Khadi means handspun and handwoven cloth. In 1918 Mahatma Gandhi started his movement for Khadi as a relief program for the poor masses living in India’s villages. Spinning and weaving was elevated to an ideology for self-reliance and self-government.
“Every village shall plant and harvest its own raw-materials for yarn, every woman and man shall engage in spinning and every village shall weave whatever is needed for its own use. In the first half of this century, and in many parts even now, farmers have not enough work to earn their living through out the year. About four months they may be idle due to the rainless dry season. Spinning would thereby supply the readiest occupation; it can easily be learnt. It requires practically no outlay or capital, even an improved spinning wheel can be easily and cheaply made.”
It’s not a stretch to liken today’s sustainability movement with Ghandi’s Khadi Movement.
At that time, raw materials were entirely exported to England and then re-imported as costly finished cloth, depriving the local population of work and profits on it. It was for economic, cultural and social reasons and not merely political that Gandhi established the Khadi Movement. In 1934-35 he expanded the idea from helping the poor individual to bringing self-reliance to whole villages. Thus Khadi is not merely a piece of cloth but a way of life.
Today, manufacturing is chasing after the cheapest labor internationally, finished goods are being produced in substandard facilities, then re-imported into the US, Canada and Europe. Exorbitant profits are being made and the elite few who are gaining from this system are using their wealth to lobby their governments for ever-more favorable tax breaks, lax trade policies and lack of enforcement of current law. The Sustainability Movement is built on the same philosophy as the Khadi Movement – one that favors decentralization, local decision-making and production, an egalitarian society and, more recently, concern for the environment.
The Village Market 
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