by Alok Bajpai
“It is unjust to a writer to quote against him passages from his writings without reference to the context.”1
Here at the very outset I wish to state my vantage point about Hind Swaraj. It was not written by Gandhi as an independent philosophic text. He was a prolific writer. He wrote and spoke always with a context and according to the demands of the situation as he perceived them. All his writings have inevitable contexts and tearing any of them apart from their concrete settings will simply not do justice to understand the multifaceted, multidimensional and highly complex phenomenon called Gandhi. Hind Swaraj is no exception to this. Of course it is an important work but it is also not the swansong or most fundamental work, right place to start or similar sentiments expressed by scholars in recent times.
Gandhi has to his credit very important and crucial writings which shaped the future course of not only the Indian national movement but also the future of movements all over the world. While dealing with Hind Swaraj it must be kept in mind that it is not a programmatic statement or political action plan of Gandhi. Gandhi did not write it as a definitive work on the issues of the future model of independent India. It never found place in any of his political programmes or campaigns. Even in his indirect political activities of constructive programme and other social reform drives he never used Hind Swaraj as a help-tool or guide-book to propagate his ideas and vision.2
It is interesting to note that his antagonists and admirers both have been fascinated by the overtures of “no railways, no hospitals, no machinery, no army and no law-courts” over the years. During his lifetime Gandhi was also forced to reply to similar literal interpretations of Hind Swaraj. One detailed quote will suffice to clear the misunderstanding based on these slogans. In 1922, during the non-co-operation moment, the booklet was misquoted by some. He cleared the cobwebs in the clearest terms in his mouthpiece Young India. The propaganda leaflet against Gandhi contained a mocking question-answer:
“What would India be like when Gandhi-Raj comes?.... No Railways. No Hospitals. No Machinery. No Army and Navy will be wanted, because Gandhi will assure other nations that India would not interfere with them, and so they will not interfere with India!... No laws necessary, no courts necessary, because everyone will be law unto himself. Everybody will be free to do what he likes. It will be a very easy life, because everybody will have to go about in a khaddar langoti and sleep in the open….”
Gandhi in its reply wrote:
“I cannot say that this is an exaggeration. It is a clever caricature permissible in Western warfare. It is only suggestively false. Let me say what I mean.… Under swaraj nobody ever dreams, certainly I do not dream, of no railways, no hospitals, no machinery, no army and navy, no laws and no law-courts. On the contrary, there will be railways: only they will not be intended for military or the economic exploitation of India, but they will be used for promoting internal trade and will make the lives of third-class passengers fairly comfortable…. Nobody anticipates complete absence of diseases during swaraj: there will therefore certainly be hospitals…. Machinery there certainly will be in the shape of spinning-wheel, which is after all a delicate piece of machinery, but I have no doubt that several factories will grow up in India under swaraj intended for the benefit of the people, not as now for draining the masses dry…. Army of India of the future will not consist of hirelings to be utilised for keeping India under subjection and for depriving other nations of their liberty, but it would be largely cut down, will consist largely of volunteers and will be utilised for policing India…. There will be law and law-courts also under swaraj, but they will be custodians of the people's liberty, not—as they now are—instruments in the hands of a bureaucracy which has emasculated and is intent upon further emasculating a whole nation…. It is not right therefore to tear some ideas expressed in Indian Home Rule from their proper setting, caricature them and put them before the people as if I was preaching these ideas for anybody's acceptance....”3
During the non-co-operation movement Gandhi warned the readers of his journal and political activists against the thinking that he was anyway aiming at the swaraj described in Hind Swaraj and commented that it was not right to scare away people by reproducing from his writings passages that were irrelevant to the issues before the country.4 Even in his indirect political activities like constructive programme and other social reform drives, Hind Swaraj was never used as a help-tool or concrete guide-book to propagate his ideas and vision. In 1925 during his Bengal tour for Khadi propaganda, he was asked whether he proposed to replace the railways with country-carts as he expected to replace mills with wheels. Gandhi in reply wrote:
“It is remarkable how false or incomplete analogies deceive people. In the case in point, the difference between mills and railways on the one hand and wheels and country-carts on the other, is so obvious that the comparison should never have been made. But probably the friend thought I was against all machinery in every conceivable circumstance. Probably he had in mind my objections to railways stated in my Indian Home Rule though I have repeatedly said that I am not working out the different fundamental problems raised in that booklet….”5
On another occasion, while replying to objections in 1924, he wrote: “It must be remembered that it is not Indian Hole Rule depicted in that book that I am placing before India. I am placing before the nation parliamentary, i.e., democratic swaraj.”6
♦
So, whenever anyone tried to locate Gandhi in the company of anti-modernism, anti-industrialism and glorious past rhetoric, he dismissed the charge with enlightened means. For another example, in 1939, he retorted to an “estranged friend” who failed in following the rich humour behind the writing in which Gandhi exposed himself to ridicule by referring to Hind Swaraj and the beauty of slowness while himself travelling by train.
