PERSPECTIVE their victims. He backs up his criticism of Interpreting Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj these professions in Hind Swaraj with a later suggestion for their nationalisation Rudolf C Heredia (CW, 68:97). Rationalist materialism: Technology is Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj is not rejection of the liberative contribution of but the expression of science, which in modern civilisation becomes an uncompro- modernity. Rather his effort can be interpreted as an attempt to mising rationalism. For Gandhi this is but integrate these positive elements with a liberating re-interpretation of a dangerously truncated humanism. His tradition. With his critique from within the tradition, Gandhi becomes incisive remark is much to the point: “Just the great synthesiser of contraries within and across traditions. as dirt is matter misplaced, reason misplaced is lunacy! I plead not for the suppression of Reason, but for a due GANDHI’s Hind Swaraj (HS) is surely a be overcome in our own consciousness recognition of that in us which sanctifies foundational text for any understanding of first [Nandy 1983:63]. Unless this ‘Intimate reason itself” (CW, 6:106). Certainly, the man and his mission. In dialogue with Enemy’ was exorcised and exiled, unless Gandhi is right in insisting on the un- the text in its context, with the author and we addressed this ‘Loss and Recovery of reasonableness of not setting any limits to among ourselves, we hope to locate the Self Under Colonialism’ (ibid), we would reason. text within it’s own horizon of meaning always be a people enslaved by one power More recently a post-modern world has and then interrogate it from within our or another, whether foreign or native. emphasised the aggressive and destructive own contemporary. For Gandhi’s text is Certainly, Gandhi would not want to march of this ‘age of reason’. However, “a proclamation of ideological indepen- exchange an external colonialism for an Gandhi would test his faith with his reason, dence” [Dalton 1993:16] he never com- internal one, a white sahib for a brown but he would not allow his reason to destroy promised, his “confession of the faith” one, or compensate the loss of ‘Hindustan’ his faith. What makes such technological [Nanda 1974:66] he never abandoned, “a with ‘Englistan’ (HS, Ch 4). rationalism even more destructive in rather incendiary manifesto” [Erikson British India colonialism was first Gandhi’s view, is its flawed materialism. 1969:217] to enkindle his revolution. No justified by a supposedly Christianising That is, the negation of the spiritual, the wonder it was banned by the colonial mission, but very soon this was articulated transcendent, or in other words, the denial government in 1910 for fear of sedition. in terms of a civilising one. In rejecting of a religious worldview. this modern civilisation, Gandhi is For Gandhi truth, was much more than I subverting the legitimacy of the colonial could be grasped by science or reason. For Gandhi’s Critique of the Modern enterprise at its core. For there could be him there was a reality beyond that West no colonialism without a civilising mission perceived by the senses. It is this trans- For Gandhi civilisation was by definition [Nandy 1983:11] since it could hardly be cendent reality that gave meaning and a moral enterprise: “Civilisation is that sustained in India by brute force. value to our present one. In this Gandhi mode of conduct which points out to man Industrial capitalism: Gandhi sees is very much in the mainstream of Hindu the path of duty” (HS, Ch 13). Hence it capitalism as the dynamic behind colonial tradition. Indeed, most religious traditions is the very basic ethos of this modern west imperialism. Lenin too had said as much, would be similarly sensitive to such a that Gandhi sets himself against. For he and like Marx, Gandhi’s rejection of transcendent world, even when it is not finds two unacceptable and unethical capitalism is based on a profound repug- perceived as wholly other-worldly. In a principles at its very core: ‘might is right’ nance to a system where profit is allowed more secular world today we may not be and the ‘survival of the fittest’. The first to degrade labour, where the machines are sympathetic to such a worldview. And yet legitimated the politics of power as valued more than humans, where auto- a materialism that is deterministic leaves expounded earlier by Machiaveli; the mation is preferred to humanism. no scope for human freedom and hope. second idealised the economics of self- It was this that moved Gandhi to his Gandhi emphasises this reaching out to a interest as proposed by Adam Smith. In somewhat hyperbolic claim: “Machinery beyond, that gives this freedom and hope the west “with rare exceptions, alternatives is the chief symbol of modern civilisation; its dynamism and a reach beyond its grasp. to western civilisation are always sought it