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furthering inequality and discrimination. Swaraj, without dislodging these institutions, would mean replacement of one class, race and mindset with another. In this sense, swaraj, in the psychological and intellectual sense, has failed to good measure because the institutions of inequality have remained intact.
Gandhi remarked, with his usual ironical connotations, in the prefatory part of his text that Hind Swaraj is so simple that 'it can be put into the hands of child' (Aurobindo 1908:14). The fact is that its simplicity is a facade, as it earned vituperative estimate for the views it had expressed. Shyamji Krishnavarma, whom Gandhi had met at the India House in London during the latter's visit, called him 'an admirer of Jesus Christ trying to put into practice 'the extreme Christian theory of suffering' (Parel 1997: Iviii). However true Krishnavarma's opinion might be regarding the influence of Jesus Christ on Gandhi, it was an implosion, not an explosion, of ingluence on him. Gandhi is to be credited with transforming Christ's love into a full-fledged way of life in more difficult times. Martin Luther King. Jr. also expressed this concept for all those who tried to understand Christ and Gandhi.
Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale..... If humanity is to progress, Gandhi is inescapable (Sharma 2007).
Further, Hind Swaraj emerged as the most fascinating site of contest between two eminent politicians of the period when its author was himself alive. It was a witness to the intriguingly interesting difference between Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru over the prospective project of modernisation of Hind (India) that would determine the nature and future of swaraj and Hind. The following excerpt from Nehru's letter to Gandhi (9 October 1945) shows the fault-lines of disagreement on the issue:
It is many years since I read Hind Swaraj. But even when I read it 20 years ago it seemed to me ઑક્ટોબર- ૨૦૧૮ પ્રબુદ્ધ જીવન : ગાંધી સાર્ધશતાબ્દી
completely unreal... It is 38 years since Hind Swaraj was written. The world has completely changed since then... consideration of these questions must keep present facts, forces and the human material we have today in view, otherwise it will be divorced from reality (Rudolph and Rudolph 2006:25).
It was a clash of two different perceptions of the world, and approaches to it. Gandhi was a spititualist and romanticist, whereas Nehru was materialist who dreamt of a new world in which science and technology had a pivotal role. Gandhi wanted development based on his order of values including justice, without distorting or destroying essential foundational strengths of the society and its constituent units. This urged him to see points of agreement even in the views of those who disagreed with him. Despite Nehru's rejection of Hind Swaraj as 'unreal' on the grounds mentioned earlier and its unsuitability to the ideology and methods of Congress, Gandhi, however, saw 'no great difference' between them with regard to their modes of thinking and understanding things.
The question arising in our mind is: If Gandhi could not make his political heir understand his mission of attaining swaraj of Hind, who else would? In fact, we strive to understand it because we are not Nehru. So, we can understand it. And even if we misunderstand it, we do not misunderstand it as much as Nehru didi.
Hind Swaraj contains ample substance to earn the labels of utopia and unrealism for it. But a utopia is a prerogative of distinguished souls like the Buddha, Mahavir, Christ and Mohammed who proposed new utopias in their discourses which are yet to be realised. William Shakespeare's Commonwealth, described in The Tempest, is a utopia, so is Gandhi's world. Hind or village. He was entitled to his vision of utopia as an individual. But no one conceded it to him, out of the fear that if they accepted it, the majority of India-other than this. minuscule minority- would have followed his words without caring for the consequences.
વિશેષાંક
સત્ય-અહિંસા-અપરિગ્રહ
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