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Gandhi's Hind and His Swaraj
Avadhesh Kumar Singh અંગ્રેજી ભાષા સાહિત્યના વિક્રમ યુનિવર્સિટી, ઉર્જન અને સૌરાષ્ટ્ર યુનિવર્સિટી, રાજકોટના વરિષ્ઠ અધ્યાપક. પૂર્વે આંબેડકર ઓપન યુનિવર્સિટીના કુલપતિ, હાલ શ્રી અરવિંદો યુનિવર્સિટીના કુલપતિ, વાચન, વિચાર, ચિંતનના શોખીન. ચિંતન-વિવેચનના અંગ્રેજી સામાયિકના સંપાદક. અનેક શોધપત્રો અને અભ્યાસગ્રંથોના લેખક અનેક પુરસ્કારોથી વિભૂષિત.
In Ganhdi's corpus of writing, every word of Indian social behaviour and political character of matters. However, three texts, My Experiments with Indians, in particular those who, in the postTruth, Satyagraha in South Africa and Hind Swaraj, independence era, have sanitised the stand out for showing the trajectory of his thoughts autobiography of unpleasant incidents and and their evolution at different stages in his life. misdeeds to create a false image of Gandhi. Satyagraha in South Africa (1928) deals with his Of the three, Hind Swaraj has emerged as one experiences and exposures at a level larger than of the most seminal texts by Gandhi and also among that of an individual, giving him an insight into the all texts written in the 20th century. It was writtern exploitation and racial discrimination of Indians against an impending pessimism that visionaries (Asians/ blacks) by the British (whites). Moreover, and artists had foreseen as a consequence of through these experiential insight, his strategies and colonisation, modernisation and economic order terminology of resistance evolved from resistance based on individual and national greed and to satyagraha (Soul Force) via active resistance exploitation. Its realistic assessment of the situation (including Thoreau's civil disobedience). passive and prophetic elements can be discerned from the resistance and sadagraha (insistence on virtue). He fact that just six years after its publication, humanity gave a new meaning to satyagraha against its literal saw the First World War and the ugly consequences meaning, i.e., 'insistence on/ for truth', by reverse of technology in the form of large-scale destruction translating it as 'Soul Force', 'Truth Force' or 'Love inflicted by modern warfare. A quarter century later, Force'. Gandhi advocated it in Hind Swaraj as the this was followed by an even more devastating means of attaining swaraj of Hind (India), to be Second World War. practised in the subsequent struggle for India's Hind Swaraj deals with most of Gandhi's central independence and discussed in My Experiments concepts and concerns like satya (truth), with Truth. This work is unique for its disarming satyagraha, Swaraj, Swadeshi and sarvodaya (the honesty in baring one's follies and weaknesses and progress of all). It problematises the then notions of thereby is unprecedented in modern Indian history. development, modernisation, education and In writing this, Ganhdi frustrated the indulgence of civilisation in particular, and by proposing their his followers in mythopoesis, and risked his status alternatives, it disturbs the intoxicated proponents as the leader of masses who would not have of modernisation in India and abroad even now, as accepted little moments of mortal weaknesses in it did, since its publication when it critiqued them. him. It however, proved that it was not just a moment Hind Swaraj can be baldly summarised by (in South Africa, moments that led to evolution of an taking recourse in Rajmohan Gandhi. ordinary mortal into, as the popular perception had At one level, Swaraj of self-rule must mean an it, the "Saint of Sabarmati' or the Mahatma). It stands individual's rule over himself or herself. At the in contrast to the hypocrisy that became the hallmark political level, it means home rule or self
ઑકટોબર- ૨૦૧૮) પ્રબુદ્ધ જીવન : ગાંધી સાર્ધશતાબ્દી વિશેષાંક
(સત્ય-અહિંસા-અપરિગ્રહ) (૧૧૭
