Gandhi is a very famous leader in India. Why did he oppose the industrial revolution?

Starting from the cotton textile industry, the industrial revolution destroyed the small-scale peasant economy and built a global division of labor network. This is an irresistible trend. The so-called general trend of the times has developed to today and will continue to develop. Of course, in this process, many people resist the trend of industrialization and globalization. For example, India's most famous Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi's most famous image is the way he weaves with a spinning wheel.

He was a serious English student and turned out to be a lawyer in a suit and tie. Then why did you take this photo? Because of his ideas, he will take the lead in opposing industrialization, machines, railways and all modern industrial achievements brought by the British. He advocated the restoration of traditional rural manual labor, the most important of which was the restoration of manual textile industry, so he got photos of his own spinning wheel and publicized it everywhere.

After so many years, how to evaluate Gandhi's thoughts and practices at that time? The simplest comment is that a gladiator is a car. How can the trend of industrialization and globalization be reversed by one person and one idea? If India really returned to hand spinning according to Gandhi's wishes at that time, there was only one result, that is, hundreds of millions of Indians had no clothes to wear, which must be a tragedy. I used to think so, too.

But after reading the book Cotton Empire, I have more understanding and sympathy for Gandhi's thoughts and practices. How much money can you earn by selling cotton? What the farmers themselves say doesn't count. It all depends on some people in the distance who he doesn't know and may never see again. He doesn't understand and can't influence those people and things far away. In other words, the fate of him and his family has become uncertain and unsafe. Therefore, Indian farmers strongly resist joining cotton plantations. The British tried several times, but both hard and soft failed.