Rise of the Monumental Spinning Wheel: The Charkha and Its Meanings after Gandhi

Abstract

A giant spinning wheel measuring 17 feet tall was unveiled at the international airport in New Delhi, India, in 2016. Three things are noteworthy about this spinning wheel: First, it decouples the spinning wheel from Gandhi, who is neither featured as part of the sculptural installation, nor mentioned on the placard. Yet it was Gandhi who famously promoted spinning as both visual icon and daily practice during the anticolonial struggle. Second, its monumental scale, which upsizes the spinning wheel so that it towers over travelers. By contrast, the wooden model used by Gandhi was 1-2 feet tall. Third, its unveiling has sparked an informal competition, resulting in the erection of monumental spinning wheels at a variety of public locations and heritage sites in the past decade.
Under Gandhi’s leadership the spinning wheel (charkha) became a major icon of the anticolonial movement, alongside the figure of Gandhi himself. But in the post-independence era the spinning wheel faded as other visual rhetoric took precedent, until it suddenly resurged on this monumental scale beginning in 2016. This paper examines this resurgence, asking what and who is behind the competition to produce ever larger spinning wheels, and what range of meanings these monuments encode.
This paper argues that the recent rise of the monumental spinning wheel conveys a range of meanings. They continue to emphasize political independence, economic self-sufficiency, the promotion of cottage industries, and valuing the labor of women as well as men, all causes that Gandhi emphasized. But they also emphasize new meanings, including the promotion of Indian tourism and the promotion of the current Hindu nationalist political party. And they have ceased to emphasize older meanings, including the earlier emphasis on Hindu-Muslim unity, as well as the figure of Gandhi himself.