Hind Swaraj and Swami Ramdev

[Nagarjuna]

Ram From: Ram <buddha....@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2011 00:31:13 -0700 (PDT)
Local: Thurs, Jun 2 2011 8:31 am
Subject: [Indian Reflections] Hind Swaraj times...

Interestingly, Baba Ramdev's demands letter submitted to the Prime
Minister (one of the versions that has appeared on-line) has a
reference to this small book written by Mahatma Gandhi in 1909.

In the Appendix submitted, it states:
3. To end foreign laws, customs and culture prevailing in the
independent Bharat so that every Indian can get economic and social
justice. We should follow Mahatma Gandhi’s book named Hind Swaraj
mentioning that after independence we need to remove British system
and
adopt Bhartiya system.

It is important to know that one of the fundamental disagreements
between Gandhi and Nehru was over the views Gandhiji expressed
regarding the future development and governance of India in the book
Hind Swaraj. Gandhiji time and again had reiterated that he stood by
what he said in this book written much before his arrival in India or
leading the Indian freedom struggle.

Some of the important differences are part of the
publication "Quintessential Gandhi" published by Samanvaya in 2005.
Later republished in English and Tamil by Kizhakku Padhippagam.

Here below are few excerpts that may be of interest and quite relevant
in the context of the on-going debate:

