PREFACE TO THE NEW' MOTION [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 nume- rous 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. Thus Professor Soddy remarks that, having just returned from a visit to India, he saw little outwardly to suggest that the doctrine inculcated in the book had attained any considerable measute of success. That is quite true. Equally 4 INDIAN HOME RULE true is Mr. G. D. H. Cole’s remark that though Gandhiji ii 44 as near as a man can be to Swaraj in a purely person^) sense,” 14 he has never solved, to his own satisfaction, the other problem — that of finding terms of collaboration that could span the gulf between man and man, between acting alone and helping others to act in accordance with their lights, which involves acting with them and as one of them — being at once one’s self and someone else, someone one’s self can and must regard and criticize and attempt to value.” Also as John Middleton Murry says, “ the efficacy of non- violence is quickly exhausted when used as a mere tech- nique of political pressure”, — when the question arises, ‘ Is non-violence fante de mieux, really non-violence at all? ’ But the whole process is one of endless evolution. In working for the end, man also works for perfecting the means. The principle of non-violence and love was enun- ciated by Buddha and Christ centuries ago. It has been applied through these centuries by individual people with success on small clear-cut issues. As it has been recognized, and as Gerald Heard has pointed out, “ the world-wide and age-long interest of Mr. Gandhi’s experiment lies in the fact that he has attempted to make the method work in what may be called the wholesale or national scale.” The diffi- culties of that application are obvious, but Gandhiji trusts that they are not insurmountable. The experiment seemed impossible in India in 1921 and had to be abandoned, but what was then impossible became possible in 1930. Even now the question often arises: 4 What is a non-violent means? ’ It will take long practice to standardize the mean- ing and content of this term. But the means thereof is self-purification and more self-purificetion. What Western thinkers often lose sight of is that the fundamental condition of non-violence is love, and pure unselfish love is impossible without unsullied purity of mind and body.
THE ATTACK ON MACHINERY AND CIVILIZATION What is a common feature of all the other appreciative reviews of the book is in the reviewers’ opinion Gandhi ji’s unwarranted condemnation of machinery. “He forgets, in the urgency of his vision,” says Middleton Murry, 44 that the very spinning wheel he loves is also a machine, and also unnatural. On his principles it should be abolished.”
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION 5 “ This,” says Prof. Delisle Bums, “ is a fundamental philo- sophical error. It implies that we are to regard as morally evil any instrument which may be misused. But even the spinning wheel is a machine; and spectacles on the nose are mere mechanisms for ‘bodily 1 eyesight. The plough is a machine; and the very earliest mechanisms for drawing water are themselves only the later survivals of perhaps ten thousand years of human effort to improve the lives of men...Any mechanism may be misused; but if it is, the moral evil is in the man who misuses it, not in the mechanism.” I must confess that in 14 the urgency of his vision ” Gandhiji has used rather crude language about machinery, which if he were revising the book he would himself alter. For I am sure Gandhiji would accept all the statements I have quoted here, and he has never attributed to mechanisms moral qualities which belong to the men who use them. Thus in 1924 he used language which is reminiscent of the two writers I have just quoted. I shall reproduce a dialogue that took place in Delhi. Replying to a question whether he was against all machinery, Gandhiji said: “ How can I be when I know that even this body is a most delicate piece of machinery? The spinning wheel is a machine; a little toothpick is a machine. What I object to is the craze for machinery, not machinery as such. The craze is for what they call labour-saving machinery. Men go on ‘ saving labour 1 till thousands are without work and thrown on the open streets to die of starvation. I want to save time and labour, not for a fraction of mankind but for all. I want the concentration of wealth, not in the hands of a few, but in the hands of all. Today machinery merely helps a few to ride on the backs of millions. The impetus behind it all is not the philanthropy to save labour, but greed. It is against this constitution of things that I am fighting with all my might...The supreme consideration is man. The machine should not tend to atrophy the limbs of.man. For instance, I would make intelligent exceptions. Take the case of the Singer’s Sewing Machine. It is one of the few useful things ever invented, and there is a romance about the device itself. ” “ But,” asked the questioner, “ there would have to be a factory for making these sewing machines, and it would have to contain power-driven machinery of ordinary type.”
