12/02/2023
In 1909, Mahatma Gandhi wrote his seminal work Hind Swaraj, one of Western civilisation’s fiercest critiques. Here is a glimpse from this work showing the deep distrust he had against the West (Gandhi 1909, pp. 54–56):
"The Indian civilisation tends to elevate the moral being, and that of the Western civilisation is to propagate immorality. The latter is godless, and the former is based on a belief in God. So, understanding and so believing, it behoves every lover of India to cling to the old Indian civilisation even as a child clings to the mother’s breast. India has evolved not to be beaten in the world. Nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestors. Rome went, Greece shared the same fate, the might of the Pharaohs was broken; Japan has become Westernised; of China, nothing can be said; but India is still, somehow, or other, sound at the foundation. The people of Europe learn their lessons from the writings of the men of Greece or Rome, which exist no longer in their former glory. In trying to learn from them, the Europeans imagined they would avoid Greece and Rome’s mistakes. Such is their pitiable condition. In the midst of all this, India remains immovable, and that is her glory. It is a charge against India that her people are so uncivilised, ignorant, and stolid that it is impossible to induce them to adopt any changes. It is a charge really against our merit. What we have tested and found faithful on the anvil of experience, we dare not change. Many thrust their advice upon India, and she remains steady. This is her beauty: it is the sheet anchor of our hope. Civilisation is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over our minds and our passions. So, doing, we know ourselves. The Gujarati equivalent for civilisation means ‘good conduct.’ If this definition is correct, as many writers have shown, India has nothing to learn from anybody else, and this is as it should be."
Imagine Gandhi wrote this at the peak of colonial times when India was at its bottom 😳 and the UK at its political height! His very first book, Hind Swaraj, had this quote! The book itself remains the most innovative in its format, an imaginary interlocutor Gandhi creates and debates in the entire book. The short book, less than 100 pages, became a Philosophical foundation for the next many decades for India and then Dr ML King, Nelson Mandela, and many others. It is meant to provoke, intrigue, argue, surely👍🏼.
Love or hate him, he is the most celebrated person today, with statues dedicated to him in every town worldwide, from Ludhiana to London, Wardha to Washington DC, and Ichalkaranji to Irving, Texas!