The key … is to realise that it [Hind Swaraj] is not an attempt to go
back to the so-called ignorant, dark ages. But it is an attempt to see
beauty in voluntary simplicity, poverty and slowness. … the modern
rage
for variety, for flying through the air, for multiplicity of wants,
etc., have no fascination for me. They deaden the inner being in us.
Therefore, even whilst I am travelling at the rate of 40 miles per
hour, I am conscious that it is a necessary evil, and that my best
work
is to be done in little Sevagram … and in the neighbouring villages to
which I can walk. But being a highly practical man I do not avoid
railway travelling or motoring for the mere sake of looking foolishly
consistent”.Harijan, October 14, 1939.
Gandhi's vision of Hind Swaraj was countered, however, b many,
including by one of his young close associates, Jawaharlal Nehru, as
early as 1928. Provoked by Gandhiji's letter (dated January 4th,
1928),
Nehru elucidated the reasons for his dissent as follows:
You know how intensely I have admired you and believe in you as a
leader who can lead this country to victory and freedom. I have done
so
in spite of the fact that I hardly agreed with anything that some of
your previous publications – Indian Home Rule, etc., - contained. I
felt and feel that you were and are infinitely greater than your
little
books… Reading many of your articles in Young India – your
autobiography, etc., - I have often felt how very different my ideals
were from yours. ”Letter from Jawaharlal Nehru, Allahabad, January 11,
1928.
"...You misjudge greatly, I think, the civilization of the West and
attach too great an importance to its many failings. You have stated
somewhere that India has nothing to learn from the West and that she
had reached a pinnacle of wisdom in the past. I certainly disagree
with
this viewpoint and I neither think that the so-called Ramaraj was very
good in the past, nor do I want it back. I think that western or
rather
industrial civilization is bound to conquer India, maybe with many
changes and adaptations, but none the less, in the main, based on
industrialism. You have criticized strongly the many obvious defects
of
industrialism and hardly paid any attention to its merits. .... It is
the opinion of most thinkers in the West that these defects are not
due
to industrialism as such but to the capitalist system which is based
on
exploitation of others”.Letter from Jawaharlal Nehru, Allahabad,
January 11, 1928.
Gandhiji seems to have been taken aback by such an outburst and wrote
to Nehru:The differences between you and me appear to me to be so vast
and radical that there seems to be no meeting ground between us…I
suggest a dignified way of unfurling your banner. Write to me a letter
for publication showing your differences. I will print it in Young
India and write a brief reply”.Gandhi to Jawaharlal Nehru, January 17,
1928.
But Nehru was not prepared to have a public discussion of his views.
Seventeen years later in 1945, similar differences relating to the
shape of indenendent India’s polity arose again between Gandhiji and
Jawaharlal Nehru. In Oct 1945, Gandhiji had said:You will not be able
to understand me if you think that I am talking about the villages of
today. My ideal village still exist only in my imagination. Men and
women will live in freedom, prepared to face the whole world. … Nobody
will be allowed to be idle or to wallow in luxury. Everyone will have
to do physical work. Granting all this … a number of things … will
have
to be organized on a large scale. Perhaps there will even be railways
and also post and telegraph offices. I do not know what things there
will not be. Nor am I bothered about it. If I can make sure of the
essential things, other things will follow in due course”.Gandhi to
Jawaharlal Nehru, October 5, 1945.
I believe that if India, and through India the world, is to achieve
real freedom, then sooner or later we shall have to go and live in the
villages - in huts, not in palaces. Millions of people can never live
in cities and palaces in comfort and peace. Nor can they do so by
killing one another, that is, by resorting to violence and untruth. I
have not the slightest doubt that, but for the pair, truth and
non-violence, mankind will be doomed. We can have the vision of that
truth and non-violence only in the simplicity of the villages”. -
Gandhi to Jawaharlal Nehru, October 5, 1945.
Nehru however demurred again as in 1928 and wrote:The question before
us is not one of truth versus untruth and non-violence versus
violence…I do not understand why a village should necessarily embody
truth and non-violence. A village, normally speaking, is backward
intellectually and culturally and no progress can be made from a
backward environment. Narrow-minded people are much more likely to be
untruthful and violent”.Nehru to Gandhi, October 1945
Indeed as freedm seemed imminent, the elite openly began to be drawn
to
modernity and its institutions.
Eighteen years later, however, when India had been launched on the
Western road by the British and the Indian elite, Jawaharlal Nehru
spoke in a somewhat sombre mood in September 1963, conceded:
My mind was trying to grapple with the problem of what to do with more
than 5,50,000 villages of India and the people who live there. …If we
were to think purely in terms of output, all the big and important
factories in India are not really so important as agriculture. ...what
Gandhiji did was fundamentally right. He was looking all the time at
the villages of India, at the most backward people in India in every
sense, and he devised something. It was not merely the spinning wheel;
that was only a symbol. He laid stress on village industries, which
again to the modern mind does not seem very much worthwhile.…People
think that he was against machinery. I don’t think he was against it.
He did not want machinery except in the context of the well-being of
the mass of our people. What he suggested – cottage industry - was
something which immediately benefitted the people, not only in regard
to employment but also in production”.Speech by Jawaharlal Nehru, to a
seminar on ‘Social Welfare in a Developing Economy’, New
Delhi,Septmeber 22, 1963.
In the Indian Parliament in December 1963 again he spoke:I begin to
think more and more of Mahatma Gandhi’s approach. It is odd that I am
mentioning his name in this connection. I am entirely an admirer of
the
modern machine, and I want the best machinery and the best technique,
but, taking things as they are in India, however rapidly we advance
towards the machine... the fact remains that large numbers of our
people are not touched by it and will not be for a considerable time.
Some other method has to be evolved that they become partners in
production, even though the production apparatus of theirs may not be
efficient as compared to modern technique, but we must use that, for
otherwise, it would be wasted. That idea has to be kept in mind. We
should think more of the very poor country men of ours and do
something
to improve their lot as quickly as we can. This problem is troubling
me
a great deal”.Reply to the Debate on Planning, Lok Sabha, December 11,
1963

--
Posted By Ram to Indian Reflections on 6/02/2011 01:01:00 PM
From: Nagarjuna <spnla...@googlemail.com>
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 2011 18:22:40 -0700 (PDT)
Local: Sun, Jun 5 2011 2:22 am
Subject: Re: Hind Swaraj times...
Dear Ram,
I have been following the formative influences on Baba Ramdev for some
time.
Before the unfortunate and tragic death of Shri Rajiv Dixit, I had an
occasion to quiz him on the late entry of Gandhian references in the
language of Swami Ji.
In fact Rajiv forced Swami Ji to read up Hind Swaraj seriously.
He pointed out - it required some massaging from him.
Swami Ji is not originally a Gandhian in any sense. He does have a
unique insight into the India that many of us Dharampal students feel
a loyalty towards.
The disruption of the Ramlila indefinite fast by the string pullers of
Congress dynastic ideologues, will surely be a moment in history of
India, no less than Gandhi's Tolstoy Farm experience, once the dust
has settled down.
I really hope and pray - it turns out as positive for the nation as
Gandhi's experience and maturing as a politician with a sure finger on
the pulse of India.
Regards,
Nagarjuna