6 INDIAN HOME RULE 44 Yes,” said Gandhiji, in reply. " But I am socialist enough to say that such factories should be nationalized, State- controlled...The saving of the labour of the individual should be the object, and not human greed the motive. Thus, for instance, I would welcome any day a machine to straighten crooked spindles. Not that blacksmiths will cease to make spindles; they will continue to provide spindles but when the spindle goes wrong every spinner will have a machine to get it straight. Therefore replace greed by love and everything will be all right. ” 44 But, 11 said the questioner, “ if you make an exception of the Singer’s Sewing Machine and your spindle, where would these exceptions end? ” 44 Just where they cease to help the individual and encroach upon his individuality. The machine should not be allowed to cripple the limbs of man.”
“ But, ideally, would you not rule out all machinery? When you except the sewing machine, you will have to make exceptions of the bicycle, the motor car, etc.”
44 No, I don’t,” he said, 44 because they do not satisfy any of the primary wants of man; for it is not the primary need of man to traverse distances with the rapidity of a motor car. The needle on the contrary happens to be an essential thing in life, a primary need. ” But he added: “ Ideally, I would rule out all machinery, even as I would reject this very body, which is not helpful to salvation, and seek the absolute liberation of the soul. From that point of view I would reject all machinery, but machines will remain because, like the body, they are inevi- table. The body itself, as I told you, is the purest piece of mechanism; but if it is a hindrance to the highest flights of the soul, it has to be rejected.”
I do not think any of the critics would be in funda- mental disagreement with this position. The machine is, like the body, useful if and only to the extent that it subserves the growth of the soul.
Similarly about Western civilization. Mr. G. D. H. Cole counters the proposition that 44 Western civilization is of sharp necessity at enmity with the human soul”: 44 1 say that the horrors of Spain and Abyssinia, the perpetual fear that hangs over us, the destitution in the midst of potential plenty, are defects, grave defects, of our Western civilization PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION 7 but are not of its very essence...I do not say that we shall mend this civilization of ours; but I do not believe it to be past mending. I do not believe that it rests upon a sheer denial of what is necessary to the human soul.” Quite so, and the defects Gandhiji pointed out were not inherent defects, but the defects of its tendencies, and Gandhiji’s ‘Object in the book was to contrast the tendencies of the Indian civilization with those of the Western. Gandhiji would wholly agree with G. D. H. Cole that Western civilization is not past mending, also that the West will need a “ Home Rule ” after the fashion of the West, and also conceived by “ leaders who are masters of themselves, as Gandhi is, but masters after our Western fashion, which is not his, or India’s.”
LIMITATIONS OF THE DOCTRINE G. D. H. Cole has put the following poser: “ Is it so when German and Italian airmen are massacring the Spanish people, when Japanese airmen are slaughtering thousands upon thousands in Chinese cities, when German armies have marched into Austria and are threatening to march into Czechoslovakia, when Abyssinia has been bloodily bombed into defeat? Until two years or so ago, I believed myself opposed to war and death- dealing violence under all circum- stances. But today, hating war, I would risk war to stop these horrors.” How acute is the struggle within himself is apparent from the sentences that follow: “ I would risk war; and yet, even now, that second self of mine shrinks back appalled at the thought of killing a man. Personally, I would much sooner die than kill. But may it not be my duty to try to kill rather than to die? Gandhi might answer that, no such dilemma could confront a man who had achieved his personal Swaraj. I do not claim to have achieved mine; but I am unconvinced that the dilemma would confront me, here and now in Western Europe, less disturbingly if I had.”
