Gandhi and Hind Swaraj

Understanding and Critiquing this very important text

Context
• Written 1908 while traveling between S. Africa and India
• Written as a conversation, a common rhetorical device
• Still based in South Africa, some important successes there, but very aware of
what’s going on in India
• 1905 Partition of Bengal. Split between Moderates and Extremists. Growth of
Revolutionary Protest, and Limitations of Elite Politics
• “Reader” an extremist, calling for SWARAJ: Home RULE, Gandhi himself is “Editor”
(Gandhi is author of BOTH positions, representing the extremists)
• SOME NAMES
• DADABHAI NAOROJI: “Grand Old Man” of Indian Nationalism
• Gopal Krishna GOKHALE: Reformer and Moderate Congressman
• Allan Octavian HUME: First President of INC
• William WEDDERBURN: Supporter of INC in Parliament, also member of INC, and
sympathizer
Swaraj (“swa”= self; “raj” = rule)
• Multivalent word, rule by oneself and rule OVER oneself
• “For” Swaraj, but for Gandhi Swaraj is not simply replacing English with Indian rule
• A larger notion of SWARAJ, a truly INDIAN Swaraj that Gandhi describes throughout
the rest of the book
• p. 27 Editor responds to Reader’s desire for Home Rule by saying that all the READER
wants is “English rule without Englishmen... make India English” but that what HE
wants is different
• In explaining THAT, is where Gandhi outlines a truly RADICAL step in the context of
nationalism in India (and colonized world)
• Rather than accepting that India needed to be MORE like the West, which had been
the IMPLICIT position (as he shows in this book) of nationalists: Gandhi calls
CIVILIZATION itself, western civilization, a DISEASE
• Rather than modernity as a source of LIBERATION, sees it as potentially ENSLAVING,
contrary to all MORALITY
• Read Ch. 6 very carefully
Radical implications of “Reform”
(“Sudharo”)
• What makes his position truly radical for his time AND ours, is that through this argument
he is able to REVERSE the implicit connection between CIVILIZATION and the WESTERN
model
• Hardiman: By transforming notion of “SUDHARO,” that in his time (as well as ours) often
taken to mean change which a change that makes the object MORE like the west
(Industry, Representative Government, Profit-maximizing Rational Individual, etc) Gandhi
uses SU-DHARO in its original ETYMOLOGICAL sense = GOOD CONDUCT, moral conduct
• Even for those who not agree with him entirely, via HS, Gandhi was able to make people
think critically about the values they considered civilized
• Critiques all aspects of modern civilization (singles out RAILWAY, DOCTORS, and LAWYERS
for attack) and blame them for spread of disease and enmity
• Restraint of passion, desires, wants. Not necessary to “progress,” to have MORE because
there is no end to it, and eventually immorality in pursuit of more
• True swaraj consists of ridding ourselves of the tyranny of the western civilizational ideal:
Once we do not accept the superiority of ideas and the institutions connected with this
civilization and stop interacting with them, we are free, the British CANNOT stay! BASIS of
Non Cooperation and Civil Disobedience
Hind Swaraj and Modernity
• Hind Swaraj often seen as a critique of modernity
• HARDIMAN says not a critique or rejection, but DIALOG with modernity
• HS is primarily a critique of the world which in Gandhi’s time represented by the English in
India, but as he repeatedly says he bears no ill-will towards the English, but does to the
civilization they bring
• Even here, as Hardiman points out, many changes over time. Not a complete rejection of
technology, but the SPIRIT with which it is used, not to MASTER nature, extract MORE from it
for our own luxury, but in HARMONY with it. Not anti science, e.g.
• This critique of modernity is POWERFUL, politically, because most people in India do not see
benefits, were not part of the deal with modernity (See Ch. 13, e.g.)
• Related to this is that Gandhi, through this work and through SOME of his politics, brings in
and highlights a differentiated CLASS analysis of Indian society, and the elitist nature of
existing nationalism
• Critique of the westernized nationalist leadership. Brings PEOPLE in, in his ideas as well as
through POLITICS. (See Ch. 16 on Princes e.g.)
