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Gandhi's Swaraj

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Gandhi's Swaraj PERSPECTIVE when his right hand got tired he used his Gandhi’s Swaraj left hand. That physical tiredness did not d iminish Gandhi’s powers of concentra- tion was evident from the fact that the Rudrangshu Mukherjee manuscript had only 16 lines that had been deleted and a few words that had This essay briefl y traces Gandhi’s “I am a man possessed by an idea’’ – Gandhi been altered.3 to Louis Fischer in 1942. The ideas presented in that book grew ideas about swaraj, their “I made it [the nation] and I unmade it” out of Gandhi’s refl ection, his reading and articulation in 1909 in Hind – G andhi to P C Joshi in 1947. “I don’t want to die a failure. But I may be a his experiences in South Africa. It is sig- Swaraj, the quest to actualise failure” – Gandhi to Nirmal Bose in 1947.1 nifi cant that when he wrote Hind Swaraj, these ideas, the turns that history Gandhi had not immersed himself in Indi- gave to them, and the journey n the midnight of 14-15 August an society and politics. His experiments in that made Mohandas 1947, when Jawaharlal Nehru, the India still lay in the future. In fact, Hind Ofi rst prime minister of India, Swaraj served as the basis of these experi- Karamchand Gandhi a lonely coined the phrase – “tryst with destiny”– ments. Gandhi’s purpose in writing the man in August 1947. that has become part of India’s national book was, he wrote, “to serve my country, lexicon, and India erupted in jubilation, to fi nd out the Truth and to follow it”. He Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was far also believed that the views he had pre- away from the celebrations. He was in a sented in the book were held not by him slum in eastern Calcutta. When asked by a alone but were, in fact, “the views…held journalist for a message on the day of by many Indians not touched by what is I ndia’s independence, he said it was a day known as civilisation”. He asked his rea- for fasting and prayer. ders to believe him when he said that the The Father of the Nation was not present views “are also held by thousands of at the birth of the independent Indian na- Europeans”.4 Gandhi’s use of the phrase, tion. On the same day, 15 August 1947, in “what is known as civilisation’’, is worth the city of Karachi someone placed a fez fl agging at this point since I will have on Gandhi’s statue.2 The signifi cance of the o ccasion to come back to it very soon. Hind act is open to interpretation: it could have Swaraj remained the touchstone of his be- been a symbol of unity or a sign of mock- liefs and actions throughout his life, it was ery. It would not be an exaggeration, even the fountainhead of his inspiration: he from just these two pieces of evidence, to never changed his views on the funda- suggest that what India had achieved on mental principles he set out in this text, 15 August, was not something that Gandhi even though he was open to the possibility had visualised as swaraj. By August 1947, of his views being proven wrong. It is he had become India’s p rophet outcast. worth noting that Hind Swaraj is the only In this essay I want to trace briefl y work that Gandhi himself translated from Gandhi’s ideas about swaraj, his quest to Gujarati to English. Even his auto- actualise these ideas and the turns that his- biography, The Story of My Experiments tory gave to them and to his journey that with Truth, was translated by his secretary, made him a lonely man in August 1947. M ahadev Desai. Gandhi’s ideas about swaraj were arti- culated most cogently and most powerfully Only Way to a Swaraj in that remarkable text called Hind Swaraj, In May 1919, just before he embarked on which he wrote in 1909 in Gujarati and his fi rst major mass movement in India, published in English in 1910 in South Africa Gandhi wrote, commenting on Hind after the government of Bombay proscribed Swaraj, “After years of endeavour to put the G ujarati version. It was written in 10 into practice the views expressed in the days between 13 and 22 November 1909 following pages, I feel that the way shown on board Kildonan Castle, a ship that therein is the only true way to swaraj’’.5 Gandhi took to return to South Africa from And towards the end of his life in October Rudrangshu Mukherjee (rudrangshu@hotmail. L ondon. It was written on the ship’s sta- 1945, he wrote emphatically to Jawaharlal com) is with The Telegraph, Kolkata. tionery. G andhi wrote at a furious pace and Nehru, “I fully