UPSC Mains 2021 GS Paper 1 Q12: model answer

Gandhi spun yarn every day, even in jail, and asked Congress members to pay their dues in hand-spun yarn. For him constructive work was the positive side of satyagraha: building the nation while resisting the Raj.

During Non-Cooperation (1920–22)

• Khadi and charkha: the Tilak Swaraj Fund financed spinning; boycott of foreign cloth.
• National education: Gujarat Vidyapith, Kashi Vidyapith and Jamia Millia Islamia (1920).
• Hindu–Muslim unity through the Khilafat alliance.
• Removal of untouchability and prohibition of liquor.
• Panchayats for settling disputes instead of British courts.

During Civil Disobedience (1930–34)

• Salt production, a symbol of self-reliance.
• Picketing of liquor and foreign cloth shops by women.
• After 1932, the Harijan campaign: the Harijan Sevak Sangh, temple entry and the weekly Harijan.
• Village industries: the All India Village Industries Association (1934).

Significance

• Kept the movement alive between phases of struggle; built a mass base in villages; trained workers; gave nationalism social content.

Rural reconstruction

• Sevagram (1936) became a model of village work: sanitation, basic education (Nai Talim, 1937), cattle care and crafts.
• Constructive workers such as Vinoba Bhave later led the Bhoodan movement (1951).

Women and constructive work

• Women spun, picketed and taught, which gave them a role in public life.

Critiques

• Some, such as the revolutionaries and the socialists, saw the programmes as slow; yet they kept people engaged when mass struggle was suspended, as after Chauri Chaura (1922), and the trained workers led local struggles later in their districts.

To sum up

Gandhi's constructive programmes turned freedom into a daily practice. Many of them, from khadi to anti-untouchability, live on in independent India's policies.