Hind Swaraj (1909), chapter XX
Self-Rule
In November 1909 Mahatma Gandhi was on the ship Kildonan Castle, sailing from London back to South Africa. He had spent four months in London trying to get rights for Indians in the Transvaal, and the British ministers had turned him down. While he was there, he met young Indian revolutionaries at India House. They told him that India could win freedom only through assassinations and bombs. Gandhiji disagreed with them. On the voyage home, between 13 and 22 November, he sat down to write an answer on ship stationery. He wrote so fast that when his right hand grew tired, he wrote with his left.
He wrote the book as a talk between a reader and an editor. The reader wanted to drive the British out of India but keep their army, courts, and railways. Gandhiji told him that this would simply be English rule without the Englishman. Replacing foreign rulers with local ones changes nothing if you keep the same methods. In chapter XX of Hind Swaraj, he gave his answer: "Real home-rule is self-rule or self-control." The word for home-rule was swaraj, which means self-rule. He argued that freedom begins with how a person governs their own conduct. If you cannot master your own anger, handing you power only changes the uniform of the master.
Therefore
Before you try to take charge of a group or fix a bad system, look at your own habits. You cannot build a free community with people who cannot master themselves.
Indian Opinion, December 1909
When Gandhiji landed in South Africa in December, he printed the text across two issues of Indian Opinion, his paper in South Africa. Then he issued it as a booklet. British officials took one look at it and panicked. In March 1910, the government of Bombay banned the Gujarati edition as sedition. They assumed the booklet would cause riots and rebellions. Instead of backing down, Gandhiji translated the text into English himself so that readers in London could see every word. The authorities expected an armed revolt that police could break. The English pages proved that Gandhiji was asking for personal discipline, which no police force could stop.
A small reminder, on the desk or the monitor, that changing the people in charge changes nothing if you do not first govern yourself.
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