Question

Who wrote the book ‘Hind Swaraj’?
(A) Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru
(B) Moti Lal Nehru
(C) Mahatma Gandhi
(D) Subhash Chandra Bosh

Answer 1

Hint: Hind Swaraj was written in 1909. The book was banned in 1910 by the British government in India. The British government called it a seditious text as it contained personal views of the author on Swaraj, modern civilization, administration and other related topics.

Complete answer:
Hind swaraj is called Indian Home Rule in english. It was written by Mohandas Karamchandra Gandhi. Originally written in Gujarati it was translated to other languages, including French, later. Mahatma Gandhi was an Indian lawyer and nationalist who used the principle of non violence to fight against the British autocities over India.

In this book Mahatma Gandhi criticised the British Rule and argued that it is not reasonable for the Britishes to make India a British society and that the British should leave India for Indians so that the Indians can adopt their own way of living and tradition. India has always been a land of varied ethnicity and culture. For a country like India adopting any uniform way of living would not be plausible and unreasonable too. He also argued, in his book, that Indian independence is only possible through passive resistance. He opposed violence and said that the idea of complete independence should be and can be adopted using non-violence. He also said that India has to reject western civilization if it wants to be independent and stick to its own cultural and social identity promoting its own products, without which Indians will forever be ruled by the Britishers and thus never be able to attain independence from the rule which they disliked since ages (This was also the idea behind the Civil Disobedience Movement).

Mahatma Gandhi believed it was his duty to educate people of such an issue and therefore he has put forward his views in his book ‘Hind Swaraj’.

Additional information: The book was written while Mahatma Gandhi was travelling from London to South Africa. The book led to censorship because it strongly opposed the British Raj.

Hence, the correct answer is option C.

Note:
The British Raj was rule by the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent. It began in 1858 and lasted till 1947, till India attained freedom. It lasted for nearly 100 years. The rule is also known as the ‘Crown Rule in India’ or ‘Direct Rule in India’.