Introduction

The late 19th Century witnessed a growth of a national identity and cultural nationalism in India. The Indian National Congress was established in 1885; Swami Dayananda and Swami Vivekananda awoke India’s pride in its own identity. They espoused the ‘Vedas’ and the greatness of India’s past. The educated Indian middle class still felt inferior to the ‘white sahibs’. The partition of Bengal by the British shook up the Indians and writers such as Rabindranath Tagore were working to forge an Indian identity through their works such as ‘Swadeshi Samaj’. Tilak’s call for ‘Swaraj as my birthright’ consolidated the new mood of Indian nationalism particularly after the Ilbert Bill (1883).

Gandhi underlined the need to bridge the gulf between the cities and villages, educated and uneducated not under the colonial influence, but through the awakening and efforts of the Indian themselves. In ‘Hind Swaraj’ (1909) Gandhi propagated the spirit of ‘Swaraj’ using this word instead of the English word independence or freedom. According to Gandhi a collective effort was needed to build a nation with continuity of tradition, incorporating essential reforms and giving proper position to the concept of individualism. Gandhi said that Swaraj is an inclusive concept-political, economic, social and moral-emphasising on the utmost necessity of the human being to be as perfect as possible.

Swaraj

The concept of Swaraj has been given much importance in Gandhi’s spiritual, political, social and economic ideas and has been frequently espoused in his writings and speeches. He re-evaluated the meaning of Swaraj according to the times he lived in, and used the word, Swaraj, to reawaken the spirit of Indian people. According to him the word Swaraj was a sacred word, a Vedic word, meaning self-rule and self-restraint. Gandhi believed that national Swaraj could be achieved by the same means that were needed for attaining individual Swaraj. Gandhi believed that the methods of attaining individual Swaraj with national Swaraj were similar and complementary to each-other. Gandhi proclaimed that self-government depended entirely upon one’s internal strength, upon one’s ability to fight against all odds. He said that political self-government, that is, self-government for a large number of men and women, is no better than individual self-government, and, therefore, it is to be attained by precisely the same means that are required for individual self-government or self-rule.