Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Handloom, Swadeshi Movement
Mains level: India's handloom sector
Yesterday, August 7th was celebrated as the National Handloom Day. It was in 2015, the first National Handloom Day was celebrated.
Try this PYQ:
What was the immediate cause for the launch of the Swadeshi movement? (CSP 2010)
(a) The partition of Bengal done by Lord Curzon.
(b) A sentence of 18 months rigorous imprisonment imposed on Lokmanya Tilak.
(c) The arrest and deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh; and passing of the Punjab Colonization Bill.
(d) Death sentence pronounced on the Chapekar brothers.
Why 7th August?
- With the partition of Bengal, the Swadeshi Movement gained strength.
- It was on August 7, 1905, that a formal proclamation was made at the Calcutta Town Hall to boycott foreign goods and rely on Indian-made products.
What is handloom?
- While different definitions for the word have evolved since the Handloom (Reservation and Articles for Production) Act, 1985, where ‘handloom’ meant “any loom other than power loom”, in recent years it has become more elaborate.
- In 2012, a new definition was proposed: “Handloom means any loom other than power loom, and includes any hybrid loom on which at least one process of weaving requires manual intervention or human energy for production.”
Back2Basics: Swadeshi Movement
- Credit to starting the Swadeshi movement goes to Baba Ram Singh Kuka of the Sikh Namdhari sect, whose revolutionary movements which heightened around 1871 and 1872.
- It gained momentum with the partition of Bengal by the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon in 1905 and continued up to 1911.
- It was the most successful of the pre-Gandhian movements.
- Its chief architects were Aurobindo Ghosh, Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai, Babu Genu.
- Swadeshi, as a strategy, was a key focus of Mahatma Gandhi, who described it as the soul of Swaraj (self-rule). It was strongest in Bengal and was also called the Vandemataram movement in India.
Important phases of the Movement
- 1850 to 1904: developed by leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji, Gokhale, Ranade, Tilak, G. V. Joshi and Bhaswat K. Nigoni. This was also known as the First Swadeshi Movement.
- 1905 to 1917: Began in 1905, because of the partition of Bengal ordered by Lord Curzon.
- 1918 to 1947: Swadeshi thought shaped by Gandhi.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
