Road To Freedom

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• For God and Country
• The Empire Builders
• Tribal Uprisings
• Sepoys on the Move
• British Authority Collapses
• The Empire Strikes Back
• Roll of Honour
• The Trial of the Last Emperor
• English Education
• The Blue Mutiny
• Perishing in Peace
• ‘Rani Ka Hookum’
• Barbarous Britannia
• Return to Swadeshi
• The Delhi Durbar
• Hunger Deaths
• The One-Man Army
• Mamool Raj
• The British Raj in Black and White
• Europeans Take To The Street!
• Pressing On !
• The Battle For A Free Press
• The Battle Lines are Drawn
• Women : Crossing the Threshold
• An Old Man's Dream
• Father of Indian Unrest
• The Monk Who Shook The Nation
• The Battle is Taken to the Legislature!
• Partition of Bengal
• The Great Divide
• The New Spirit of India
• Swadeshi Enterprise
• From Swadeshi to Swaraj
• Gandhi in South Africa
• Heroes and Martyrs
• Revolutionaries Outside India
• Carrot and Stick
• Gandhi in Champaran
• The Gentle Satyagrahi
• Massacre at Jallianwala Bagh
• Jallianwala — The Aftermath
• A People Reject Their Rulers
• The Himalayan Blunder
• Gandhiji Withdraws from Political Activities
• Bardoli
• Saga of Indian Revolutionaries
• A Pinch of Salt!
• Gandhi and Ambedkar
• Leave India to God… or to Anarchy
• Quit India
• The Last War of Independence
• Apostle of Peace
• India Wins Freedom
• The Light Has Gone Out
• Under One Flag

Swadeshi Enterprise

Swadeshi Enterprise

The Tagores of Jorasanko were pioneers in the Swadeshi movement. They helped Nabagopal Mitra in starting the chaitra or Hinu Mela in 1867 with exihibitions of indigenous crafts as one of its principal features. The matches sold in this mela refused to lit. What kept it burning was the fierce patriotic ferver! Jyotindranath Tagore launched in 1884 Inland River Steam Nvigation Service with five ships which carried passengers between Khulna and Barisal and cargo up to Calcutta. Barisal students brought passengers to the Swadeshi ships. When the rival British Company reduced its rate, the youth of Barisal kept singing songs upholding the virtue of swadeshi! The Tagores felt carried away to the extent of virtually offering free rides with free meals thrown in as the added incentive! In his reminiscences Rabindranath Tagore has fondly recalled this romantic phase of Swadeshi. But Pramathnath Bose, the pioneer in technical education in India was a realist. In 1886, he advocated technical education as the lasting foundation for developing indegenous industries in areas like textiles, dyeing, tannery, sugar-refining, soap and glass manufacturing, mining and metallurgy. The Association for the Advancement of Scientific and Industrial Federation of Indians founded by Jogendrachandra Ghosh in 1904 started funding students to go abroad to train themselves in science and technology. It collected money from the public. Even village schools contributed — the school committee of a Vikrampur village, for instance, decided to raise the school fee of each student by a farthing per mansem in aid of Industrial ansd Scientific Association in Calcutta! In 1906, fourty four students were sent abroad. Interestingly, the orthodox ban on sea-voyages was lifted so that the sons of the soil could go abroad for technical education! These students did come back to India after their training abroad and set up a number of Swadeshi industrities. Bengal Chemical and Pharmaceutical Works founded by the Prafulla Chandra Ray in 1893 started producing drugs both Ayurvedic and Allopatnic. The company started making laboratory equipments also. Satya Sunder Deb who returned from Japan with training in ceramics started a factory in 1906 which manufactured Swadeshi tea cups, saucers and tea pots. Parents bought for their children Swadeshi dolls made of China clay!

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Small scale industries flourished Swadeshi match box, soap, ink and nibs were in demand. Use of Swadeshi nibs was a real test of patriotism, due to their poor quality! Swadeshi paper, candle and pencils were manufactured.
The Sibpur Iron Works was functioning from 1867. Another company started manufacturing Iron-safes, Small factories sprans up to manufacture buckets which were until then being imported.
Riding the wave of Swadeshi sentiment Tata Iron and Steel raised an initial capital 2.5 crores within three weeks of publication of the prospectus on 27th August 1907. It was Pramathanath Bose who had discovered and drawn the attention of the Tatas to the rich iron ore deposit of Gurumahishini as a result of which the site of the plant was shifted from central provinces to Sakchi, the Jameshdpur of today. Tata Iron and Steels continues to flourish today as a magnificient living menument for the swadeshi spirit which animated the country at the beginning of this century.
By 1907-8 the emphasis in Swadeshi efforts made inroads to banking, insurance and inland trade.
The Swadeshi enterprise was not limited to Bengal alone. Like the monsoon winds the Swadeshi breeze blew across the country. For cotton mills in western India and Southern India the Swadeshi came as a shot in the arm. The imported cotton piece-goods decreased by three crores of yards, the impact of foreign shoes fell by 75% and of cigarettes by 50%.
One of the English firms in Calcutta cabled this message to the Parent Company in England: "Boycott result is disastrous. Boots are not salable... hosiery, hats and waist bangles are also affected." The London Times noted with concern that the value of cotton textile exported to India fell by 23.7%. New mills started coming up to meet demand for swadeshi cloth in India.
With the Swadeshi wind to back, Chindambaram Pillai started Swadeshi Nangation Compamy to run ships between ....... and .... and earned the title Kappal-Otiya-Tamilan the Tamil who ran the Kappal the ships. His close associates Subramania Bharati sang songs in praise of Swadeshi. Subramania Aiyar, Anand Charlu and T.M. Nair in the South, Tilak, Paranjape, V.G. Bijapurkar in the West, Lala Lajpatrai, Munshi Ram (later, Swami Shraddananda), Pandit Chandrika Dutt in North and many others championed the cause of Swadeshi and the Bengal model was repeated in different parts of the country.
Swadeshi was no longer promotion of Indian Industry. Swadeshi came to be looked upon as love for everything Indian.