it a powerful but non-violent tool to dismantle the British stranglehold by attacking

03:18the enterprise's very core, which is predatory economic colonization. Modi's reference to it

03:27at this time is instructive, particularly when his much-belly-hood personal friendship with Trump

03:34has not earned India any reprieve. Svadeshi at this stage is more expedient for him than essential.

03:41.

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Gandhi, Swadeshi, Modi and Trump | SAM Vignette

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