Hind Swaraj is Mahatma Gandhi's fundamental work. It is a key to understanding not only his life and thoughts but also the politics of South Asia in the first half of the twentieth century. Hind Swaraj is the seed from which the tree of Gandhian thought has grown to its full stature. For those interested in Gandhi's thought in a general way, it is the right place to start, for it is here that he presents his basic ideas in their proper relationship to one another. Dharma For Life, Gandhi felt that the time had come to redefine the scope of dharma to include notions of citizenship, equality, liberty, fraternity, and mutual assistance.
And in Hind Swaraj, he presents in simple language his notion of such a redefined dharma, the vision of a new Indian or Gandhian civic humanism, one that the Gita and the Ramayana had always contained in potentia, but something which Indian civilization had not actualized fully in practice. In Hind Swaraj, a conscious attempt is being made to actualize that potential. 'This is not a mere political book', he writes. 'I have used the language of politics, but I have really tried to offer a glimpse of dharma. What is the meaning of Hind Swaraj? It means the rule of dharma or Ramarajya'). 'We may read the Gita or the Ramayana or Hind Swaraj. But what we have to learn from them is a desire for the welfare of others.
On casual listening, the book may strike the listener as being a rather simple one. This would not be an unwarranted reaction, since Gandhi sought simplicity in all things, including the way he presented his ideas. But first impressions in this case can be, and are, deceptive, for the book contains in compressed form the author's conception of what modern India ought to become and how politics may be made into the highest form of the active life.
