Hind Swaraj is Mahatma Gandhi's fundamental work. It is a key to understanding not only his life and thought but also the politics of South Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. For the first time this volume presents the 1910 text of Hind Swaraj and includes Gandhi's own Preface and Foreword (not found in other editions) and anno- tations by the editor. In his Introduction, Anthony Parel sets the work in its historical and political contexts. He analyses the significance of Gandhi's experiences in England and South Africa, and examines the intellectual cross-currents from East and West that affected the formation of the mind and character of one of the twentieth century's truly outstanding figures. The second part of the volume contains some of Gandhi's other writings, including his correspondence with Tolstoy, Nehru and others. Short bibliographical synopses of prominent figures mentioned in the text and a chronology of important events are also included as aids to the reader. CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN MODERN POLITICS EDITORS John Dunn King's College, Cambridge Geoffrey Hawthorn Faculty of Social and Political Science, University of Cambridge Political aspirations in the twentieth century are usually expressed in the political languages of Western Europe and North America. In Latin America, Africa and Asia, however, in the movements of 'national liberation' from colonial rule, in the justification of new states, and in the opposition to such states, these aspirations have also drawn on other traditions, and invented new ones. Outside the West, the languages of modern politics and the ideas these languages embody are nowhere simple, and almost nowhere deriva- tively Western. But for students and scholars access to the relevant texts is not easy. Cambridge Texts in Modern Politics are intended to remedy this by providing editions in English (often for the first time) of texts which have been important in the politics of Latin America, Africa and Asia in the later nineteenth century and twentieth century, and which will continue in importance into the twenty-first. The editions will be authoritative and accessible, and can be used with confidence by students and teachers as a source. Each text will be edited by a specialist in the history and politics of the area concerned, whose introduction will explain its context, provenance and significance. Readers will also be provided with a chronology of events, brief biographies of relevant individuals and guides to further reading. CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN MODERN POLITICS M.K.GANDHI Hind Swaraj and other writings Portrait of Gandhi in London, 1909. Taken from Gandhi's Collected works, volume ix (Navajivan Trust). M.K.GANDHI Hind Swaraj and other writings edited by ANTHONY J. PAREL University of Calgary, Canada CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paolo~, Delhi Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521574310 © in the editorial matter, Anthony J. Parel 1997 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1997 Thirteenth printing 2009 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948 [Selections. 1997] Hind swaraj and other writings / by M. K. Gandhi; edited by Anthony J. Parel. p. cm. - (Cambridge texts in modern politics) Includes index. ISBN 0 521 57405 6 (hardcover). — ISBN 0 521 57431 5 (pbk) 1. India - Politics and government - 1919-1947. 2. Nationalism - India. i. Gandhi, Mahatma, 1869-1948. Hinda Svaraja. English. ii. Parel, Anthony, m. Title. iv. Series. ds480.45.g242 1997 954.03'5- dc20 96-13035 cip ISBN 978-0-521-57405-1 hardback ISBN 978-0-521-57431-0 paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Information regarding prices, travel timetables and other factual information given in this work are correct at the time of first printing but Cambridge University Press does not guarantee the accuracy of such information thereafter. To Rolande Contents Acknowledgements [xi] Editor's introduction [xiii] A note on the history of the text [Ixiii} Principal events in Gandhi's life [Ixv] Biographical synopses [Ixixj Guide to further reading [Ixxv] Glossary and list of abbreviations [Ixxvij HIND SWARAJ [1] SUPPLEMENTARY WRITINGS [127] Gandhi's letter to H. S. L. Polak [129] Gandhi's letter to Lord Ampthill [133] Preface to Gandhi's edition of the English translation of Leo Tolstoy's Letter to a Hindoo [136] Gandhi-Tolstoy letters [138] Gandhi-Wybergh letters [139] Gandhi-Nehru letters [149] Economic development and moral development (1916) [156] Gandhi on machinery, 1919-47 [164] Constructive programme: its meaning and place (1941), 1945 [170] x * Contents Gandhi's 'Quit India' speech, 1942 [181] Gandhi's message to the nation issued before his arrest on 9 August 1942 [188] Gandhi's political vision: the Pyramid vs the Oceanic Circle (1946) [188] Draft Constitution of Congress, 1948 [191] Bibliography [194] Index [200] Acknowledgements In preparing this work for publication I have been very fortunate in receiving generous help from a number of colleagues from different parts of the world - Canada, India, Great Britain, the United States and South Africa - and it gives me great pleasure to express my gratitude to each of them. T. K. N. Unnithan first encouraged me to undertake this project; Christopher A. Bayly, Philip Charrier, Margaret Chatterjee, Dennis Dalton, James Hunt, Bhikhu Parekh and Anil Sethi read various versions of my introduction and notes and suggested ways of improving them. Jayshree Joshi, Nathubhai Joshi, Ramanbhai Modi and C. N. Patel spent many hours with me going over the Gujarati background of Gandhi and Hind Swaraj. Umesh Vyas very generously checked the references to the Gujarati text. Richard Bingle, Martin Moir and Edward Moulton helped me find valuable bibliographical data. Irene Joshi of the University of Washington Library found for me the Tolstoy-Taraknath Das material. Hasim Seedat of Durban put at my disposal his private Gandhi library. I am most grateful to the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute for a Senior Research Fellowship for the 1990 fall term and to the University of Calgary for a Killam Resident Fellowship for the 1992 winter term. A Visiting Fellowship at Clare Hall, Cambridge for the 1994 Lent and Easter terms helped me greatly in the final stages of this work. Carolyn Andres of the Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, has been very diligent in getting the typescript ready. My special thanks go to John Dunn and Geoffrey Hawthorn for inviting me to contribute to their series and for their editorial advice. John Haslam and Anne Dunbar-Nobes of Cambridge University Press have exercised mahatma-like patience and skill in getting this volume ready for publication. To them my sincere thanks. xii * Acknowledgements It is with great pleasure that I thank the Navajivan Trust and the Nehru Trust for their permission to use materials under their control. Finally I thank my long-suffering wife Rolande who, Kasturba-like, endured cheerfully my absences from home on visits to India, South Africa and Cambridge. This work is dedicated to her in partial fulfilment of my family obligations and abiding love. Editor's introduction Hind Swaraj is Gandhi's seminal work. It is also a work which he himself translated from Gujarati into English: no other work of his, not even the Autobiography (translated by his secretary), enjoys this distinction. As such, the English text of this work, which is being presented here, possesses an authority all of its own. It was this text that Tolstoy and Romain Rolland, Nehru and Rajaji read and commented upon. It was through this, not the Gujarati text, that he hoped, as he put it, 'to use the British race' for transmitting his 'mighty message of ahimsa' to the rest of the world (Watson 1969, 176). And it was to this text that he returned throughout his career as if to the source of his inspiration. Hind Swaraj is the seed from which the tree of Gandhian thought has grown to its full stature. For those interested in Gandhi's thought in a general way, it is the right place to start, for it is here that he presents his basic ideas in their proper relationship to one another. And for those who wish to study his thought more methodically, it remains the norm by which to assess the theoretical significance of his other writings, including the Autobiography. It can also save them from the danger of otherwise getting drowned in the vast sea of Gandhian anthologies. No wonder that it has been called 'a very basic document for the study of Gandhi's thought' (M. Chatterjee 1983, 89), his 'confession of faith' (Nanda 1974, 66), 'a rather incendiary manifesto' (Erikson 1969, 217), 'a proclamation of ideological independence' (Dalton 1993, 16), and 'the nearest he came to producing a sustained work of political theory' (Brown 1989, 65). It has been compared to such diverse works as Rousseau's Social Contract (Heard 1938, 450), the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola (Catlin 1950, 215), and chapter IV of St Matthew or St Luke {The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (hereafter cited as CW) 10: viii).