Gandhi is keen to limit and not eradicate machinery. His views on machinery and modern

industry are derived from the influence that John Ruskin (1819-1900)1 had on him. He

supports mechanisation, which would help the individual and not encroach upon individuality.

He clarifies about the misconceptions to his opposition to machines. Gandhi supports those machines that are necessary to satisfy the basic human needs. He also feels that industries should be socially owned by which he means welfare of society.He wants limited industrialisation to satisfy limited wants such as food production, shelter, health care and basic education. He also points out the impersonal and monotonous life that industrialisation entails. But he is ready to accept it if it helps satisfy the basic human requirements and if it is socially controlled. He is aware of the enormous differences among countries and points out that the choice of technique depends on circumstances. Countries like India with abundant labour and large-scale unemployment and underemployment should restrict the use of machinery.

Gandhi’s antagonism to the use of machinery and industrialisation set him apart not only

from earlier Indian thinkers like Ranade and Gokhale but also among some of his

contemporaries like Jawaharlal Nehru. Gandhi rejects mechanised industrialisation on moral

and economic grounds. He considers machines as sins of modern civilisation. He dislikes the

migration of people from villages to cities in search of jobs, low wages and poor working

conditions of workers and unemployment. He laments about the under-utilisation of available

labour in view of the seasonal nature of agriculture which depends heavily on monsoons. He

points out that machines displace human or animal labour, instead of merely supplementing

it or increasing its efficiency. Unlike human labour there are no physical limits to the growth

and expansion of machines. Gandhi’s case against machines is “because they