stand by the kind of 34 december 12, 2009 vol xliv no 50 EPW Economic & Political Weekly PERSPECTIVE g overnance which I have described in reject industrialisation; Gandhi made a gave was equally important and funda- Hind Swaraj.” He went on to add very critique in Hind Swaraj of the entire inte- mental. He said that to oppose modern signifi cantly, “If I were the only one left llectual scaffolding of modern civilisation civilisation in India through violence who believed in it, I would not be sorry”.6 – science, history, political and social would be to Europeanise India or to take The clarity of the exposition and Gandhi’s i nstitutions and so on. All that is asso- it along the path of modernity. Gandhi’s lifelong commitment to the ideas put ciated with modernity and modern civili- aim was exactly the opposite. Opposition forward in it have made one modern sation, Gandhi repudiated. to British rule would be non-violent. commentator describe the Hind Swaraj as G andhi gave a name to this form of “the point d’ appui of Gandhi’s moral and Alternative to Modern s truggle, s atyagraha. political thought”.7 Civilisation The term satyagraha has an interesting This might be the appropriate place to The alternative to modern civilisation thus origin. When Gandhi began his movement briefl y rehearse the views that Gandhi had to be located outside its domain and in South Africa, he fi rst used the term pas- presented in this text. In a preface to the among people who were untouched by sive resistance. As the struggle advanced Gujarati edition of Hind Swaraj written in modern civilisation and uninfl uenced by Gandhi found “passive resistance” to be 1914, Gandhi described himself as “an un- it. It was in this context that India, accord- inadequate to express the substance of his compromising enemy of the present day ing to Gandhi, was uniquely placed since movement. It also appeared to him civilisation in Europe”.8 It was this un- millions of Indians lived in the villages “shameful” that the Indian struggle should relenting hostility to European or western and were thus not tainted by modernity be known only by an English name. A civilisation that is manifest in Hind Swaraj. and its pernicious features. “Real or genu- small prize was, therefore, announced in He was referring to western/European ine civilisation”, in contrast to “what is Indian Opinion to be awarded to the reader civilisation when he used the words “what known as civilisation”, was to be found in who invented the best designation for the is known as civilisation”. Gandhi believed the villages of India. In the traditional vil- new struggle. Maganlal Gandhi suggest- that western civilisation was only one in lage world of India life was governed by a ed the word sadagraha meaning “fi rm- name. In the Hind Swaraj, he launched an common morality by which each member ness in a good cause”. Gandhi liked the attack on every aspect of western civilisa- performed his duty. This made it the exact word but as it did not fully represent the tion in order to prove how evil and how opposite of modern society whose mem- whole idea, he changed it to satyagraha, harmful it was. The text also contains bers chased their own self-interested and “the force which is born of truth and love Gandhi’s alternative to modern civili sation individualistic goals. He said in April 1945, or non-violence”.14 and a programme of action and behaviour “I know the European mind well enough that Indians must follow to make that to know that when it has to choose be- Satyagraha and Swaraj a lternative a reality. tween abstract justice and self-interest, it Gandhi linked satyagraha to swaraj in two Gandhi equated modern civilisation will plump for the latter.”10 The challenge ways. In the Gujarati version of Hind with the western one because the west to modern civilisation in India would have Swaraj, Gandhi used swaraj to denote was the principal site of all that is consid- to come from the people who lived in the both self-rule and self-government.15 ered modern. What he actually attacked villages, the peasantry.11 Swaraj was an ideal for the individual and was a particular form of western civilisa- How was this challenge to be arti- for the nation. To be a devotee of satya- tion, the one that emerged with the culated? Gandhi was emphatic that it graha, Gandhi said, an individual had to E nlightenment and the Industrial Revolu- would have to be non-violent. He gave two be capable of self-rule: “Swaraj has to be tion.
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