“The key to understand that incredibly simple (so simple as to be regarded foolish) booklet is to realise that it is not an attempt to go back to the so-called ignorant, dark ages. But it is an attempt to see beauty in voluntary simplicity, poverty and slowness.”7
On another occasion, in 1945, he sought to differentiate between ‘ideal' and ‘practice' to a distinguished fellow worker with reference to Hind Swaraj:
“I still abide by whatever I wrote about railways, etc., in Hind Swaraj. But that applies to an ideal state. It is possible that we may never reach that state. Let us not worry about it. It is for this reason that I have said that if we do not have railways and other such facilities, we should not feel unhappy. We should never make it our duty to multiply such facilities. At the same time we should also not make a duty of giving up these things. We should have a free and easy attitude in such matters. We must use these facilities as little as possible. There will be all types of people in our society. There certainly are today. We have to live with them. Non-attachment is the only proper dharma under these circumstances. The only thing we must be careful about is that we do not deceive ourselves. Your statement that trains, etc., should be shunned even as theft, adultery and falsehood is not correct. The important reason for this is that every society considers theft, etc., to be immoral. Trains, etc., have not been, nor need they be so considered. All that we may say is that we should not consider trains, etc., as means of enjoyment. I have repeatedly pointed out in my articles where to draw the line. Read them and if you give a little thought you will easily be able to draw the line.
Some small books have been written as an aid to the study of Das Kapital. Reading them would help.”8
In 1926, when two American correspondents asked Gandhi, ‘How can we get back to the ideal condition of things?', Gandhi replied in a reflective way:
“Not easily. It is an express moving at a terrific speed that we are in. We cannot all of a sudden jump out of it. We cannot go back to the ideal state all at a jump. We can look forward to reaching it some day.”9
The purpose of the long quotes given above is to argue that any generalisation about Gandhi on the basis of literal interpretation of Hind Swaraj is not the fair way to claim to understand him. In fact, he was fed up with those hardcore Gandhians who lacked the skill of using discriminatory knowledge to feel the essence of his utterances. He was very fond of referring to Emerson's famous line that ‘foolish consistency is the habit of smaller minds'.
The main plea of this Hind Swaraj-based understanding of Gandhi has been Gandhi's life-long adherence to Hind Swaraj. In our view this aspect has been un-historically given too much importance because Gandhi, in reality, never condemned or rejected any of his major writings or statements. He always held that his basic values had been the same throughout his life and the contradictions or differences were only apparent. Moreover, whenever any confusion occurred over his previous writings, Gandhi emphatically told the audience to rely more on his latest utterances. He did not say this due to any basic change of his ideas but rather in the hope that the latter statement would be more strategically fitting to the prevailing situation. As a matter of fact Gandhi disliked the way his writings were taken literally. He expected from fellow workers and comrades to understand his words in their real essence and not follow them blindly in a sheepish way. In fact his famous quote that all his writings should be buried was a reflection of his agony over the inability of his staunch followers to understand his complex and intricate insights.
