Editing Spinning wheel (section)

===Political symbolism===
[[File:Gandhi spinning.jpg|thumb|left|[[Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi|Mahatma Gandhi]] spinning yarn on a charkha]]

Starting in 1931, the traditional spinning wheel became the primary symbol on the flag of the Provisional Government of Free India.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Theodore|first=Brown|date=January 2008|title=Spinning for India's Independence|journal=American Journal of Public Health|volume=98|issue=1|pages=39|doi=10.2105/AJPH.2007.120139|pmid=18048775|pmc=2156064}}</ref>

[[Mahatma Gandhi]]’s manner of dress and commitment to hand spinning were essential elements of his philosophy and politics. He chose the traditional loincloth as a rejection of Western culture and a symbolic identification with the poor of India. His personal choice became a powerful political gesture as he urged his more privileged followers to copy his example and discard—or even burn—their European-style clothing and return with pride to their ancient, pre-colonial culture.{{Citation needed|date=February 2019}}{{when|date=February 2019}} Gandhi claimed that spinning thread in the traditional manner also had material advantages, as it would create the basis for economic independence and the possibility of survival for India’s impoverished rural areas. This commitment to traditional cloth making was also part of a larger [[swadeshi movement]], which aimed for the boycott of all British goods. As Gandhi explained to [[Charlie Chaplin]] in 1931, the return to spinning did not mean a rejection of all modern technology but of the exploitative and controlling economic and political system in which textile manufacture had become entangled.{{Citation needed|date=February 2019}} Gandhi said, “Machinery in the past has made us dependent on England, and the only way we can rid ourselves of the dependence is to boycott all goods made by machinery. This is why we have made it the patriotic duty of every Indian to spin his own cotton and weave his own cloth."{{citation needed|date=April 2015}}<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Theodore|first=Brown|date=2008-01-01|title=Spinning for India's Independence|url=https://searchworks.stanford.edu/articles/bth__28804934|journal=American Journal of Public Health|volume=98|issue=1|pages=39|doi=10.2105/AJPH.2007.120139|pmid=18048775|pmc=2156064|via=Business Source Complete}}</ref>