52. The birth of Khadi

When the Satyagraha Ashram was founded at Sabarmati, we introduced a few handlooms there.

The object that we in the Ashram set before ourselves was to be able to clothe ourselves entirely in cloth manufactured by our own hands. We therefore forthwith gave up the use of mill-woven cloth, and all the members of the Ashram resolved to wear hand-woven cloth made from Indian yarn only. By thus adopting cloth woven from mill-yarn as our wear, and propagating it among our friends, we made ourselves voluntary agents of the Indian spinning mills. This in its turn brought us into contact with the mills. We saw that the aim of the mills was more and more to weave the yarn spun by them; their co-operation with the handloom weaver was not willing, but unavoidable and temporary.

We became impatient to be able to spin our own yarn. It was clear that until we could do this ourselves, dependence on the mills would remain. We did not feel that we could render any service to the country by continuing as agents of Indian spinning mills.