Occasions like those Mr. Cole has mentioned test one’s faith, but the answer has been given by Gandhiji more than once, though he has not completely achieved his Swaraj, for the simple reason that for him Swaraj is incomplete so long as his fellow-beings are bereft of it. But he lives in faith, and the faith in non-violence does not begin to shake at the mention of Italian or Japanese barbarities. For violence breeds the results of violence, and once you start the game 8 INDIAN HOME RULE there is no limit to be drawn. Philip Mumford in the WAR RESISTER has replied as follows to a Chinese friend urging action on behalf of China: “ Your enemy is the Japanese Government and not the Japanese peasants and soldiers — unfortunate and uneducated people who do not even know why they are being asked to fight. Yet, if you use ordinary mili- tary methods of defending your country, it is these guiltless people who are not your real enemies whom you must kill. If only China would try and preserve herself by the non-violent tactfcs used by Gandhiji in India, tactics which are indeed far more in accordance with the teachings of her great religious leaders, she would, I venture to say, be far more successful than she will by copying the militarist methods of Europe. *.. Surely it is a lesson to mankind in general that the Chinese, the most pacific people on earth, have preserved themselves and their civilization for a longer period in history than any of the warlike races. Please do not think we do not honour those gallant Chinese who are fighting in defence of their country. We honour their sacrifice and recognize that they hold different principles from ourselves. None the less, we believe that killing is evil in all circumstances and out of it good cannot come. Pacifism will not spare you from all suffering, but in the long run, it is, I believe, a more effective weapon against the would-be conqueror than all your fighting forces; and what is most important, it will keep alive the ideals of your race.”
Miss Irene Rathbone poses a similar question: “ What human being on this earth, normal or^ saintlike, can endure that small boys and girls should perish if, by bowing to the tyrant and denying his own conscience, he can save them? That question Gandhi does not answer. He does not even pose it...Christ is clearer...Here are his words: 4 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in me, it were better that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea...Christ is a greater help to us than Gandhi...” I do not think Christ’s words express anything more than his wrath, and the action suggested is not by way of punish- ment to be imposed by another on the offender, but one PREFACE 9 to be imposed on himself by himself. And is Miss Rathbone sure that she can, by using what she supposes to be Christs method, save the child? She is wrong in thinking that Gandhi ji has not posed the question. He has posed it and answered it emphatically, as it was posed and answered in action by those immortal Muslim martyrs 1300 years ago who suffered women and children to die of hunger and thirst rather than bow to the tyrant and deny their own conscience. For, in bowing to the tyrant and denying your own conscience, you encourage the tyrant to perpetrate further horrors.
But even Miss Irene Rathbone calls Hind Swaraj “ an enormously powerful book”, and says that by virtue of it she has found “ myself forced by its tremendous honesty to search my own honesty. I would implore people to read it.”
The Editors ©f the Aryan Path have done a distinct service to the cause of peace and non-violence by issuing their Hind Swaraj Special Number.
PREFACE When Lord Lothian was at Segaon he asked me if I could give him a copy of Hind Swaraj, for, as he said, all that Gandhiji was teaching now lay in the germ in that little book which deserved to be read and re-read in order to understand Gandhiji properly.
Curiously enough, about the same time, Shrimati Sophia Wadia was writing an article on the book exhorting all our Ministers and M. L. A.s, all the British and Indian Civil Servants, indeed every one who wanted the present non- violent experiment in democracy to succeed, to read and re-read the book. “ How can a non-violent man be a dictator in his own home? ” she asks. “ How can he be a wine- bibber? How can a lawyer advise his client to go to court and fight? The answers to all these questions raise highly important practical issues. The people’s education in Hind Swaraj, in which these problems are dealt with from the point of view of principles, should be extensively carried on.”
