Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hind Swaraj, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Passive Resistance and Indian Independence
Modern Civilization and Colonialism
The Personal and the Political
Indian Nationhood and Identity
Summary
Analysis
The reader is surprised to hear the editor say that quarreling parties should settle their differences by themselves, not in court. The editor accuses lawyers of supporting the English and worsening communal divisions. But the reader points out that lawyers have fought for independence, defended the poor, and supported the Indian National Congress. The editor agrees that many lawyers have done good, but argues that this is not because they are lawyers.
Gandhi’s criticism of lawyers is all the more striking because he was a lawyer himself. However, he separates his criticism of the profession from his firm belief that everybody can freely choose to act morally. Accordingly, even though the legal profession inhumanely pits lawyers’ self-interest against the self-interest of the community as a whole, lawyers can still choose to go against the grain and use their positions of power for good.
Themes
Generally, the editor argues, lawyers profit by making arguments longer and more vicious. Even though they don’t benefit society, they charge ridiculous fees, which the poor can’t afford. Lawyers have worsened Hindu-Muslim disputes and secured English domination in India. Now, Indians shamefully pay courts to resolve their problems, rather than doing it themselves. But without lawyers, there are no courts, and without courts, there is no English rule in India. If people shamed lawyers like they do prostitutes, then India would instantly become free.
Although he opposes the court system, Gandhi does not believe in lawlessness: rather, he believes that villages and similar small communities naturally govern themselves, but political institutions like the courts have usurped this power. As people increasingly rely on such institutions to hold one another accountable, his reasoning continues, they lose the ability to control and govern themselves. Of course, this ability is the same as self-rule, which Gandhi considers as the foundation of a truly independent political community.
Themes
