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Hind Swaraj is probably not the right place to start an exploration of Gandhi’s ideas. In the Cambridge edition, Anthony Parel warns the reader against the ‘vast sea of Gandhian anthologies’, but it is to these anthologies that those who wish to properly appreciate Gandhi must necessarily turn. The more thoughtful, the more informed, and the more essential Gandhi are to be found in his articles, editorials, and letters of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, written as he came to more fully understand the people and practices of the country he was to lead to self-rule. The three selections from Gandhi’s writings that I would myself recommend are those made by Nirmal Kumar Bose, Raghavan Iyer , and Gopalkrishna Gandhi. Having read these compilations, one can then turn to Hind Swaraj, perhaps to admire its precocious defence of non-violence and religious pluralism, while puzzling over its silence on caste and its demonization of the West. (en) |
