Man is a machine no doubt. He is a marvelous piece of work. The only difference is that man has got life and consciousness which machines don’t have. The machines are time-saving devices. They increase man’s life and, if properly used, they add comfort to man’s life. Such are innumerable electrical and electronic devices.
However, when we use machines as labor-saving devices, we are also prone to cause unemployment on a large-scale. When one machine is used to do the jobs of a number of people, naturally, many hands will become surplus. So, this is the tendency of throwing the workers on the roads for which Gandhiji criticized machines, otherwise he was not opposed to them. Let us have a look at his own words.
“I am not fighting machinery as such but the madness of thinking that machinery saves labor. Men save labor until thousands of them are without work and die of hunger on the streets. I want to secure employment and livelihood not only to part of a few at the expense of the money.
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At present the machine is helping a small minority to live on the exploitation of the masses. The motive force of his minority is not humanity and love of their kind, but greed and avarice.
This state of things I am attacking with all my might.” Gandhiji said. He also said, “I must refuse to insult the naked by giving them clothes they do not need instead of giving them the work they sorely need. The ill-clad or the naked millions of India need no charity, but work.”