A society as a structure has many
dimensions and layers and within this structure, cultural, political, religious
happenings take place continuously and these happenings evolve gradually in
different forms and manners. It may be economical, political or religious;
power creates hierarchy in the society and dictates the norms for the society. Power
play, hierarchy, dictate, submission, and marginalization – all silently, work
as coded messages and communicate within the structures of the society. This huge
network plays in a significant way through signs and the communication is
conveyed in a subtle way. Signs act and communicate as languages. To decode a
sign and to understand its meanings and implications, one has to study it in the
context of history, politics, culture, and the studies reveals how signs have
been evolved over time and are coded and assigned significant value in
contextual levels.
Charkha
is a simple wooden spinning wheel, through which cotton and silk yarns were
hand-spinned in India, in large quantity,the rural handicrafts and their
economy was imperatively depending on it before the British colonized India. The charka
is an important sign; it stands for freedom, non-violence, independence,
self- sufficiency, and simplicity. Studying the sign in the light of semiotics,
the charka reflects not only the
ideology but also exposes the underlying
dyads and stands for handmade against
machine
made products, simplicity against showoff, independence against dependence, rural
against urban. Placed in the Indian context,
this sign gains a greater importance and significance and communicates, and
reveal as a tool how it secured independence and economic liberation for India
from the clutches of the British.
The
famous and popular photograph of Gandhiji with Charkha speaks of Swadeshi Movement, which Gandhiji started with
the spinning wheel – charkha - inspired every Indian to weave his cloth himself
and ban foreign clothes, so that Indian economy could be improved and balanced.
With this movement, everyone got involved in the freedom movement and torched machine
produced foreign fabrics. This incident led to Freedom Movement in India. Looking
into history, sources tell that earlier only women used to spin yarn for
clothes. During this Swadeshi Movement, Gandhiji himself started spinning and
encouraged others to involve into the movement. This sign has political and
cultural significance. Due to Industrialization in India, many handicraft units
were closed down affecting the rural economy. All finer handicrafts of which
India was proud of were destroyed permanently to boost market for industry-produced
products. Agitation started when one by one handicraft started dying and
machine made clothes were forced upon unwilling locals at high prices. Behind
all this frustration and agitation stands the simple charkha, which gave a call
for freedom movement.
Charkha is not just a
spinning wheel; it stands for freedom, independence, equality, dignity of
labour and simplicity, more than that – for Gandhian economy.
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