• Gandhian Nationalism not simply about ENGLISH vs INDIAN, but for MASSES, not only
ELITES. This is a major departure in the context in which he is operating
Critiques of Hind Swaraj/Gandhi (Overview)
•Naturalizes the Nation (ahistorical)
•Gendered in Language and Politics
•Class and Caste, work to preserve status
quo
• Though the entire text written by Gandhi himself, he makes an
honest effort at raising objections to his own position, with the
advantage that he raises only the questions he can answer!
• What sort of questions would or could YOU raise? What sort of
questions do you think Gandhi would NOT be able to answer....?
Naturalizing the Nation
• Gandhi is able to see and criticize many of the ideas of progress and
civilization as derived from western sources, but refuses to acknowledge
that the idea of NATIONALISM too is a western import
• Despite the fact that India had seldom or only infrequently in its history
been organized as a nation state, Gandhi (see Ch. IX, pp. 39-40 e.g.) treats
“India” as something NATURAL (were the rebels of 1857 fighting for
“India”?)
• TRUE civilization, according to Gandhi, can be found in the ideas and
practices of India. Similarly, despite acknowledging that he draws on
some western thinkers in his critique of CIVILIZATION, Gandhi’s
nationalism leads him to repeatedly aver that the source of his criticism is
“traditional” and “Indian”
• For Gandhi, nationalism is too important to be something attributed to
the British, so the SOURCE of his critique has be to attributed to an
authentic and pre-British, INDIAN tradition
Nation and History
• The “golden age” of pre-British India that Gandhi draws up (eg on 53-54/55-56) not
only did not exist, but was actually first suggested by early British Orientalist
historians! A quick look at early chapters of your textbook will tell you that too!
• IS Gandhi being anti-historical? c.f. Hardiman, 32-38
• Or is his approach different? As Hardiman says, Gandhi does not valorize MYTH
OVER HISTORY, but rather ETHICS over a linear notion of history
• History as we know it, is the story of modernity and progress
• Rather than celebrate modern historicism (the story of where everyone is
progressing to same end, and whose stories will culminate in modern industrial
society, representative democracy, etc.), Gandhi wants to imagine a different
future, and for that he rejects the idea of a linear historicism
• Not so different then to our own times, when we are beginning to question the
DESIRABILITY of moving in that one direction, as well as recognizing the
IMPOSSIBILITY of everyone in the world with 2-8 cars etc.!!
Gandhi and Gendered Nationalism
• Gandhi’s masculinity/sexism
• Constant use of MANLINESS as a desirable trait, though these ideas not
necessarily MANLY eg in the way that colonial rulers would think of
manliness.... Courage, bravery etc, hardly exclusive to men, women
probably have greater ability to bear pain
• Yet when Gandhi talking about the ability to suffer, and bravery, he calls it
MANLINESS... Why? Product of his time?
• His gendered language, Parliament as Prostitute, as sterile woman, what
does that say to us?
• What do these factors tell us about the sort of NATION he is imagining,
and constructing ? What sort of position does he see for women in it?
This is one of the questions I have posed for you for your third discussion
Class Caste and Status Quo
• Conclusion of HS (Ch. XX) asks doctors & lawyers give up their practices, but not ask the
wealthy man to give up wealth. Hardly anything against merchants or moneylenders...
and certainly nothing against landlords or zamindars, although nothing positive about
them either! Was it because these were “traditional” occupations?
• Although traditional, still exploitative... so despite what he says in Ch. XVI (pg. 63), that
“by patriotism I mean the welfare of the whole people” he says nothing about THIS set
of economic relations between Indians and other Indians that was HINDERING the
welfare of the majority of the people
• Gandhi’s ideas, his politics, allowed for controlled mass movement: One thing that HS
reveals is that where SOCIAL and ECONOMIC relations WITHIN Indian society are
concerned, Gandhian politics could well imply the maintenance of STATUS QUO …. To
whose benefit does maintaining status quo work?
• Labor leaders had own critique. Lower caste groups their own. AMBEDKAR, someone
we will get to a little later in the course, articulated BOTH
• The largest “class” in India was peasantry. Reason for Gandhi being the political
phenomenon he was, was because of support of peasants. Yet worked as both
mobilizer and brake on peasant movements