Gandhi’s swaraj meant rejecting British ways, not just British rule

Evidence

Swaraj, literally ‘self-rule’, was the term used by the Congress party and other nationalist leaders to refer to the struggle for independence from British rule. The conservative leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak famously declared in 1899: “Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it!” However, it was Gandhi who popularised the term, especially with his manifesto-like Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (1909). According to Gandhi, “It is swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves.” … According to Lelyveld (2011, xiv), swaraj for Gandhi was bigger than the struggle for mere independence from British rule. “As used by Gandhi, poorna [complete] swaraj put the goal on yet a higher plane. At his most utopian, it was a goal not just for India but for each individual Indian; only then could it be poorna, or complete. It meant a sloughing not only of British rule but of British ways, a rejection of modern industrial society in favor of a bottom-up renewal of India, starting in its villages …” — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 1190

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows swaraj’s evolution from Tilak’s political birthright slogan to Gandhi’s utopian individual self-rule and rejection of industrial society.