Moreover, Hind Swaraj was written in 1909 and it was still the formative stage of Gandhi as far as India is concerned. He was yet to acquaint himself with the complex realities, priorities and aspirations of the Indian people. Though some glimpses of Gandhian politics may be found in Hind Swaraj, yet his technique of Satyagraha, formation of the Constructive Programme network, his tackling of sub-contra-dictions and their incorporation in the main contradiction and similar other comprehensions were yet to take shape.10
♦
For grasping the essence of his contention in Hind Swaraj, it will be pertinent to reflect over Gandhi's peculiar dialectic or discourse. While dealing with philosophic and transcendental issues Gandhi preferred to argue in ‘extremes' combined with complex and subtle notions. He argues to make a shift in his thinking paradigm for some purposeful ideological interventions. In these matters he contemplates on ideological struggles for constructive intervention in the action mode. But his ideological struggles are not for immediate actions corresponding to those ideas. Further, Gandhi enriches the content of ideological struggles with the existing mass consciousness and viewpoints of other positive trends in the prevailing society. In the context of Hind Swaraj, Gandhi argues about non-violence and truthfulness (both in public and private life) in extreme rhetoric to counter the arguments of the violent school. These arguments are not for any concrete political action or programme but only to disarm the proponents of violent ideologies. It is the argumentative and dialogic side of Gandhi. As a mass political leader Gandhi applied inclusiveness in his discourse. In this way he succeeded in transforming many violent revolutionaries into topmost non-violent soldiers in his non-violent army. Kakasaheb Kalelkar is one prominent example of this transformational technique.
The Gandhian discourse is highly self-introspective. Hind Swaraj is imbued with a deep sense of introspection combined with self-esteem. That is reflected in its extremist rhetoric. His style is dialogically argumentative which is meant to prove the fundamental point. He wrote in Hind Swaraj in a self-analytical mode:
“If I am in the habit of drinking Bhang and a seller thereof sells it to me, am I to blame him or myself? By blaming the seller shall I be able to avoid the habit? And if a particular retailer is driven away, will not another take his place? A true servant of India will have to go the root of the matter. It is ‘we' who are responsible for our bad fortunes; the enemy is only taking advantage of our self-created misfortunes.”11 Here, it is pertinent to point out that there is a difference between self-criticism coming out of depressed mindsets and the self-criticism which invokes constructive interventions in a grim situation. Gandhi's introspective tone does not culminate into an inferiority syndrome or meek acquiescence to the subjugated position. It culminates into constructive exploration and self-activity. That is why the Gandhian introspective rhetoric encourages concrete socio-political activism of the appropriate kind. He was very quick to recognise pseudo-arguments. In Hind Swaraj he retorts in the chapter ‘Truth Force':
“In this connection, academic questions such as whether a man may not lie in order to save a life, etc, arise, but these question occur only to those who wish to justify lying.”12
The Gandhian dialectic language is simple but the ideas it conveys are not always so. His ideas are highly contextual, complex and often subtle. Hind Swaraj was originally written in Gujarati; he acknowledged to its English readers the constraints of the language to convey the exact meanings. He wrote in the preface of the English version of Hind Swaraj:
“I am quite aware of the many imperfections in the original. The English rendering besides sharing these must naturally exaggerate them, owing to my inability to convey the exact meaning of the original…. Had I written for English readers in the first instance the subject would have been handled in a different manner.”13 Even his own Gujarati-speaking colleagues often got confused over the meaning and intentions of the words used in it. Clarifying the meaning of ‘civilisation' used in the booklet, Gandhi wrote:
“The Gujarati word generally used for ‘civilisation' means ‘a good way of life'. That is what I had meant to say. The sentence—‘The Gujarati equivalent for civilisation is sudharo'—is quite correct. But that is not what I intended to say.”14
