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Chapter 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hind Swaraj, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Passive Resistance and Indian Independence
Modern Civilization and Colonialism
The Personal and the Political
Indian Nationhood and Identity
Summary
Analysis
The reader explains that the editor is starting to convince him, and the editor replies that he has much more evidence to present. Modern civilization is like a hidden disease, whose dangers aren’t clear until it’s too late. In fact, the railways literally spread disease around India. They also lead people to sell their grain to centralized markets, which creates famines. And they help bandits and scammers reach pilgrimage sites, where they rip off true pilgrims. The reader suggests that the railways also help good people travel, but the editor replies that good always spreads more slowly than evil, just as building a house takes longer than destroying one.
Gandhi first criticizes the railways because they are often cited as a great English contribution to India and used to excuse centuries of slavery and theft. In reality, Gandhi points out, the English created railways to transport material resources out of India, and this disrupted the self-sufficient, sustainable local economies that used to exist all around India. The railways did create new markets, but this is exactly why they are reprehensible. For instance, the centralization of grain markets created vicious famines that killed tens of millions throughout the 19th century.
Themes
Next, the reader suggests that the railways are helping nationalism spread, but the editor believes that Indians actually thought of themselves as one nation until the English took over. India’s diverse people intermingled and made pilgrimages across the whole subcontinent, which they viewed as one unified land. The railways led them to see their differences, not their unity. The reader is intrigued but asks how the editor accounts for religious differences, especially between Hindus and Mahomedans (Muslims).
Gandhi’s idea that Indians are inherently unified as a result of some primordial shared past, is controversial and difficult to prove or disprove historically. But it’s easy to see how it makes it easier for Indians to view themselves as a unified nation moving forwards, as they fight for independence. When he argues that the railways have turned pilgrimages from a source of unity to a source of division, he appears to be specifically blaming their speed, which allows people to view others superficially in passing, rather than really interact with them and appreciate their shared humanity.
Themes
