Indian Home Rules Gandhiji

Author(s): Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Gandhiji
Publisher: Yann Forget

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HIND SWARAJ OR INDIAN HOME RULE
READER: What will you say to the nation? EDITOR: Who is the nation?
READER: For our purposes it is the nation that you and I have been thinking of, that is those of us who are affected by European civilization, and who are eager to have Home Rule.
EDITOR: To these I would say, “It is only those Indians who are imbued with real love who will be able to speak to the English in the above strain without being frightened, and only those can be said to be so imbued who conscientiously believe that Indian civilization is the best and that the European is a nine days wonder. Such ephemeral civilizations have often come and gone and will continue to do so. Those only can be considered to be so imbued who, having experienced the force of the soul within themselves, will not cower before brute-force, and will not, on any account, desire to use brute-force. Those only can be considered to have been so imbued who are intensely dissatisfied with the present pitiable condition, having already drunk the cup of poison.
"If there be only one such Indian, he will speak as above to the English and the English will have to listen to him.
"These are not demands, but they show our mental state. We shall get nothing by asking; we shall have to take what we want, and we need the requisite strength for the effort and that strength will be available to him only who will act thus:
1. He will only on rare occasions make use of the English language;
2. If a lawyer, he will give up his profession, and take up a handloom;
3. If a lawyer, he will devote his knowledge to enlightening both his people and the English;
4. If a lawyer, he will not meddle with the quarrels between parties but will give up the courts,
and from his experience induce the people to do likewise;
5. If a lawyer, he will refuse to be a judge, as he will give up his profession;
6. If a doctor, he will give up medicine, and understand that rather than mending bodies, he
should mend souls;
7. If a doctor, he will understand that no matter to what religion he belongs, it is better that
bodies remain diseased rather than that they are cured through the instrumentality of the diabolical vivisection that is practised in European schools of medicine;
8. Although a doctor, he will take up a hand-loom, and if any patients come to him, will
tell them the cause of their diseases, and will advise them to remove the cause rather than pamper them by giving useless drugs ; he will understand that if by not taking drugs, perchance the patient dies, the world will not come to grief and that he will have been really merciful to him;
9. Although a wealthy man, yet regardless of his wealth, he will speak out his mind and fear
no one;
10. If a wealthy man, he will devote his money to establishing hand-looms, and encourage
others to use hand-made goods by wearing them himself;
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