Mahatma Gandhi - Hind Swaraj and Other Writings

The centenary of Hind Swaraj and recent developments in Gandhi scholarship have prompted the issuing of a revised centenary edition. The discovery that Gandhi had made the theory of the canonical aims of life (, 2008). The Introduction to this edition takes due note of this. Supporting evidence from Gandhis writings has been added. They include the Introduction and Farewell to his Autobiography , the Introduction to his translation of the Bhagavad Gita and his Foreword to Gokhales Speeches . The GandhiNehru dialogue has been updated in view of the new materials that have come to light. Finally, new footnotes on such key topics as civilisation, technology and the place of the English language in India have been added. On the debit side, in the interest of keeping this edition within reasonable length, the GandhiWyberg letters and materials relating to Gandhis Quit India speech have been dropped.

In preparing this work for publication I have been very fortunate in receiving generous help from a number of colleagues from different parts of the world Canada, India, Great Britain, the United States and South Africa and it gives me great pleasure to express my gratitude to each of them. T. K. N. Unnithan first encouraged me to undertake this project; Christopher A. Bayly, Philip Charrier, Margaret Chatterjee, Dennis Dalton, James Hunt, Bhikhu Parekh and Anil Sethi read various versions of my introduction and notes and suggested ways of improving them. Jayshree Joshi, Nathubhai Joshi, Ramanbhai Modi and C. N. Patel spent many hours with me going over the Gujarati background of Gandhi and Hind Swaraj . Umesh Vyas very generously checked the references to the Gujarati text. Richard Bingle, Martin Moir and Edward Moulton helped me find valuable bibliographical data. Irene Joshi of the University of Washington Library found for me the TolstoyTaraknath Das material. Hasim Seedat of Durban put at my disposal his private Gandhi library.

I am most grateful to the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute for a Senior Research Fellowship for the 1990 fall term and to the University of Calgary for a Killam Resident Fellowship for the 1992 winter term. A Visiting Fellowship at Clare Hall, Cambridge, for the 1994 Lent and Easter terms helped me greatly in the final stages of this work. Carolyn Andres of the Department of Political Science, University of Calgary, has been very diligent in getting the typescript ready.

My special thanks go to John Dunn and Geoffrey Hawthorn for inviting me to contribute to their series and for their editorial advice.

John Haslam and Anne Dunbar-Nobes of Cambridge University Press have exercised mahatma-like patience and skill in getting this volume ready for publication. To them my sincere thanks.

It is with great pleasure that I thank the Navajivan Trust and the Nehru Trust for their permission to use materials under their control.

Finally I thank my long-suffering wife Rolande, who, Kasturba-like, endured cheerfully my absences from home on visits to India, South Africa and Cambridge. This work is dedicated to her in partial fulfilment of my family obligations and abiding love.