The Simplicity of the Gandhian Discourse in Hind Swaraj (1909)

2009 is the 100th anniversary of Hind Swaraj.1 In thislittle booklet, Gandhi launched his critique of modernity andever since, Hind Swaraj has been treated as Gandhi’sseminal work.2 Gandhi attracted many scholars and there isa vast literature on Gandhi. For or against Gandhi, all agreeon at least one aspect of the Gandhian discourse in HindSwaraj: its simplicity. In the following paragraphs I will try tomake sense of this simplicity. The consensus amongst thescholars on the point that Hind Swaraj is a very simple texttends to disappear when it comes to interpreting this veryaspect. While according to some, Gandhi's message is simpleas he was a weak thinker with a reactionary mind -whichthey argue, reveals his medieval and mystical ideology-; forothers like Anthony Parel, such views are missing the pointthat it is very easy to misjudge the simplicity of Hind Swarajwith a casual reading (Mukherjee:1991; Parel:1997). Pareland his line of thought contend that since Gandhi soughtsimplicity in all things, unless the readers focus on thesubtle messages of the book, they will be unable to grasp thedeeper meaning of the text (1997: xvii). The literature is fullof similar views from both sides. Although those views havenuances, they share one thing in common. They tell us moreabout the authors than Gandhi himself. In this essay, I am not going to fall into a similar pattern and speculate on thenature of the simplicity of the Gandhian discourse but theimpacts of it.