ABSTRACT
In the context of India’s freedom struggle, swaraj is both an ideal and a principle. As an ideal, it set the ideological tenor of a struggle against the British; as a principle, it provided the nationalists with a blueprint for an independent India. Swaraj was never conceptualized in its narrow meaning of ‘political independence’; instead, its wider connotation was constantly hammered out to highlight that it was qualitatively different from mere political independence. Given its Indian roots, swaraj was always preferred presumably because of its semantic familiarity among the participants in probably the most gigantic freedom struggle in the twentieth century. It was therefore easier for the nationalists to mobilize the masses despite the adverse consequences. So the importance of swaraj as an ideology stems from the fact that, not only did it bring together disparate masses politically, it also contributed to a worldview with an organic link to the Indian psyche. In other words, apart from its significance in political mobilization, swaraj also sought to articulate a whole range of moral issues, integrally linked with India’s freedom struggle, a struggle that was also unique both in its ideological character and articulation. So, it would be wrong to designate swaraj as a mere political mechanism that articulated the nationalist protest most effectively. Instead, it was also a device that sought to radically alter human nature by emphasizing its moral dimensions. Underlying this remains the distinctiveness of swaraj also instrumentalized by the nationalists during the course of the anti-British campaign in India. Swaraj is thus a history of the nationalist struggle with a clear impact on what the nation later became and also the language in which the nationalist protest was articulated. Politically meaningful and socially rejuvenating, swaraj was a unique experiment that stood out as a philosophical concept with a clear practical application. Although the role of the nationalist leadership was significant in conceptualizing swaraj, the context in which the idea gained ground was nonetheless important in its articulation. The aim of this chapter is therefore twofold: a) to identify the distinctive features of swaraj, which was never a mere political category in the historical context of India’s freedom struggle; and b) to draw out the philosophical basis of the idea of swaraj, an idea also enmeshed in a wider search for human freedom or
liberty. The Gandhian conceptualization of swaraj is illustrative of this, since it denotes not merely a system of governance but also epitomizes a quest for human freedom in its wider sense. While evolving swaraj as an integral part of the political freedom from the British rule, Gandhi drew on those nationalists who defined the concept contextually even before his arrival on the political scene. It would therefore be inappropriate to concentrate exclusively on Gandhi while dealing with this fundamental pillar of colonial nationalist thought since the Gandhian conceptualization also dwells on what was available then. This chapter has been structured accordingly. Simultaneously with focus on the context, the chapter also deals with those relevant conceptual issues organically linked with the conceptualization of swaraj and its articulation in an empirical context, namely, India’s freedom struggle; the other significant part of this chapter relates to those implicit ideas that appear to have influenced, if not shaped, the articulation of the idea of swaraj, underlining its wider connotation. In other words, in order to identify the complex and varied roots of Gandhian swaraj, the chapter pays attention to the historical context and also to the evolution of the idea of swaraj during the long history of the nationalist confrontation with the British.
