The Essay - Home Rule for the Soul - Home Rule for the Soul

Professor Sunil Khilnani continues his exploration of the power of Gandhi's ideas of freedom for self and nation in his first major work, Hind Swaraj. Written in a frenzy in the autumn of 1909 when Gandhi was returning to South Africa, Hind Swaraj is a ferocious critique of modern civilization, revolution and violence. For Gandhi the self was the well spring of all political possibility. 'Politics encircles us today like the coil of a snake from which one cannot get out, no matter how much one tries'. His attempts to wrestle with the snake of politics, to reject the process of ends and means redefined the scope of political action.