represents a great sin” (HS, Ch 19). within its own basic thought system” [Saran However, by 1919 his views on machinery II 1980:681]. do begin to change right up to 1947, as Relevance of Gandhi’s Critique The three recurrent themes in Hind he gradually comes to concede some Today Swaraj which we will discuss here are: positive aspects like time and labour saving, Gandhi’s critique of modern civilisation colonial imperialism, industrial capitalism, even as he warns against the negative ones does overlook many of its strengths: its and rationalist materialism. of concentrating wealth and displacing scientific and critical spirit of inquiry: its Colonial imperialism: Gandhi cate- workers [Parel 1997:164-70]. He was human control over the natural world; its gorically insisted that “the English have acutely sensitive to how machinery can organisational capacity. Such achievement not taken India; we have given it to them. dehumanise and technology alienate, and would imply a certain ‘spiritual dimension’ They are not in India because of their he extends his critique to the professions that Gandhi seems to have missed [Parekh strength: but because we keep them” of medicine and law (HS, Chs 11, 12). 1997:35]. However, the focus of his criti- (HS, Ch 7). He was one of the earliest to The poor hardly benefit from these cism is modern civilisation of a specific realise that colonialism was something to professional services, though they are often period; his condemnation of colonialism Economic and Political Weekly June 12, 1999 1497 focuses on its imperialistic inspiration; his Moreover, the west is still the centre of now seems to have turned on itself with rejection of industrialism derives mostly our world for we have not the self-respect, the post-modern revolt. But this has thrown from its capitalist context; his apprehen- the self-reliance, the self-sufficiency to up its own irrationalities. It seems to have sions about rationality regard its truncation centre ourselves and so we condemn our- lost the liberating project that was implicit by materialism. selves to remain on the periphery of in modernity. For the kind of relativising However, once the real limitations of someone else’s centre. For the colonial and subjectivising of ethics that post- Gandhi’s critique are acknowledged, then masters had stripped our collective identity modernism has led to, undermines the we can better contextualise and interpret of any intrinsic dignity by denigrating us claims of any justice. For there can hardly his relevance for us today, whether this as a cowardly and passive people. Gandhi be any mutually accepted legitimacy to be with regard to politics in our neo- sought to reverse the damage to our arbitrate conflicting claims, when con- colonial world, or technologies in our post- collective psyche by his “redefinition of sensus irrevocably breaks down. So, might industrial times, or culture in our post- courage and effective resistance in terms becomes right, and the power its own modern age. These will now be some of of, or through non-violence” [Roy legitimation. the issues on which we must allow Gandhi 1986:185]. Gandhi’s trenchant critique of modernity to interrogate us. For “the kinds of questions The issue then of our identity as a nation was focused on modernist rationalism, but Gandhi asked nearly eight decades ago are and a people still remains to be resolved. it was equally opposed to a post-modern the ones which now face both the under- Such identities are only viable in a rejection of rationality. What Gandhi was developed and the post-industrial societies genuinely multicultural world. Gandhi’s pleading for is a richer concept of rationality caught up in a deep upsurge of confusion urging in this regard is certainly relevant and a meta-theory of rationalism [Parekh and disillusionment” [Sethi 1979:3]. today in our own society where the 1995:165-66]. He wanted to contain exces- Neo-colonialism: Gandhi’s rejection of propagation of a cultural nationalism is sive rationality within reasonable bounds the supposedly civilising mission of growing every day. Yet “nothing could be without an irrational revolt against reason colonialism brings into question the whole more anti-Indian than attempts to make an itself, but he would emphatically reject legitimacy of colonial rule, at a funda- ideology of Indianness and to fight, instead any forced choice between totalising mental ethical level. He would have India of incorporating or bypassing non- rationalism and relativising subjectivism. unlearn much that she has from the modern Indianness” [Nandy 1980:112]. west. For if Indians “would but revert to Post-industrialism: With the new III their own glorious civilisation, either technologies there was much hope for a Gandhi’s Affirmation of Indian the English would adopt the latter and new freedom from degrading and mono- Culture become Indianised or find their occupation tonous work.