
Reading Gandhi Reading - kwindla
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/reading-gandhi-reading/
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einhverfr
As an interesting note, my time in Indonesia introduced me to Sukarno's
writings, which introduced me to Gandhi's writings on nationalism. These have
been firm influences on my view that the choice is not between nationalism and
internationalism, but between nationalism with internationalism and globalism
with colonialism.

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yesenadam
Gandhi was one of the huge number of people influenced and inspired by G.K.
Chesterton. Gandhi read an essay of Chesterton's on Indian nationalism in
1909, which in part went:

"The principal weakness of Indian Nationalism seems to be that it is not very
Indian and not very national. It is all about Herbert Spencer and Heaven knows
what. What is the good of the Indian national spirit if it cannot protect its
people from Herbert Spencer? I am not fond of the philosophy of Buddhism; but
it is not so shallow as Spencer's philosophy; it has real ideas of its own.
One of the papers, I understand, is called the Indian Sociologist. What are
the young men of India doing that they allow such an animal as a sociologist
to pollute their ancient villages and poison their kindly homes?

When all is said, there is a national distinction between a people asking for
its own ancient life and a people asking for things that have been wholly
invented by somebody else. There is a difference between a conquered people
demanding its own institutions and the same people demanding the institutions
of the conqueror. Suppose an Indian said: "I heartily wish India had always
been free from white men and all their works. Every system has its sins: and
we prefer our own. There would have been dynastic wars; but I prefer dying in
battle to dying in hospital. There would have been despotism; but I prefer one
king whom I hardly ever see to a hundred kings regulating my diet and my
children. There would have been pestilence; but I would sooner die of the
plague than die of toil and vexation in order to avoid the plague. There would
have been religious differences dangerous to public peace; but I think
religion more important than peace. Life is very short; a man must live
somehow and die somewhere; the amount of bodily comfort a peasant gets under
your best Republic is not so much more than mine. If you do not like our sort
of spiritual comfort, we never asked you to. Go, and leave us with it."
Suppose an Indian said that, I should call him an Indian Nationalist, or, at
least, an authentic Indian, and I think it would be very hard to answer him.
But the Indian Nationalists whose works I have read simply say with ever-
increasing excitability, "Give me a ballot-box. Provide me with a Ministerial
dispatch-box. Hand me over the Lord Chancellor's wig. I have a natural right
to be Prime Minister. I have a heaven-born claim to introduce a Budget. My
soul is starved if I am excluded from the Editorship of the Daily Mail," or
words to that effect."[0]

On reading this, Gandhi "immediately translated it into Gujarati, and on the
basis of it he wrote his book _Hind Swaraj_ , his own first formulation of a
specifically "Indian" solution to his country’s problems. Thus you might
argue, not quite absurdly, that India owed its independence, or at least the
manner in which it came, to an article thrown off by Chesterton in half-an-
hour in a Fleet Street pub."[0]

"Gandhi read G. K. Chesterton's essay in the Illustrated London News on
September 18, advising young Indians to hold by their traditional culture
rather than introducing the new ideas associated with Herbert Spencer. Gandhi
was so delighted with this that he told Indian Opinion to reprint it. Gandhi
also liked a letter by Chesterton to the Daily News of October 22; Chesterton
preached a version of Ruskin's and Morris's enthusiasm for the culture of the
Middle Ages."[1]

[0]
[http://americanchestertonsociety.blogspot.com/2009/01/gandhi...](http://americanchestertonsociety.blogspot.com/2009/01/gandhi-
reference.html)

[1] Martin Green, _Gandhi: Voice of a New Age Revolution_ , 2009

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awadheshv
> It’s generally foolhardy to write about Gandhi.

and yet here you are.

