Khadi

Khadi (pronounced [kʰaːd̪iː]; IAST: Khadi) or Khaddar is a term for handspun and hand-woven cloth from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan mainly made out of cotton.

The cloth is usually woven from cotton and may also include silk, or wool, which are all spun into yarn on a spinning wheel called a charkha. It is a versatile fabric, cool in summer and warm in winter. In order to improve the look, khādī/khaddar is sometimes starched to give it a stiffer feel. It is widely accepted in fashion circles. Khadi is being promoted in India by Khadi and Village Industries Commission, Ministry of MSME Govt. of India.

In India, Khadi is not just a cloth, it is a whole movement started by Mohandas Gandhi. The Khadi movement promoted a socio-cultural aesthetic, an idea that Indians could be self-reliant on cotton and be free from foreign cloth and clothing.

The British were selling very high cost cloths to the Indians. They would buy cotton from India at cheap prices and export it to Britain where it was woven to make clothes. These clothes were then brought back to India to be sold at hefty prices. The khadi movement by Gandhi aimed at boycotting foreign goods including cotton and promoting Indian goods, thereby improving India's economy. Mahatma Gandhi began promoting the spinning of khadi for rural self-employment and self-reliance (instead of using cloth manufactured industrially in Britain) in the 1920s in India, thus making khadi an integral part and an icon of the Swadeshi movement. The freedom struggle revolved around the use of khādī fabrics and the dumping of foreign-made clothes. When some people complained about the costliness of khadi to Mahatma Gandhi, he started wearing only dhoti.

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