To make my point clearer I refer to a Gandhi Seva Sangh meeting in 1937 in which Gandhi addressed many complex issues of radical politics within the democratic domain. The issue of contention was the content of the Manifesto of the Indian National Congress for contesting elections and Gandhi had a major role in drafting it. Gandhi took a decision that the Gandhi Seva Sangh should engage in elections. It evoked opposition in the minds of hardcore Gandhians like Kishorelal Mashruwala. They feared that Gandhi had been reversing the previous line of action of outright rejection of political power. Gandhi found the real point of difficulty in the minds of workers: it was basically their inability to grasp the dynamism of the Gandhian dialectic. A detailed quote will suffice the thinking mode of Gandhi which is insightful to understand a complex booklet like Hind Swaraj. He said:
“All this is being said with reference to the manifesto of the Congress. How can we consider the language of the manifesto? The manifesto is not that of Jawaharlal alone. Vallabhbhai, Rajendra Babu and I have our share in it. I have not forgotten it…. The practical part of that resolution has been drafted by me…. He (Jawaharlal) interprets the manifesto in one way, I in another. I see nothing wrong in it. The language is open to two different interpretations; of this there is no doubt. But a satyagrahi can use language which may be interpreted in two different ways. Truth, as I know it, does not demand that the words a satyagrahi utters should have only one meaning. What he says may have not two but several different meanings. The condition merely is that the meaning should not be hidden; words should not be used for deception and should be necessary [to convey the meaning]. The intention in using the language should not be to hide truth. When we frankly speak a language admitting two interpretations, we are not giving up truth. Sometimes it also happens that we intend only one meaning but those who hear us read two meanings in what we say. Here also truth is not violated…. The language of the servant of truth does not always yield only one meaning…. Last evening the language used was different but that is the way with language. Language acquires lucidity in the course of work. There is no doubt that harmony of thought, word and deed is the sign of truth. But ideas advance and language is left behind. I wondered why I was not able to convince Kishorelal. My language was vague. I listened to the discussion and my ideas became clear. But the language did not become clear. When I meditate after giving thought to a matter my language becomes clearer and clearer each day…. I speak the language of the Jains. They say that the rule should admit of no exception. This is also the language of geometry…. If what I have said has not satisfied you entirely, the reason can only be that I have not been able to couch my language in legalistic phraseology. But it is clearer than day before yesterday. My language is imperfect. The language of one who is himself imperfect must be imperfect, too. If after 17 years of explaining I have not been able to explain myself, then I am imperfect and so are you who cannot understand….”15
If Gandhi's writings, in this case Hind Swaraj, are read with the naïve approach of a puritanical literary mindset, its contents might easily be distorted to interpret Gandhi as a supra-human who is against the modern civilisation in its totality and whose destruction is his long cherished secret mission. In our view, this under-standing of Hind Swaraj and Gandhi is not historically appropriate or academically legitimate.
As I have argued in this paper, Hind Swaraj was not written by Gandhi as an independent philosophic text. Its vantage points are the concrete context of political understanding about India of those times. Gandhi was by instinct a very argumentative, compassionate and open-minded person. His main method of convincing people over his politics was through open, heart-to-heart discussions and dialogues. Even for his political opponents Gandhi used similar devices to change their hostile mindsets.
♦
Of course, Gandhi's sojourn in England in 1909 played a crucial role in writing Hind Swaraj. The murder of Curzon Willie and his intense interaction with many proponents of violent methods in politics, other revolutionaries provided Gandhi stimulation to systematically reply to the larger issues. To understand the historical background of it, some points needs to be emphasised.
