Chalo Charkho Ramiye

Last night, we met our friend, Avani Varia, who is a spinner, artist and advocate for the promotion of India’s heritage crafts at the Navjivan Trust campus, where she offers a weekly community spinning class. Chalo Charkho Ramiye, an initiative created by Avani, is a movement to revive, advocate and spread awareness about the importance of the spinning wheel, called 'Charkha' and highlight its relevance in today's world.

The Navjivan Trust is home to the Navjivan Press, a publishing house started in 1929 by Mahatma Gandhi. At that time, it served as a vital hub of India’s independence movement, publishing Gandhi’s ideas on non-violence, self- reliance and moral integrity. It continues to be an active publishing house today and the original printing press, along with many of Gandhi’s writings are on display there in a small museum.

The lead image of this blog post features one of the most famous photographs of Mahatma Gandhi holding his ‘Charkha’. This simple mechanical spinning wheel, which had been utilized by weavers for centuries, emerged as one of the most potent symbols of India’s historic struggle for independence. Gandhi felt that the Charkha represented not only India’s yearning for freedom, but also its desire and need for economic self-sufficiency. 

Historically, in every Indian province, men and women used their hands to make yarn from local animal and vegetable fibers. Today, the art of making yarn with one’s hands has a minimal presence in India. Last night with Avani and several of the dedicated weekly spinners, we had the opportunity to learn how to spin cotton thread from a raw cotton “sliver,” using traditional hand-made spinning tools- the takli, which is a drop spindle, and the Charkha, a foldable and portable box with hand cranked wheels to spin the fiber. It was both a fascinating and challenging experience, as we documented in this video.

For more information, see: https://avnivaria.com/portfolio/chalo-charkho-ramiye/

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