Derived from the term khaddar, Khadi is a handspun and handwoven cotton cloth, which became one of the symbols of India’s freedom struggle. Mahatma Gandhi is said to have coined the term ‘khadi’ for these fabrics owing to their coarse texture. Khadi is spun using a charkha or an Indian spinning wheel.

Khadi was introduced to the people of undivided India in 1918 in order to achieve self-sufficiency and independence from British textiles. Thus, in no time, Khadi became the national fabric of India. Because of industrialization, the British textile industry began mass-producing cotton finished goods and marketing these in India at very low rates. They converted India from a supplier of finished textile products to an exporter of raw materials (cotton) to Britain and an importer of cheap, low-quality fabrics. Indian artisans thus were dealt a heavy financial blow.

In this context, Gandhiji gave the call for Swaraj or self-rule, which envisaged an end to dependency on British products and institutions. He spread the message that every village of India must plant and harvest its own raw materials and its people should spin Khadi for their own use. M.K. Gandhi saw this as a way to uplift the common masses out of poverty and build a system of self-reliance.

Eventually, Gandhi promoted the use of Swadeshi products and urged for boycotting foreign goods. At this time, Khadi was already popular as the fabric of nationalism, woven with ‘the threads of Swaraj’. As the idea of spinning Khadi spread across India, Gandhi hoped for unity among all classes through this common occupation by diluting the gap which existed between the people. Soon enough Gandhi understood that more than simply accepting the handwoven fabric, the people of India needed to make Khadi a part of their everyday life. Thus, the Khadi movement was established for social and economic reasons. The essence of this movement lies in Gandhi’s understanding of the fabric as something that could uplift the masses. He recognized that rural India carried immense skills and the villages could prosper by becoming a crafts-based society. Therefore, through the introduction of Khadi, he wished to start a process of change whereby the indigenous arts and crafts of India could prosper and become famous across the globe.

Khadi became a central icon of India's freedom struggle, and Charkha became a prominent figure on the Indian national flag designed in the 1930s.

Swadeshi (Of my Country) is a reference to things and ideas produced locally. The famous anti-British struggle that emerged in response to the Bengal Partition of 1905 was popularly known as the Swadeshi Movement.

With over 78 million people in 1901, the British claimed that the Bengal Presidency was becoming administratively unmanageable for them. However, there was another, more pressing interest for the British in partitioning Bengal. By the late 19th century, Bengal had become the center of opposition to the British regime in India. This was the result of increased exposure of the people to modern education and ideas like freedom and liberty. Thus, the government was determined to divide the people and weaken their resistance. Justifying this, in 1904 the Home Secretary Herbert Risley made the infamous statement - ‘Bengal United is a power, Bengal divided will pull in several different ways.’ The idea of the British was to separate the Muslim majority areas into East Bengal and keep the areas with a majority of Hindu population as West Bengal. In July 1905, this Partition was announced by Viceroy Lord Curzon.

Far from breaking the spirit of resistance, the announcement further emboldened the Bengali people. They opposed this communal division of Bengal, and started a series of campaigns against the Government. One of these was the resolution adopted in August 1905 to boycott English goods, educational institutions etc., and create local alternatives. This was to ensure zero cooperation with British commercial activities and educational ventures in India.

Nationalist leaders like Gokhale, Ranade and others were already working on constructive programs among the people of India, focusing, among other things, on the need to produce their items locally. Among these items were textiles and clothes. The 1905 resolution strengthened the focus on Swadeshi fabrics and apparel and called for a boycott of all textiles manufactured in Manchester and other parts of Britain. Protestors setting British mill-made clothes on fire became a common sight and to promote the manufacture of textiles in India, mills and handicraft boards were set up in different places. Further, a great emphasis was laid on handloom production. The charkha or spinning wheel became important both as a tool for producing handspun yarn and as a symbol of Swadeshi.

Although the Swadeshi Movement met with severe repression at the hands of the British, the decision of partitioning Bengal was finally revoked in 1911. This movement can be considered the most crucial forerunner to the strategies later used by Gandhi in his struggles against the British. It was one of the first organized movements that spoke of autonomy or swaraj and highlighted the importance of non-cooperation with the British. The focus on Swadeshi itself became one of Gandhi’s most powerful tools. The charkha, and khadi or hand-woven fabric that were first introduced as symbols of self-reliance in the Swadeshi Movement, later became icons of the freedom struggle led by Gandhi.

