ABSTRACT

Swaraj both as a concept and working principle played several crucial roles in our freedom struggle. On the one hand, it worked as a loadstar providing a continuous source of inspiration to the freedom fighters in their march towards the final goal of Indian independence. On the other hand, the idea of Swaraj also worked as a measuring rod to map out the extent of the journey covered towards freedom. This chapter attempts to examine Gandhi’s basic contributions to the idea of swaraj - how it enriched and expanded the political and cultural discourse going on during that period of our national life. Major contribution to the concept of swaraj by Gandhi lay in the distinction he made between ‘inner swaraj’ and the outer swaraj - making the quality of the latter contingent on former. Subsequently, he enriched his concept of swaraj in the course of the freedom struggle giving it more concrete form in his enunciation of the concept of Purna Swaraj. However, in the process, his idea of inner swaraj was put on the backburner under the contingent demand of freedom struggle.