Question

Name the two important women of India who wore colored sari, with designs, instead of coarse, white homespun.

Answer 1

Hint: Gandhi’s Khadi movement aimed to boycott foreign clothes. Mahatma Gandhi began to promote Khadi spinning in the 1920s to achieve rural self-employment and self-reliance (instead of using fabrics produced by British industry), thus making Khadi a part and symbol of the Swadeshi movement.

Complete Answer:
Mahatma Gandhi's dream was to dress the entire nation in the khadi. But it's not easy for everyone to follow in his footsteps. Not many people can go to the peasant clay he had. Some can't afford a bath, which is expensive, and others prefer to wear smoother fabrics of different colors and designs. Mahatma Gandhi believed that khadi would be a means to eliminate differences between religions, groups, and others. Nationalists like Motilal Nehru, a successful lawyer from Allahabad, took off their expensive western-style costumes and adopted Indian dhoti-kurta. But they were not made of barrels. Unlike Mahatma Gandhi, other nationalists such as Baba Saheb Ambedkar never let go of western-style costumes. One woman wrote to Mahatma Gandhi of Maharashtra: "I tried to adopt khadi, but Khadi is expensive and we are poor people." Other women such as Sarojini Naidu and Kamla Nehru wore colored saris with designs, instead of coarse, white homespun khadi.

Note: Sarojini Chattopadhyay Naidu was an Indian political activist and poet. She was a supporter of civil rights, women’s liberation, and anti-imperialist ideas, and an important figure in India’s struggle for independence from colonial rule. Kamala Kaul Nehru was an Indian independence activist and the wife of Jawaharlal Nehru. Her daughter Indira later also served as Prime Minister of India.