The Red Shirts or Surkh Posh was a non-violent, nationalist movement started by Fakhr-e-Afghan Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan in November 1929. Abdul Gaffar Khan was born in 1890 in Utmanzai, in the Punjab province of British India. He was educated at Aligarh Muslim University. Inspired by the political activists there, he joined the Indian National Movement in 1911. In the initial years, he was engaged with educational and reform works among his Pashtun people. In the 1920s, he became a firm believer in Gandhian political tactics. He staunchly advocated non-violence and pacifism and came to be popularly known as Frontier Gandhi or Sarhadi Gandhi. 

Abdul Gaffar Khan’s goal was to formulate a unified, secular and independent India. With these visions in mind, he began enlisting the Khudai Khidmatgars (literally ‘servants of God’) and created a large non-violent army of nationalists in 1929 in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). One of the fundamental ideas of the movement was to reform the social structure by eliminating violence and introducing a better education system through the establishment of village schools. These were seen as means of preparing the people against the British in their fight for freedom.

The highly organized and trained Khudai Khidmatgars initially wore plain white shirts as their uniform while travelling across villages of NWFP. However, these shirts were easily soiled in the mud and dirt, pushing the activists to look for alternatives. It was then that some of them dyed their shirts in a brick red colour, on which the dirt gathered in all their village tours was less visible. The Khidmatgars soon came to be identified with the red uniform they wore on all their visits, and the colour red came to signify a spirit of resilience and resistance against the British. The movement, hence, gained its popular name ‘the Red Shirts’ or ‘Surkh Posh.’

In the 1930s, the Red Shirts movement followed Gandhi’s path of Civil Disobedience and suffered severe repression at the hands of the British. Abdul Ghaffar Khan was arrested, and other activists were tortured, shot and humiliated by the British government. However, the movement had already succeeded in creating a strong sense of anti-colonial sentiment among the rural people of NWFP and in giving a non-violent direction to their struggle for freedom. For the people there, the red uniforms worn by these dedicated nationalist, peaceful activists became a symbol of struggle against colonial oppression and symbolised hope for freedom.

Indian economy in general, and the textiles sector in particular, faced major challenges from the European factory made goods that flooded the Indian markets in the 19th and 20th centuries. Produced by machines at a large scale, these were more affordable for the buyers but served as a death blow to the local Indian artisans. This pushed them to the brink of starvation.

It was during the Swadeshi Movement of 1905 that the focus on locally produced goods was properly streamlined for the first time. National leaders appealed to the people to boycott English products and urged them to turn to Indian alternatives. Among other items, people at various places across the country discarded their foreign clothes and burnt them in public fires as a sign of protest. The charkha or the spinning wheel was highlighted as the basic tool for the first step at textile production - the making of yarn. It was turned into a metaphor for self-reliance by the nationalist leaders and their followers.

Mahatma Gandhi, who returned to India from South Africa in 1915, slowly understood the Indian situation. In the spinning of yarn on the charkha, he saw an opportunity of creating livelihoods for many. It was not just the spinners who were to benefit, but also those who wove the spun yarn, and all the others who decorated the textiles - the dyers, painters, printers etc. Spinning was, after all, one of the first fundamental steps towards producing khadi (or a coarse cotton hand woven fabric) that ultimately signified freedom from English textiles and hence a revival of Indian handloom. The charkha, thus, symbolized salvation for millions of suffering Indians.

Many different designs of the charkha were worked on to ensure enhanced efficiency. Each was simple, easy to operate and produced strong, durable yarn. Most importantly, most of the different models of charkha were affordable, making them popular among the people. Gandhiji saw the charkha as a unifying factor leading to employment and regeneration of village economies all across India. He believed that the charkha spun love and peace, and promoted the unity of millions of Indians.

The charkha became an important icon of the Indian National Movement, finding its place in the center of one of the early Indian flags designed by the national leaders in 1930. This shows how intricately the symbol of the charkha was associated with the kind of independence that our leaders envisioned. It pointed towards the very fundamental freedom of the people - the freedom from poverty and starvation. From a simple, household tool, the charkha thus became one of the most important national icons in India.

In the summer of 1859 in Bengal, thousands of ryots (peasants) refused to grow indigo for the European planters (owners of land and indigo factories). It became one of the most remarkable anti-colonial movements of Indian history and came to be called the Neel Bidroha or the Indigo Revolt.

The ryots were coerced by the planters to grow indigo on their fertile lands. This was to meet the growing demands of indigo dye for industrial Britain. The peasants sowed indigo under an exploitative contract system in which the planters advanced them a meagre loan of two rupees per beegah to meet the expenses of the cultivation. Since the peasants lacked monetary means to carry out agriculture, they agreed to sow indigo on their lands.

