Hind Swaraj

The Partition of Bengal (a division of a large Indian province into a majority Muslim east and a majority Hindu west) “may be considered to be the day of the partition of the British Empire” (10), for it raises hardships for Hindus there and inspires a yearning for independence. Polite petitions give way to determined confrontation, as “[t]he demand for the abrogation of the Partition is tantamount to a demand for Home Rule” (10).

The independence movement splits into two main factions, the slow-moving Moderates and the bold but impatient Extremists. Gandhi deplores this division but predicts “that such divisions will not last long” (11). 

Gandhi believes India is like a man waking from sleep and that the violent unrest caused by the Partition is a form of discontent, which is “a very useful thing” (11). Gandhi regrets the violence, however: “All these may be considered good signs but they may also lead to bad results” (12).  

For many Indians, Swaraj (self-rule) means retaining the advantages of the British, including their type of government and navy and so forth, but without the British rulers. Gandhi responds that such an India will not be truly free of English influence: “[Y]ou would make India English. And when it becomes English, it will be called not Hindustan but Englistan. This is not the Swaraj that I want” (13). 

For Gandhi, the British Parliament is not to be admired but rejected. A true parliament, whose members work without pay but only for the common good, would do much better than the present one. Its condition is “pitiable”: “the members are hypocritical and selfish. Each thinks of his own little interest. It is fear that is the guiding motive. What is done today may be undone tomorrow” (14). Parliament is “buffeted about like a prostitute,” and “Prime Ministers are known to have made Parliament do things merely for party advantage” (15). Prime Ministers have “neither real honesty nor a living conscience” (16).

As for the English people, “[t]hey take their cue from their newspapers which are often dishonest” (16) and pitch the news to help the party each paper supports. The result is a people who “change their views frequently” (16). They are patriotic, Gandhi concedes, “[b]ut that does not mean that the nation possesses every other virtue or that it should be imitated” (16). He believes the English are being “degraded and ruined day by day” by modern civilization (16). 

Civilization, says Gandhi, intoxicates us with its promise of improved “bodily welfare,” including better housing and clothing (17). At the same time, speedy travel merely allows ambitious men to “amass great wealth. This is called a sign of civilization” (17). Everything will be available at the push of a button: “Men will not need the use of their hands and feet” (18). Battles used to be fought one-on-one, but “now it is possible to take away thousands of lives by one man working behind a gun from a hill” (18).

Once free to work in the open air, people today swelter in mines and factories: “They are obliged to work, at the risk of their lives, at most dangerous occupations, for the sake of millionaires” (18). New diseases plague nations. People waste their energies in overeating. Leaders ignore religion or treat it like a “superstitious growth”; worse, “immorality is often taught in the name of morality” (19). Ironically, “[c]ivilization seeks to increase bodily comforts, and it fails miserably even in doing so” (19).

Europeans “appear to be half mad. They lack real physical strength or courage. They keep up their energy by intoxication. They can hardly be happy in solitude” (19). Women “slave away in factories […] This awful fact is one of the causes of the daily growing suffragette movement” (19).

Gandhi believes civilization will “be self-destroyed” and that the English “will cast off the evil” (19).

The English first arrive in India as traders. Indians, “tempted at the sight of their silver” (20), welcome them and buy their goods. When Indians fight among themselves, especially Hindus against Muslims, they ask for help from the well-armed English and soon join their ranks as soldiers. The English become powerful: “Hence it is truer to say that we gave India to the English than that India was lost” (21).

The English search for trade opportunities and use their military to protect the commerce, and because of this, Gandhi says that “[m]any problems can be solved by remembering that money is their God. Then it follows that we keep the English in India for our base self-interest” (21).