Response To Hind Swaraj Modern Civilization In India example essay topic

Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj as a moral response to what he perceived as the evils of modern civilization. It was written in answer to the Indian rebel's tactics of violence and its archetype in South African society. In responding to violence as a method of attaining swaraj or self-rule, Gandhi explains violence as rooted in modern civilization. He demonstrates that violence is for India, a direct result of the values promoted by modern civilization.

As long as modern civilization continued to shape India and its people, violence, he believed, would be the expected result. Therefore, in Hind Swaraj, he attempted to point out the dangerous elements of modern civilization that were leading to India's downfall. His critique of modern civilization focuses on certain aspects of modernity. He exposes the faults associated with each one and shows how they spoil the simple, more pure lifestyle of traditional Indian culture. Gandhi does more than simply reject the basic premises of modern civilization. He offers a concrete proposal for reordering society that promises to do away with the ills associated with modern civilization.

As has been pointed out earlier, the reason for Gandhi to write Hind Swaraj came in response to those who wanted to free India from the oppression of the British rule through violence. He claimed that freeing India by of violence only proliferated the way of life that Britain had established in their country. Modern civilization was a creation of English people, their institutions and their way of life. Gandhi argues that establishing an Indian-ruled modern civilization in India is equivalent to wanting "English rule without the Englishman" and having the "tiger's nature, but not the tiger".

It would be, in essence, making India English. Gandhi said that this would create an India where "it will be called not Hindustan but Englistan". Gandhi thought that if India copied England, she would be ruined. He believed that her ruination will come about because of the acceptance of modern civilization as a way of life. Gandhi was inspired by White Slaves of England: Being a True Picture of Certain Social Conditions in the Kingdom of England in the Year 1897, a book by Robert Harborough Sherard. In this book, Sherard discusses the inequalities that result from industrialized civilization.

These inequalities are a result of the selfishness in modern society. Drawing from these ideas, modern civilization, in Gandhi's opinion, places the pursuit of self-interest first in man's mind. With material prosperity as a goal, the individual focuses on acquiring as much riches as possible. This puts the pursuit of self-interest as a first priority in people's minds and creates a world which revolves around self-interest. But once the pursuit of self-interest is the highest priority in life, the pursuit of things like morality and spirituality become forgotten. Also, when the pursuit of self-interest becomes the central value, violence is a natural consequence of modern civilization.

Because one's goal in life becomes to acquire more and more for oneself, modernity rewards a type of social Darwinism. That is why Gandhi describes modern civilization manifesting the maxims of "might is right" and "the survival of the fittest". Modern civilization based as it is on self-interest creates a breeding bed for violence. Hind Swaraj represents a moral condemnation of modern civilization. In writing Hind Swaraj, Gandhi sought to convince the Indian people that in order achieve real independence they must detach themselves from the modern civilization that Britain had established.