Her appeal is timely. The book was written in 1908, during Gandhiji’s return voyage from London, in answer to 10 INDIAN HOME RULE the Indian school of violence and published serially in the columns of the Indian Opinion, edited by Gandhiji. Then it was published in book form, to be proscribed by the Bombay Government. Gandhiji had translated the book for Mr. Kallenbach. In answer to the Bombay Government’s action, he published the English translation. When Gokhale saw the translation, on his visit to South Africa in 1912, he thought it so crude and hastily conceived that he prophesied that Gandhiji himself would destroy the book after spending a year in India. With deference to the memory of the great teacher, I may say that his prediction has failed to come true. In 1921, Gandhiji, writing about it, said: “ It teaches the gospel of love in place of that of hate. It replaces violence with self-sacrifice. It pits soul force against brute force. I withdraw nothing except one word of it, and that in deference to a lady friend. The booklet is a severe^ condemnation of * modem 1 civilization. It was written in 1908. My conviction is deeper today than ever But I would warn the reader against thinking that I am today aiming at the Swaraj dis- cribe d therein. I know that India is not ripe for it. It may seem an impertinence to say so. But such is my conviction. I am individually working for the self-rule pictured therein. But today my corporate activity is undoubtedly devoted to the attainment of Parliamentary Swaraj, in accordance with the wishes of the people of India.” Even in 1938 he would alter nothing in the book, except perhaps the language in some parts. It is being presented to the reader unabridged.
But whether India may be ripe for it or not, it is best for Indians to study the seminal book which contains the ultimate logical conclusion of the acceptance of the twin principles of Truth and Non-violence, and then-decide whether -these principles should be accepted or rejected. On being told that the book had been out of print for some time and that a few copies of its Madras edition were available at eight annas a copy, Gandhiji said that it should be published immediately at a nominal price, so that it may be within easy reach of those who may wish to read it. The Navajivan Publishing House is therefore publishing it at practically the cost price, j Wardha ’, Mahadev Desai A WORD OF EXPLANATION It is certainly my good fortune that this booklet of mine is receiving wide attention. The original is in Gujarati. It has a chequered career. It v?as first published in the columns of the Indian Opinion of South Africa. It was written in 1908 during my return voyage from London to South Africa in answer to the Indian school of violence and its prototype in South Africa. I came in contact with every known Indian anarchist in London. Their bravery impressed me, but I felt that their zeal was misguided. I felt that violence was no remedy for India’s ills, and that her civili- zation required the use of a different and higher weapon for self-protection. The Satyagraha of South Africa was still an infant hardly two years old. But it had developed sufficiently to permit me to write of it with some degree of confidence. What I wrote was so much appreciated that it was published as a booklet. It attracted some attention in India. The Bombay Government prohibited its circulation. I replied by publishing its translation. I thought that it was due to my English friends that they should know its contents.
In my opinion it is a book which can be put into the hands of a child. It teaches the gospel of love in place of that of hate. It replaces violence with self-sacrifice. It pits soul force against brute force. It has gone through several editions and I commend it to those who would care to read it. I withdraw nothing except one word of it, and that in deference to a lady friend.
The booklet is a severe condemnation of ‘ modern civili- zation’. It was written in 1908. My conviction is deeper today than ever. I feel that if India will.discard ‘ modern civilization’, she can only gain by doing so.
But I would warn the reader against thinking that I am today aiming at the Swaraj described therein. I know that India is not ripe for it. It may seem an impertinence to say so. But such is my conviction. I am individually working for the self-rule pictured therein. But to-day my corporate activity is undoubtedly devoted to the attainment of Parliamentary Swaraj in accordance with the wishes of the people of India. I am not aiming at destroying railways or'hospitals, though I would certainly welcome their natural destruction. Neither railways nor hospitals are a test of a high and pure civilization. At best they are a necessary evil. Neither adds, one inch to the moral stature of a nation. Nor ami aiming at a permanent 12 INDIAN HOME RULE destruction of law courts, much as I regard it as a ‘ consum- mation devoutly to be wished’. Still less am I trying to destroy all machinery and mills. It requires a higher simplicity and renunciation than the people are today prepared for.
The only part of the programme which is now being carried out is that of non-violence. But I regret to have to confess that even that is not being carried out in the spirit of the book. If it were, India would establish Swaraj in a day. If India adopted the doctrine of love as an active part of her religion and introduced it in her politics, Swaraj would descend upon India from heaven. But I am painfully aware that that event is far off as yet.
