The Simplicity of the Gandhian Discourse in Hind Swaraj (1909)

Tamer Söyler, Humboldt UniversityOrganon model, simplicity was the key feature of Gandhi'scommunicative success. Gandhi launched a politicalcampaign and assured its comprehensibility by thissimplicity. Many questions can follow this conclusion: Howsimple were Gandhi’s arguments really? What do we meanby simplicity? Are we suggesting that masses could engagewith the political system through only simplearguments?...etc. Whatever the answers to these questionswould be, it should be a contradiction in itself to argue thatas a mass leader Gandhi was successful, as a theoretician afailure (Dadhich, 1993, p. 56). 1 This elitist view would implythat Gandhi was incompetent at best and reactionary atworst. This is to separate the simplicity of the Gandhiandiscourse from Gandhi’s role as a mass leader. Logically, thisis a mistake for two reasons. First, if Gandhi had a ‘failure’,his failure cannot be separated from his success as theGandhian thought and the Indian Independence movementare interrelated. Second, to imply indirectly that the massescould engage with the political system only through populistand sometimes reactionary discourses is anti-democraticand reactionary itself. Perhaps, then the Gandhian discoursewasn’t that simple after all. Or maybe, there is nothingcomplex about the truth and therefore it is simple. Gandhiwas perhaps of the latter opinion.“I am aware that I am repeating what I have manytimes stated before and practised to the best of myability and capacity. What I first stated was itselfnothing new. It was old as the hills. Only I recited nocopy-book maxim but definitely announced what Ibelieved in every fibre of my being. Sixty years ofpractice in various walks of life has only enriched thebelief which experience of friends had fortified. It ishowever the central truth by which one can standalone without flinching. I believe in what Max Mullersaid years ago, namely, that truth needed to be1 Here, by claiming Gandhi was successful as a theoretician, I am referringto the areas that he had speculated on which were related with the IndianIndependence movement. Especially the political sphere. I cannot and Iam not claiming that Gandhi’s theoretical success is valid for all spheres(i.e. Gandhian economics).941