That is, is the title to be read as 'Self-rule for India'(Hind, a foreign Persian and Arab name for the country beyond the Indus, a colonial state ruled from outside, though Gandhi rejected both the idea of a 'state' and also foreign rule)... or as a more abstract and perhaps philosophical 'Indian version of autonomy' from individual up through (or 'out to') all the intersecting and nested groups which constitute 'Indian' society and identity?
"Hind" means India. "Swaraj" means self rule. "Hind Swaraj" Indian self rule. This movement was started by Mahatma Gandhi to attain freedom from British colonial rule.
Thanks... but that answer was already contained in my question...
Do you know Gujurati? Can the Hind in Hind Swaraj be nominal, or is it adjectival, or even ambiguous between the two forms? And again, why the exonym Hind rather than endonym Bharat?
Before independence (i.e, before 1947), Bharat was called as "Hind". Even today it called as Hind wherever convenient. After independence official name given to the country is "Bharat". Hind and Bharat both are nouns. In case of "Hind Swaraj" it was used as an adjective to emphasize the self rule model that was quite Indian.
Thanks again... but could you perhaps explain how it works in Gujurati for a noun to be 'used as an adjective'.. If it operates in the famous title as as adjective, why isn't there an adjectival suffix, as in Hind-i, Gujurat-i (Bharat-iya &c &c)?
Martin, In this case, the difference between Hindi and Gujarati does not matter. As Zafar explains above, 'Hind' was (and 'Hindustan' is) a common term for India before Urdu and Hindi became "nationalized" as Pakistan's or India's national languages. In both Hindi and Gujarati, Gandhi's idea of "Hind Swaraj" means the same thing : Self-rule by Indians or Indian self-rule.
Thanks Richa - but my question had two main elements: the grammatical structure of Hind Swaraj, and Gandhi's use of the exonym 'Hind' rather than the endonym 'Bharat'.
On the first question, I know Hind is a noun meaning 'India', or the country beginning with the Indus (if you're coming like a conqueror from the Northwest). But can it grammatically be nominal in Gandhi's title? That doesn't work in English grammar ('India [not Indian] Self-Rule'), and Gandhi's own translation was 'Indian Home Rule'. But if Hind can - or here must - be adjectival, then why isn't there an adjectival suffix as in Hindi language - or Hindu (person, philosophy)? As Swaraj begins with a consonant, there can't be an English-style elision of the suffix. But perhaps in Hindi/Gujarati it works that way?
The second question: why would Gandhi (of all people) use a term for India / Indian which derives from what various external colonizers called his country, given that he wanted to restore what he saw as a specifically Indian or indigenous form of autonomy, from individual up to or out to the widest community of Hind / Bharat?
Perhaps Gandhi wasn't particularly bothered by such linguistic questions... though he does emphasize that his vision was of an Indian form of autonomy that began with the 'self-rule' (like Aristotle's 'self-mastery') of Indians individually as the basis for 'national' Home Rule (a more narrowly political project, by analogy with 'Home Rule' for Ireland)
Hind should be seen as meaning 'India's' or 'of India' in this context. 'Hindi' would have risked reducing or confusing/conflating the idea (of India's self rule) with a language or linguistic region. Gandhi's term had to be carefully chosen for the important political and intellectual work that it sought to do.
It would be wrong to think of 'Hind' (or anything related to 'Hind' in this context) as something that is imposed from the outside. There is a long history of Indian languages being influenced and shaped through their interactions with Farsi, Arabic, Turkish, etc. 'Hind' is (has been) as much an Indian word as any other, and arguably Bharat is a more recently popularized term for India. So I think your worry about 'Hind' being something more alien than 'Bharat' is misplaced.
I may not be able to pursue this thread further. However, you may want to get in touch with Professor Ajay Skaria at the University of Minnesota and take advantage of his expertise on Gandhi's work and Gandhi's goals in relation to 'Hind Swaraj.'
Richa - thanks again. You've answered my second question, and maybe the first, which was simply about grammar. I'll try and find a native speaker to clarify the grammatical case of Hind in 'Hind Swaraj'. From what you say it seems that it may be a genitive.
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