Although Hind Swaraj is generally considered a political manifesto, Gandhi’s plan for Indian independence depends directly on his philosophy of individual discipline and moral transformation. In fact, he believes that politics is always personal because he sees individuals, families, and small communities as the source of a nation’s political life. Accordingly, Gandhi argues that effective social change has to come from the bottom up: people have to personally transform themselves and their ways of life in order to build more equitable and just relationships, communities, and nations.
Speaking as a character called the editor, Gandhi argues that Indians must spiritually transform themselves before India can become independent. In line with this, he stresses that the term Swaraj actually means both home-rule and self-rule. Self-rule really means autonomy, or an individual’s ability to govern their own actions and beliefs. So for a nation, Swaraj is a people ruling itself—which means democracy, or home-rule. In other words, a society achieves home-rule when all its members achieve self-rule. Just like “one drowning man will never save another,” he argues, “swaraj has to be experienced by each one for himself” before society as a whole can be truly free. What he means is that individuals must take control of their own lives to achieve Swaraj over themselves, and then they can apply what they learn in order to emancipate the nation as a whole.
Because self-rule and home-rule are so inextricably linked, Gandhi believes that personal transformation is the most important step that individuals can take in their fight for independence. At the end of Hind Swaraj, Gandhi outlines 19 steps that his readers should follow. For instance, he asks lawyers and doctors to quit their jobs and dedicate themselves to educating others, and he asks wealthy people to invest their money in hand-looms so that Indians can weave their own cloth and become economically independent from the British. Similarly, Gandhi believes that satyagraha (passive resistance) expresses the moral force of the universe, so he argues that Indians have to become morally virtuous before they can effectively make a case for political reform. Specifically, he argues that, before joining the independence movement, Indians have to first practice the key moral virtues of celibacy, courage, truthfulness, and an indifference to material wealth. In other words, unless Indians focus on personal transformation first, their efforts at political transformation will never succeed.
In fact, Gandhi’s political program is organized around his fundamental belief that that all politics is bottom-up. This means that individuals’ personal lives and practices are the driving force behind a nation’s political health and culture. It’s impossible to create a free society by merely switching out rulers and reforming institutions, Gandhi argues, particularly in a colonized country where the native population has virtually no power over their own land, livelihoods, or laws. Rather, he argues, Indians must take matters into their own hands to hold the government accountable and show that an alternative way of organizing society is possible. Gandhi thinks that, by helping people live morally, the Indian Independence Movement can give people true Swaraj even before India formally becomes independent. Essentially, rather petitioning the government for freedom, he believes that Indians should organize themselves and start living free lives on their own, and then demand that the political system reflect the new society they have already established. This is most clear in Gandhi’s call for swadeshi, the practice of boycotting British goods and exclusively buying Indian products. Because the primary motivation for English colonialism is the opportunity to profit by economically exploiting India, Indians can undermine Britain’s profit margins by refusing to sell to or buy from them. A mass boycott would form a separate economy outside the English’s reach, and an independent India can directly inherit this economy, rather than having to build a new one from scratch after the English withdraw. This shows how, by building a political movement from the bottom up, activists don’t have to wait for the powerful to make concessions: instead, they immediately start building the free, just, and equal society that they are fighting for.
Gandhi’s belief that politics reflects a society’s underlying moral values—rather than determining them—is still as widespread as it is controversial. However, its success in driving mass democratic movements throughout history is undeniable. In short, Gandhi reminds his readers that morality and democracy won’t establish themselves: instead, the future of our lives and our governments are always in our own hands.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Personal and the Political ThemeTracker
The Personal and the Political Quotes in Hind Swaraj
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.
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 seek justice will have to do justice to others. Sir 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 towards the goal.
This discontent is a very useful thing. So long as a man is contented with his present lot, so long is it difficult to persuade him to come out of it. Therefore it is that every reform must be preceded by discontent. We throw away things we have, only when we cease to like them. Such discontent has been produced among us after reading the great works of Indians and Englishmen. Discontent has led to unrest, and the latter has brought about many deaths, many imprisonments, many banishments. Such a state of things will still continue. It must be so. All these may be considered good signs, but they may also lead to bad results.
You have well drawn the picture. In effect it means this: that we want English rule without the Englishman. You want the tiger's nature, but not the tiger; that is to say, you 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.
The English have not taken India; we have given it to them. They are not in India because of their strength, but because we keep them.
Religion is dear to me, and my first complaint is that India is becoming irreligious. Here I am not thinking of the Hindu, the Mahomedan, or the Zoroastrian religion, but of that religion which underlies all religions. We are turning away from God. […] Hinduism, Islamism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity and all other religions teach that we should remain passive about worldly pursuits and active about godly pursuits, that we should set a limit to our worldly ambition, and that our religious ambition should be illimitable.
If two brothers want to live in peace, is it possible for a third party to separate them? If they were to listen to evil counsels, we would consider them to be foolish. Similarly, we Hindus and Mahomedans would have to blame our folly rather than the English, if we allowed them to put us asunder. A clay-pot would break through impact; if not with one stone, then with another. The way to save the pot is not to keep it away from the danger point, but to bake it so that no stone would break it. We have then to make our hearts of perfectly baked clay. Then we shall be steeled against all danger. This can be easily done by the Hindus. They are superior in numbers, they pretend that they are more educated, they are, therefore, better able to shield themselves from attack on their amicable relations with the Mahomedans.
Civilisation is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passions. So doing, we know ourselves. The Gujarati equivalent for civilisation means “good conduct.”
If we become free, India is free. And in this thought you have a definition of Swaraj. It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves.
By patriotism I mean the welfare of the whole people, and, if I could secure it at the hands of the English, I should bow down my head to them. If any Englishman dedicated his life to securing the freedom of India, resisting tyranny and serving the land, I should welcome that Englishman as an Indian.
Your belief that there is no connection between the means and the end is a great mistake. Through that mistake even men who have been considered religious have committed grievous crimes. Your reasoning is the same as saying that we can get a rose through planting a noxious weed.
Real rights are a result of performance of duty; these rights they have not obtained. We, therefore, have before us in England the farce of everybody wanting and insisting on his rights, nobody thinking of his duty. And, where everybody wants rights, who shall give them to whom?
Passive resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering; it is the reverse of resistance by arms. When I refuse to do a thing that is repugnant to my conscience, I use soul-force. For instance, the government of the day has passed a law which is applicable to me. I do not like it. If, by using violence, I force the government to repeal the law, I am employing what may be termed body-force. If I do not obey the law, and accept the penalty for its breach, I use soul-force. It involves sacrifice of self.
But a passive resister will say he will not obey a law that is against his conscience, even though he may be blown to pieces at the mouth of a cannon. What do you think? Wherein is courage required—in blowing others to pieces from behind a cannon or with a smiling face to approach a cannon and to be blown to pieces? Who is the true warrior—he who keeps death always as a bosom-friend or he who controls the death of others? Believe me that a man devoid of courage and manhood can never be a passive resister.
What, then, would you say to both the parties?
1. Real home-rule is self-rule or self-control.
2. The way to it is passive resistance: that is soul-force or love-force.
3. In order to exert this force, Swadeshi in every sense is necessary.
4. What we want to do should be done, not because we object to the English or that we want to retaliate, but because it is our duty to do so. Thus, supposing that the English remove the salt-tax, restore our money, give the highest posts to Indians, withdraw the English troops, we shall certainly not use their machine-made goods, nor use the English language, nor many of their industries. It is worth noting that these things are, in their nature, harmful; hence we do not want them. I bear no enmity towards the English, but I do towards their civilisation.