(i) During his South African struggle, Gandhi experienced many faces of imperialism. He also sensed the duality of innocent-looking imperialist notions and harsh real practices. He saw the real face of the proponents of the theory of modernisation as well. All this forced him to reassess and critically examine the so-called notions of modern civilisation. He tried to evaluate and examine the main apparatuses of imperialism through which it got the hegemonic sanction of ruling over the minds and psyche of the subjugated masses. It is interesting to note that whenever Gandhi criticised modern civilisation he referred to its negative features. In 1929, he wrote to highlight its negative features:
“As for the Empire, wherever I turn I see lies, fraud, arrogance, tyranny, drunkenness, gambling, lechery, plunder by day and by night and Dyerism. All are sacrificed at its altar. Its benefits are only apparent. It lives for its trade, it will die in trying to safeguard it. None should misconstrue these strong words. The Western civilisation which passes for civilisation is disgusting to me. I have given a rough picture of it in Hind Swaraj. Time has brought no change in it. It is not my purpose even to imply that everything Western is bad. I have learnt a lot from the West. There are a number of pure and holy men there. I have many friends in the West. But what the Westerners worship under the name of civilisation is a golden vessel. I find that the questioner and others have been dazzled by its glitter.”16
(ii) During his struggle in South Africa, Gandhi sensed the crucial importance of organised political activities, systematic political moves; the complex question of mobilisation of masses and the need for enhancing their fighting spirits; influence-formation techniques; spreading self-awareness; role of sacrifice in weaving the social fabric through various activities, etc. All these worries find an echo in Hind Swaraj.
(iii) Gandhi's growing involvement in Indian affairs through academics and interaction with influential individuals also encouraged him to pen his views.
Thus, these above factors and his final England sojourn culminated in Hind Swaraj.
Gandhi himself contextualised Hind Swaraj by saying that during the England sojourn of four months he met and talked to various persons of different ideologies. Apart from British officials and British Parliament Members, it included expatriate Indians living there. At that time the revolutionary activities were meant only as individualistic violent activities. A lot of tacit sentimental support and high praise for individual violence was there among expatriate Indians. Gandhi found it amusing that they desired to throw out the British people from India through individual violence but they had no sincere objections to the exploitative structures established by the same British Government. Gandhi felt it was like our wanting British Rule minus the British people. Gandhi found a fundamental fault and double-standard in this type of thinking. He also sensed that they eluded the crucial necessity of introspection-oriented thinking and tried to hide their coward passivity through high-sounding emotive words. Gandhi found their criticism of the Indian National Congress also specious. With hindsight it is befitting to recall Gandhi's testimony of writing Hind Swaraj which he gave in 1940:
“You may not perhaps be knowing for whom I wrote Hind Swaraj. The person is no more and hence there is no harm in disclosing his name. I wrote the entire Hind Swaraj for my dear friend Dr Pranjivan Mehta. All the argument in the book is reproduced almost as it took place with him….”17
Gandhi did not use the word modernity to address the realities of contemporary modern world. He was a great political strategist and his dialectic was also strategic. He preferred the notions of modern civilisation to analyse the harsh facts which the colonial people of India were facing. It is important to note that while talking of modern civilisation he focused on the negative aspects of modern civilisation and he often made it synonymous with Western civilisation. Gandhi had being convinced till that time that the chief driving force of Western societies was imperialistic and its purpose for the colonised people the to exploit the wealth and other resources from the colonial land for the benefit of the West. His emphasis on the negative features of modern civilisation had one concrete context. He was aware of the fact that many Indian expatriates and other intellectuals and political persons were in the hypnotic grip of the all-pervading Westernised wisdom and its off-shoots which were not good for the welfare of humanity in general and for India in particular. London at that time was a great centre of that type of thinking. Most of the expatriates (who in present vocabulary maybe called NRIs) were patriots in spirit but their patriotism was constrained and limited due to their wrong political understanding. Two points need to be mentioned here:
1. Expatriate Indians were the votaries and supporters of individual violence-centred political action and often indulged themselves in sensational, individualistic, sentimental and opportunistic ways of thought. Tacit sentimental support and high praises for individual violence were there among expatriate Indians. As conveyed in the foregoing, Gandhi found it paradoxical that these patriots desired to expel the British people from India through individual violent acts but they had no basic opposition to the very exploitative structures established by the same British Government. Gandhi diagnosed a fundamental fault and doublespeak in this type of approach. He also sensed that they eluded the crucial importance of ‘introspection-based thinking'.