As per the contract, the land had to be sown with indigo, weeded and delivered at the indigo factories owned by the European planters where the plant was processed into a dye.

At the close of the manufacturing season in August or September, the accounts used to be drawn out. The debit included the cost of advance (two rupees per beegah), the cost of the stamp paper on which the contract was signed (two annas), and the cost of four to five seers of seeds charged at four annas per beegah. The credit included the value of indigo plant bundles delivered by the ryot to the factories at 4 to 8 bundles per rupee. The average return of a beegah was about 10 to 12 bundles.

Between the debit and credit amount, a balance was struck and payment was made accordingly. If he had a ‘fazil’ or excess then he was paid. If not, then a debt was set against him. Despite the debt, a fresh advance was given to him for the next season. However, the debt was deducted from the full advance amount and the ryot received only the remaining sum for the next agricultural season. In some cases, if the debt was too high, the ryot did not receive any fresh advance and was trapped into sowing indigo without it!

Moreover, the planters chose which part of the peasants’ land had to be sown with indigo and if they refused, physical and verbal indignities were inflicted upon them. They were also beaten with 50 or 60 latthials (lathi wielding men employed by planters to terrorize ryots).

Exasperated by this exploitative system, the peasants revolted against the Europeans. The peasants attacked indigo factories with spears and swords and the planters were beaten. In the light of this unrest, the Indigo commission was set up in 1860, to enquire into the ills of the system. It found it to be inherently oppressive, essentially because of the system of advances that trapped the peasants in an unending cycle of debt. The Commission suggested reforms for the system which were later accepted.

Neel Bidroha was a non-violent revolution and one of the reasons it was successful. It is seen as a forerunner of the non-violent passive resistance later successfully adopted by Mahatma Gandhi.

The Neel Bidroha inspired many of our National leaders in the 20th century.

A simple piece of cloth attains a significant stature when used as a flag. A flag, often attached to a pole and waved in the air, is a symbolic representation of a group, an idea, an institution or a nation. Treated with immense respect, a national flag is a symbol of a free nation and its people. The Indian national flag we see today was adopted in 1947, a few days before India attained independence from the British. However, before reaching its present form, the Indian flag changed multiple times with the different stages of the Indian freedom movement.

In 1906, during the Swadeshi and Boycott struggle, a flag of India was hoisted for the first time in the Parsee Bagan Square in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata). This was a tricolour, divided horizontally into strips of green, yellow and red respectively from top to bottom. In the middle of the yellow strip the words ‘Vande mataram’ were written. A year later, a similar flag with slight modifications was raised by Madam Bhikaji Cama in Paris. This flag was also exhibited in Berlin at a socialist conference and thus came to be called the Berlin Committee Flag. It was the first Indian flag to be hoisted in a foreign country. In 1917, as a part of the Home Rule Movement, Annie Besant and Bal Gangadhar Tilak hoisted another flag. It had red and green horizontal stripes, with motifs of seven stars and a crescent moon along with the Union Jack in one corner. This signified autonomous rule for Indians within the British Empire.

In the Bezwada (now Vijayawada) session of the All India Congress Committee in 1921, Gandhiji was presented a design of a flag by a young freedom fighter, Pingali Venkaiah. Venkaiah had been working on the idea of an Indian flag for years and in 1916 had published a book that contained numerous potential designs for a national flag. The flag he presented to Gandhi comprised two horizontal stripes of red and green representing Hindus and Muslims. On the suggestion of Gandhi, an additional white stripe was incorporated for all the other communities of India. A spinning wheel was superimposed on the three stripes and placed in the center, signifying the nation’s progress.

In 1931 a formal resolution was passed adopting Pingali Vekaiah’s flag with a little modification. While the white and green remained, the red was replaced by saffron. This tricolour was recognized as the Indian flag and it was made clear that the colours here were not intended to represent religious communities. Instead, the saffron was for courage, white for peace and green for fertility and growth. In the center of the white stripe was a spinning wheel symbolizing movement and progress. Finally, in July 1947, the Constituent Assembly formally adopted this as the flag of free India, and eventually, the spinning wheel was replaced by the Dharma Chakra of Emperor Ashoka, symbolizing truth and life. This came to be called the Tiranga.

A piece of fabric, designed with careful consideration, becomes a mark of national pride. The Indian flag today, does not only stand for the nation’s sovereignty but also serves as a reminder of its freedom struggle. In its evolution, lies the different phases of the fight for independence and in its unfurling lies the story of India’s freedom.

In the September of 1921, Gandhiji made a revolutionary decision of boycotting western attire and embraced dhoti (loincloth) and shawl. This life-changing decision was made after getting deeply affected by poverty which prevailed in India at that time. He believed that in order to connect with the poor of India, he needed to look like them so that they could relate to him more and address their grievances. 

A man dressed in western attire, according to Gandhiji, would create a barrier in communicating and understanding the masses. Gandhi’s acceptance of khadi attire and the rural clothing sent a message of embracing one’s own culture among Indians. Therefore, Gandhi wore dhoti and shawl not only to understand the Indian masses but it signified an internal revolution that existed within him, which continued to act as fuel to his determination to make India better culturally and economically through self-sustenance. This struggle served the ultimate goal of making India free of the colonizers.

Similarly, the Gandhi cap came into the lives of Indian activists and politicians with the message of swadeshi. It spread the idea of embracing one's own culture and boycotting foreign goods. Gandhi cap is a white-colored sidecap, made out of Khadi. It is pointed at both front and back and it is named after Mahatma Gandhi himself who popularised it first during the Non-Cooperation movement of 1921-22.

Even though Gandhiji wore it publicly only for a very short period in his life, the cap gained popularity as a symbol of freedom struggle, non-violence and self-reliance, and also became an integral part of the attire of the Indian National Congress members. It was worn by various Indian independence activists and eventually, it became a tradition for politicians and activists to wear it in independent India.

According to Gandhiji, the foundation of India’s freedom was laid when the import of Lancashire cloth was stopped and stress was laid upon wearing swadeshi. The adoption of dhoti and the cap served as important symbols in this regard, that is, to embrace one’s own culture. This is linked with Gandhiji’s idea that Indians must produce their own goods, symbolized through the charkha (spinning wheel) which became an icon of India’s Freedom struggle. It stood for India’s self-reliance, that it did not need any foreign powers to rule over it. Gandhiji spoke highly about the connections that existed between the swadeshi (indigenous goods) and swaraj (self-government). He felt that swadeshi would highlight goods that are manufactured within India making India economically independent, and swaraj stood for self-governance which would be achieved through the political struggle.

The British, along with other things, brought into India their styles of clothing. After years of interaction with the colonial rule, Indians responded to it in different ways. While some outrightly rejected western clothes, many saw it as a sign of progress, and as an entry into the world of modernity. Others still sought a middle ground. Working in colonial offices, many Indians maintained a strict separation between their inner and outer worlds. While they wore shirts, trousers, hats and coats at work, at home they stuck to their simple dhoti and kurta.

During the freedom movement, different ideas of designing a national dressing style for Indians were experimented with. Clothing became an important symbolic way of asserting the identity of a fast developing, modern and confident India, seeking freedom from colonial oppression. A unique dressing style was to represent a new Indian that was ready for clinching independence and capable of self-rule or Swarajya.

Instead of combining western and Indian elements for clothing, many promoted the idea of bringing together various dressing styles prevalent across India. Rabindranath Tagore talked about mixing elements of Hindu and Muslim dress and believed that a long coat with buttons known as chapkan to be suitable for men. Styles of wearing the saree also underwent various changes. The Brahmo Samaj women, inspired by Jnanadanandini Devi - the first Indian Indian Civil Service (ICS) member, began draping the saree in the Parsi style, along the left shoulder, to be worn with a blouse. This came to be known as Brahmika saree, and was soon adopted by non-Brahmos too.

Even where the regional styles of draping the saree were maintained, the design of the blouse was experimented with. While some added cuffs and laces inspired by blouses worn by the English, others embellished their bodices with silver threads as was done during the Mughal times. The salwar kameez, worn predominantly by women in and around Punjab, slowly started gaining more popularity due to its convenience and comfortability for wearing while both at home and outside.

In the 1940s, as the freedom movement became more intense, the insistence on locally produced clothes grew. Khadi became an important national icon. Sarees, dhotis, kurtas etc. made of simple, handspun and handwoven fabric became popular among the people. This sought to bring about a sense of uniformity to the diverse traditional dressing styles of the Indians.

The search for a suitable clothing style thus became an essential part of marking India’s identity as a strong, modern nation. While there was no one way of doing so, certain trends emerged during the 19th and 20th centuries. These attempted to express different sentiments of people at various stages of their interaction with the British. During the National Movement, clothing became a significant means of asserting a sense of grit and determination, highlighting an essence of unity among Indians and their collective struggle for freedom.