I offer these comments because I observe that much is being quoted from the booklet to discredit the present movement. I have even seen writings suggesting that I am playing a deep game, that I am using the present turmoil to foist my fads on India, and am making religious experiments at India’s expense. I can only answer that Satyagrahais made of sterner stuff. There is nothing reserved and nothing secret in it. A portion of the whole theory of life described in Hind Swaraj is undoubtedly being carried into practice. There is no danger attendant upon the whole of it being practised. But it is not right to scare away people by reproducing from my writings passages that are irrelevant to the issue before the country. Young India, January, 1921 M. K. GANDHI A MESSAGE A MESSAGE I welcome your advertising the principles in defence of which Hind Swaraj was written. The English edition is a translation of the original which was in Gujarati. I might change the language here and there, if I had to rewrite the booklet. But after the stormy thirty years through which I have since passed, I have seen nothing to make me alter the views expounded in it. Let the reader bear in mind that it is a faithful record of conversations I had with workers, one of whom was an avowed anarchist. He should also know that it stopped the rot that was about to set in among some Indians in South Africa. The reader may balance against this the opinion of a dear friend, who alas! is no more,, that it was the production of a fool.* * Reproduced from the Aryan path " Special Hind Swaraj Number” 1 published in September, 1938.
CHAPTER I THE CONGRESS AND ITS OFFICIALS READER: Just at present there is a Home Rule wave passing over India. All our countrymen appear to be pining for National Independence. A similar spirit pervades them even in South Africa. Indians seem to be eager to acquire rights. Will you explain your views in this matter?
EDITOR: You have put the question well, but the answer is not easy. One of the objects of a newspaper is to understand popular feeling and to give expression to it; another is to arouse among the people certain desirable sentiments; and the third is fearlessly to expose popular defects. The exercise of all these three functions is involved in answering your question. To a certain extent the people’s will has to be expressed; certain sentiments will need to be fostered, and defects will have to be brought to light. But, as you have asked the question, it is my duty to answer it.
READER: Do you then consider that a desire for Home] Rule has been created among us?
EDITOR: That desire gave rise to the National Congress. The choice of the word " National ” implies it.
READER: That, surely, is not the case. Young India seems to ignore the Congress. It is considered to be an instrument for perpetuating British Rule.
EDITOR: That opinion is not justified. Had not the Grand Old Man of India prepared the soil, our young men could not have even spoken about Home Rule. How can we forget what Mr, Hume has written, how he has lashed us into action, and with what effort he has awakened us, in order to achieve the objects of the Congress? Sir William Wedderburn has given his body, mind and money to the same cause. His writings are worthy of perusal to this day. Professor Gokhale in order to prepare the nation, embraced poverty and gave twenty years of his life. Even now, he is living in poverty. The late Justice Budruddin Tyebji was also one of those who, through the Congress, sowed the seed of Home Rule. Similarly, in Bengal, Madras, the Punjab and other places, there have been lovers of India and members of the Congress, both Indian and English.
14 INDIAN HOME RULE Reader: Stay, stay; you are going too far, you are straying away from my question. I have asked you about Home- or Self-Rule; you are discussing foreign rule. I do not desire to hear English names, and you are giving me such names. In these circumstances, I do not think we can ever meet. I shall be pleased if you will confine yourself to Home Rule. All other talk will not satisfy me.
EDITOR; You are impatient. I cannot afford to be likewise. If you will bear with me for a while, I think you will find that you will obtain what you want. Remember the old proverb that the tree does not grow in one day. The fact that you have checked me and that you do not want to hear about the well-wishers of India shows that, for you at any rate, Home Rule is yet far away. If we had many like you, we would never make any advance. This thought is worthy of your attention.
READER: It seems to me that you simply want to put me off by talking round and round. Those whom you consider to be well-wishers of India are not such in my estimation. Why, then, should I listen to your discourse on such people? What has he whom you consider to be the Father of the Nation done for it? He says that the English Governors will do justice and that we should co- operate with them.