2. Their thinking was dominated by the so-called modernist achievements of the West and it prevented them from thinking independently on the core issues of the day. Their contradiction was that they hated British officials in the individualistic sense but loved the system designed by the same British officials. They also did not understand the real nature of colonialism. They wanted to copy the West without using their discriminatory faculty. During South African struggle Gandhi had realised and personally experienced many faces of imperialistic rhetoric. He also saw the real face of the proponents of the logic of modernisation. Through Hind Swaraj Gandhi tried to evaluate and examine the main apparatuses of imperialism by which it got the hegemonic sanction of ruling over the minds and psyche of both the intellectuals and subjugated masses.
♦
Gandhi himself was a historic product of the modern times and he had acquired his knowledge of contemporary society and its peculiarities within the parameters of modern political consciousness. The suggested reading-list given in Hind Swaraj is ample proof of Gandhi's concerns about India and the world. If we go through his writings and life-work we may easily find the essential modern vantage points in his comprehensive ideology. He was basically a revolutionary political leader in the domain of democratic consciousness who had to live and experience the imperialistic realities of a colonised nation. The very tools of colonialism were the Pax Britannica drives which often got legitimacy from the modernity-based currents. Gandhi understood this complex phenomenon that on the one hand India was to be modernised in the real sense, on the other it could not afford to be plundered by imperialistic structures for the sake of modernisation because that modernisation would culminate in and strengthen only the colonialisation of the Indian society. So like any vigilant leader he made a distinction between positive historical renaissance-inspired features of modern political consciousness and the negative imperialistic tendencies of exploitation of subjugated nations by the proponents of Western civilisation. So he made a critique of modern civilisation without accepting or rejecting it outright.
Gandhi's criticism of modern civilisation which he makes synonymous with Westernised notions has a concrete colonial context. India was witnessing a unique case of colonial exploitation in the name of modernisation of the country. Colonialism in India had created a massive and definite colonial structure which was being used to exploit and emasculate the real strength of the nation. Whenever he found an occasion to analyse the cultural and other tools of colonialism, Gandhi strongly criticised those apparatuses of it that were the main instruments for gaining hegemony over the Indian mind. But it should be kept in view that he did not reject its positive features in any way and in fact cherished the hope of inculcating those modern values which were of universal nature.
The Gandhi-Nehru correspondence is quite revealing as far as the essence of Hind Swaraj's modern consciousness is concerned. I must drive home the point that Nehru was Gandhi's chosen political heir. Nehru's dialect is less complex and more modern as far as university education-trained modern intelligentsia is concerned while the Gandhian dialectic is of a different genre. The Gandhi-Nehru differences of 1933 are well known. In that period he wrote to Nehru:
“I have no doubt that our goal can be no less than Complete Independence. I am also in whole agreement with you, when you say that without a material revision of the vested interests the condition of the masses cannot be changed.”
When Nehru asked him to clarify the political objective, Gandhi wrote it as easily as could be understood by everyone that that goal was set forth in his Hind Swaraj, ‘an exploitation-free society in which the supreme instrument of defending just rights lay within the grasp of the common unarmed individual'.
As another instance, in 1945 a discussion occurred in the highest leadership of Congress and in it Gandhi and Nehru had their shares. They both started discussion and correspondence. In it Gandhi referred to Hind Swaraj saying:
“I have not Hind Swaraj before me as I write. It is really better for me to draw the picture anew in my own words. And whether it is the same as I drew in Hind Swaraj or not is immaterial for both you and me. It is not necessary to prove the rightness of what I said then. It is essential only to know what I feel today,”
In it he elaborated his ideas about Swaraj. Nehru in reply rejected Hind Swaraj saying it was very old and unreal, and elaborated his views for the future cause about Independent India. Gandhi did not mind his condemnation of Hind Swaraj and endorsed Nehru's ideas in his typical manner. He wrote:
“The impression that I have gathered from yesterday's talk is that there is not much difference in our outlook. To test this I put down below the gist of what I have understood. Please correct me if there is any discrepancy.
“(1) The real question, according to you, is how to bring about man's highest intellectual, economic, political and moral development. I agree entirely.
