What is swaraj?

Ishaan Lal

Gandhi was by profession a lawyer of Gujarati extraction and a merchant by caste. As a figure in
philosophy, his philosophy, Gandhism, took 35 years to shape in the backdrop of the colonialist era.
Writing in the colonial backdrop, his writings were apparently aimed at demodernising/decolonizing
the discourse produced by the Western World, making them reactionary, at least and making Gandhi
one of the earliest proponents of the post-modernist and post-colonialist school. One of the key
components in Gandhian philosophy was the concept of swaraj, the inception of which is in the
nationalist movement. The earliest trace of this is in the book Hind Swaraj (1909) which according to
M. Chatterjee is the seedling of Gandhian thought.

Historically, the book was written in between 13-22 November 1909 when the idea of swaraj or
independence struck him for the first time during his voyage. The intensions of writing this book
were inner illumination, his expression of swaraj, reconciliation between Indian and Britons and the
like. The main and the only argument encapsulated in the book is his idea of swaraj which is an
offshoot of Gandhi’s notion of morality and critique of modernity.

According to Gandhi, modernity has its root in the Age of Enlightenment and more precisely in the
Industrial Revolution. It was in the backdrop of this that modernity, the force of evil, came into
being. In this time, the world was being absorbed into materialism and industries and machinery
were being the governing principles of society leading to capitalist search for maximizing profit,
exploitation, fast-paced unstable life was taking roots in society. However, Gandhi does not call
these ideas Western or European as he believes that there are pockets in Europe too which were in
consonance with their non-European counterparts. Also, naïve rationalism and statist nature was a
part of this. Gandhi was opposed to all this and argued that these are making humans inhuman with
dharma being taken over by artha and kama and also with eliminating the existent heterogeneity.

Opposed to this, Gandhi argued and gave solutions. The prominent of them being guided by an
updated dharma which keeps kama and artha in limits or control. Also, he argued almost like Marx
about a bourgeois state, the solution of which being giving up industrialization at all. Unlike his
religious nationalist fanatic counterparts and expatriate Indians, he being critical of modernity also
embraced its achievements and kept windows open for any positive modernist innovation. The
achievements being:

1. Scientific quest for enquiry

2. Overcoming and controlling nature
3. Creation of a civic social order

It was in harmony with these that Gandhian dharma or morality should prevail.

The Gandhian dharma being influenced by Rajchandra Mehta about morality being the soul force.
Also, he read the ancient Indian scriptures and reinterpreted them, but was of the view that it was
insignificant activity for Truth has no history of its own and is influenced by personal experiences and
cannot be found in scriptures. In conjunction to this, he also had some Western intellectual
influences. Henry David Thorean remained his constant source of inspiration for his philosophy. Also,
he was influenced by Plato’s Apology and based on this, he is called by A. Parel the Socrates of
Satyagraha. Leo Tolstoy too left his mark on Gandhi when it comes down to religious
reinterpretation (Sermon of the Mount) and non-violent strategies of resistance.
All these, combined in one, formed the basis of morality which everyone needs to practice, making it
the foundation of Gandhian Swaraj. He bifurcates swaraj into 2 parts: swaraj as self-rule and swaraj
as self-government. For self-government there needs to be self-rule in the form of looking into one’s
own self to liberate him/herself from kama, artha and all the evils of the society. This, in turn, will
lead to the self-government of the people. Gandhi had imbibed this in himself when he started to
see the people of India as a nation (praja). According to him, self-rule is a preclude to self-
government otherwise it will only be a replacement of White with Indians leading to the formation
of Englistan rather than Hindustan. Also, according to him, political life has the potential of becoming
the highest form of life, hence these values should trickle down into political life and sphere as well.

He argued along this line because he was in rejection of representative government. This was done
in 1920s-30s when Gandhi started seeing potentialities for India’s political swaraj too. In 1944, he
began reasserting the moral principles and made khadi the new philosophy. It symbolized the
opposition of modern industrialization, labor’s dignity and opposition of exploitation. By this he
looked beyond the boundaries of elitist, nationalist movement and appropriated the peasants in the
fold of nationalism. This is what has been called by Partha Chatterjee as the moment of manoeuvre.

Also, rooted in the moral interpretations is Gandhi’s Ramrajya. This is basically his personification in
Ram the idea of morality and swaraj. Furthermore, his swaraj called for back to the self-sufficient
village economy and society based on Henry Maine’s “The Villages of the West and the East”. This
however ignored the complex problems which India as a society had.

In a nutshell, the swaraj is the practical philosophy of morality which is based on universality of
ethics.