EDITOR: I must tell you, with all gentleness, that it must be a matter of shame for us that you should speak about that great man in terms of disrespect. Just look at his work. He has dedicated his life to the service of India. We have learned what we know from him. It was the respected Dadabhai who taught us..that the English had sucked our life-blood. What does it matter that, today, his trust is still in the English nation? Is Dadabhai less to be honoured because, in the exuberance of youth, we are prepared to go a step furthur? Are we, on that account, wiser than he? It is a mark of wisdom not to kick away the very step from which we have risen higher. The removal of a step from a staircase brings down the whole of it. When, out of infancy, we grow into youth, we do not despise infancy, but, on the contrary, we recall with affection the days of our childhood. If, after many years of study, a teacher were to teach me something, and if I were to build a little more on the foundation laid by that teacher.
THE CONGRESS AND ITS OFFICIALS 15 I would not, on that account, be considered wiser than the teacher. He would always command my respect. Such is the case with the Grand Old Man of India. We must admit that he is the author of nationalism.
READER: You have spoken well. I can now understand that we must look upon Mr. Dadabhai with respect. With- out him and men like him, we should probably not have the spirit that fires us. How can the same be said of Professor Gokhale? He has constituted himself a great friend of the English; he says that we have to learn a great deal from them, that we have to learn their political wisdom, before we can talk of Home Rule. I am tired of reading his speeches.
EDITOR: If you are tired, it only betrays your impati- ence. We believe that those, who are discontented with the slowness of their parents and are angry because the parents would not run with their children, are considered disrespectful to their parents. Professor Gokhale occupies the place of a parent. What does it matter if he cannot run with us? A nation that is desirous of securing Home Rule cannot afford to despise its ancestors. We shall become useless, if we lack respect for our elders. Only men with 1 mature thoughts are capable of ruling themselves and not the hasty-tempered. Moreover, how many Indians were there like Professor Gokhale, when he gave himself to Indian education? I verily believe that whatever Professor Gokhale does, he does with pure motives and with a view to serving India. His devotion to the Motherland is so great that he would give his life for it, if necessary. Whatever he says is said not to flatter anyone but because he believes it to be true. We are bound, therefore, to entertain the highest regard for him.
READER: Are we, then, to follow him in every respect?
EDITOR: I never said any such thing. Jf we conscienti- ously differed from him, the learned Professor himself would advise us to follow the dictates of our conscience rather than him. Our chief purpose is not to decry his work, but to believe that he is infinitely greater than we are, and to feel assured that compared with his work for India, ours is infinitesimal. Several newspapers write disrespectfully of him. It is our duty to protest against such writings. We should consider men like Professor Gokhale to be the pillars INDIAN HOME RULE 16 of Home Rule. It is a bad habit to say that another man’s thoughts are bad and curs only are good and that those holding different views from ours are the enemies of the country.
READER: I now begin to understand somewhat your meaning. I shall have to think the matter over. But what you say about Mr. Hume and Sir William Wedderburn is beyond my comprehension.
Editor: The same rule holds good for the English as for the Indians. I can never subscribe to the statement that all Englishmen are bad. Many Englishmen desire Home Rule for India. That the English people are somewhat more selfish than others is true, but that does not prove that every Englishman is bad. We who see k justice will have to dcL.iuatice.tp othersjSir William does not wish ill to India,— that should be enough for us. As we proceed, you will see that, if we act justly, India will be sooner free. You will see, too, that if we shun every Englishman as an enemy, Home Rule will be delayed. But if we are just to them, we shall receive their support in our progress to- wards the goal.
Reader: All this seems to me at present to be simply nonsensical. English support and the obtaining of Home Rule are two contradictory things. How can the English people tolerate Home Rule for us? But I do not want you to decide this question for me just yet. To spend time over it is useless. When you have shown how we can have Home Rule, perhaps I shall understand your views. You have prejudiced me against you by discoursing on English help. I would, therefore, beseech you not to continue this subject.