Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule)

[In issuing this new edition of Hind Swaraj it may not be inappropriate to publish the following that I wrote in the Harijan in connection of the Hind Swaraj special number of the Aryan Path . Though Gandhiji's views as expressed in the first edition of Hind Swaraj have remained in substance unchanged, they have gone through a necessary evolution. My article copied below throws some light on this evolution. The proof copy of this edition has been revised by numerous friends to whom I am deeply indebted. AN IMPORTANT PUBLICATION Unique in its conception and beautifully successful in its execution is the Special Hind Swaraj ‘Number of the Aryan Path . It owes its appearance mainly to the devoted labours of that gifted sister Shrimati Sophia Wadia who sent copies of Hind Swaraj ( Indian Home Rule) to numerous friends abroad and incited the most prominent of them to express their views on the book*. She had herself devoted special articles to the book and seen in it the hope for future India, but she wanted the European thinkers and writers to say that it had in it the potency to help even Europe out of its chaos, and therefore she thought of this plan. The result is remarkable. The special number contains articles by Professor Soddy, G. D. H. Cole, C. Delisle Bums, John Middleton Murry, J. D. Beresford, Hugh Fausset* Claude Houghton, Gerald Heard and Irene Rathbone. Some of these are of cpurse well-known pacifists and socialists. One wonders what the number would have been like, if it had included in it articles by non^pacifist and non-socialist writers ! The articles are so arranged “ that adverse criticisms and objections raised in earlier articles are mostly answered in subsequent ones.” But there are one or two criticisms which have been made practically by all the writers, and it would be worth while considering them here. There are certain things which it would he well to recognize at once.