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Mahatma Gandhi's Hind Swaraj . Edited by J. K. Bajaj and M. D. Srinivas . Chennai, India : Center for Policy Studies. 2011. 488 pp. Rs. 500 (cloth).
Book Reviews--South Asia
Hind Swaraj is Gandhi's seminal work, originally written in Gujarati during his return trip from England to South Africa in 1909. It was first published in 1909 in the Gujarati section of Indian Opinion, Gandhi's weekly in South Africa, and then in his own English rendering as Indian Home Rule by his press--The International Printing Press (Phoenix, South Africa)--in 1910. Through this work, which is in the form of a dialogue between a reader and the editor of a newspaper, Gandhi addressed the radical Indian expatriates whose views he opposed, members of the Indian National Congress, Indians, and the British. Through the voice of the editor, he articulated his ideas on civilization, self-rule, and the path for India's freedom from British rule. Major themes in Gandhian thought such as nonviolent political resistance and a critique of the modern civilization, elaborated in his later writings, appear here in a compressed form. This short treatise is seen as Gandhi's manifesto, a work in which he came closest to developing a political theory and...