1) Khadi and the spinning wheel have religious significance for Gandhi as symbols of kinship between communities and helping the poor and hungry. 2) Khadi is the central fact of swadeshi or self-reliance and has immense political effects in India by helping millions of villagers. 3) Promoting khadi will empower women and help regenerate India by providing for villagers through the millions of cottage industries based on spinning.

1. Benefits of
Khadi

2. “Speaking for myself, charkha and khaddar have a special religious
significance to me because they are a symbol of kinship between the
members of both the communities and the hunger- and disease- stricken
poor. It is by virtue of the fact that our movement can today be described as
moral and economic as well as political.
(Letter written to Abdul Bari from Sabarmati Jail, after 12-3-1922; 23:92.)”

3. "Khaddar is the concrete and central fact of swadeshi.
(Young India, 17-6-1926; 31:11.)”
"The two issues of khadi and political organization should be kept
absolutely separate. There must be no confusion. The aim of khadi is
humanitarian; but so far as India is concerned, its effect is bound to be
immensely political.
(An interview with Nirmal Kumar Bose on 9/10-11-1934; 59:316-317.)”

4. "Immediately the spinning-wheel is reinstated in all its glory and with all its
implications in the millions of cottages of India, woman recognizes her
definite power and her place in India's regeneration.
(Speech at public meeting, Pagneri on 27-9-1927; 35:44-45.)”

5. “I suggest then that you should render ceaseless service to these starving
millions and that you should not be satisfied till this gnawing poverty is
banished from our land. And, I have told you that khaddar is the easiest
and the only way.
(Speech to students, Madras on 3-9-1927; 34:444.)”
". . . And if I could but induce you to understand the tremendous
importance that khadi has to millions of starving people living in 7,00,000
villages in the whole of India, you will understand that enthusiasm and
effort are not only necessary but indispensable. Remember the fact that it is
calculated to serve not the city-dwellers but millions of starving people
living in the villages.
(Speech at Ernakulam on 13-10-1927; 35:128.)”

6. “Lovers of khadi and Harijan servants who believe in the potency of khadi
to serve Harijans are requested not to buy khadi which does not bear the
hallmark of the All-India Spinners' Association.
(Harijan, 9-2-1934; 57:133.)”