“(2) In this there should be an equal right and opportunity for all.
“(3) In other words, there should be equality between the town-dwellers and the villagers in the standard of food and drink, clothing and other living conditions. In order to achieve this equality today people should be able to produce for themselves the necessaries of life, i.e. clothing, food-stuffs, dwelling and lighting and water.
“(4) Man is not born to live in isolation but is essentially a social animal independent and interdependent. No one can or should ride on another's back. If we try to work out the necessary conditions for such a life, we are forced to the conclusion that the unit of society should be a village, or call it a small and manageable group of people who would, in the ideal, be self-sufficient (in the matter of their vital requirements) as a unit and bound together in bonds of mutual co-operation and inter-dependence.”
The gist is that Gandhi was ever open for a constructive interpretation rather than betraying literal rigidity or a fixed mindset. For him, modernity-related discourse was not intended to be an intellectual pastime but meant as a constructive, well-organised strategic intervention whose vantage point could only be pro-poor, making a distinction between what is of permanent value and what is trivial in this highly complex world.
Footnotes1. Mahatma Gandhi, Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, (hereafter CWMG), Vol. 54, Harijan, 01-04-1933, p. 259.2. Please do not infer by my arguments that in any way I am trying to undermine the value of a classic of Gandhi and of course it, like any other classical work, may be legitimately interpreted in more than one way but to claim to understand Gandhi on the basis of sheer Hind Swaraj by making it a vantage point is not tenable. Anthony Parel's edited work on Hind Swaraj is the best representative of this latest trend.3. CWMG, Vol. 23, Young India, 09.03.1922, pp. 37-39.4. CWMG, Vol. 19, pp. 277-78.5. CWMG, Vol. 27, Young India, 28.05.1925, pp. 163-64.6. CWMG, Vol. 24, Young India, 14.08.1924, p. 5487. CWMG, Vol. 70, Harijan, 14.10.1939, pp. 241-43. In this article Gandhi said that Speed was not the aim of life and man sees more and more lives truly by walking to his duty. At the end of article he conceded that he was on a train to Simla.8. CWMG, Vol. 80, Letter To Krishnachandra, 14.06.1945, pp. 325-26. Interestingly, in this letter he advised him to read some books written as an aid to restudy Karl Marx's Das Capital because reading them would help.9. CWMG, Interview to Langeloth and Kelly, Young India, 21.01.1926, pp. 417-418.10. For example, about spinning wheel in Hind Swaraj he said in 1939: ‘I had not seen even a single spinning-wheel at the time. Not only this, I had even confused a loom with a spinning-wheel. That was exactly why I had mentioned the loom rather than the spinning-wheel in that book. (CWMG, Vol. 69, Speech at Gandhi Seva Sangh Meeting, Brindaban, 03.05.1939, p. 197) Also See, Mahatma Gandhi, An Autobiography, Part-V, Chapter 39, ‘The Birth of Khadi', p. 389; CWMG, Vol. 26, Speech at Bagasara, 02.04.1925, Navajivan, 19.04.1925, p. 458; CWMG, Vol. 68, Talk to Khudai Khidmatgars, 26.10.1938, p. 60; CWMG, Vol. 71, The Charkha, Harijan, 13.01.1940, p. 95.11. CWMG, Vol. 10, p. 22.12. CWMG, Vol. 10, p. 53.13. CWMG, Vol. 10, Indian Opinion, 02.04.1910, pp. 188-90.14. CWMG, Vol. 11, Letter To Jamnadas Gandhi, 28.08.1911, pp. 153-54.15. CWMG, Vol. 65, Speech at Gandhi Seva Sangh Meeting, Hudli-III, 20.04.1937, pp. 118-134.16. CWMG, The Suzerain And Vasslas, Navajivan, 28.04.1929, p. 300.17. CWMG, Vol. 71, Gandhi Seva Sangh Ke Chhate Adhiveshan Ka Vivran, Malikanda, 21.02.1940, p. 238.
The author is a former Fellow in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi.