E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi’s Pancha Mahavrat… 75‘Swaraj has to be experienced by each one of us forhimself. One drowning man will never save another. Slaveourselves, it would be mere pretension to think of freeingother’.The second argument advanced by him in thisconnection was that Swaraj amounts to a government of manyand if they are ‘immoral and selfish’, it would lead nothing but‘anarchy’. Hence, laying the foundation the for Swaraj in termsof ‘self-ruling’, individuals was of primary consideration. Andthat is why he identified Swaraj with Ramrajya – thesovereignty. Ramrajya for Gandhi meant the rule of dharma,rule of justice. And above all, it meant self-rule of an individualupon himself. He also identified it with a Biblical saying that‘the Kingdom of God is within you’.He was much mere concerned with the culturaldomination by the British and the mental slavery of the Indianelite. For him mental and cultural slavery was much worse thanmore physical slavery. And that is why he insisted on self-ruleof the individuals which once achieved would not onlysuccessfully demolish the political slavery, but would work asthe real foundation of the new social order, free fromdomination, oppression and exploitation. But he was notoblivious of the fact that for the ‘self-rule’ to be conceived andpracticed on a mass scale, would be needing a conducive sociopoliticoenvironment. Hence, the end of British was prerequisitefor the people to acquire and enjoy their freedom in itsfull dimensions. Not only that, his concept of Swaraj wasclosely linked-up with his concept of swadeshi. Swadeshi stoodfor empirical demonstration of what Swaraj tried toconceptualise at the ideational level.Gandhi visualised Swaraj as a multi splendored andmulti dimensional concept. His idea of Swaraj encompasses