--- title: Indian Home Rule (Hind Swaraj) url: https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/ description: Indian Home Rule (Hind Swaraj) by M. K. Gandhi (1909), full text with provenance and rights. section: FRAME --- ![Illustration: a pre-1914 imperial intelligence-dossier collage of colonial telegraph logs, sepia field photography and empire maps.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-pre1914.jpg) [Library](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/) · Book # Indian Home Rule (Hind Swaraj) ![Title page of the fifth edition of Gandhi's Indian Home Rule, Ganesh and Co., Madras, 1922](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/thumb.jpg) Title page of Indian Home Rule, fifth edition, "Reprinted with a new foreword by the author", Ganesh and Co., Madras, 1922, from a Wellesley College Library copy digitised by the Internet Archive. Public domain in the United States (published 1922); Internet Archive; Wellesley College Library. Cropped to the top of the page and reduced from a scan of the page. [Source](https://archive.org/details/indianhomerule00gand) At a glance Gandhi's dialogue between a Reader and an Editor on self-rule, "modern civilization" and passive resistance, in its 1922 edition with his own later foreword and a note of 1921. - **Author:** M. K. Gandhi - **Published:** 1909 - **Origin:** British India - **Length:** 28,376 words, 25 chapters Full details - **Edition:** Indian Home Rule, by M. K. Gandhi, reprinted with a new foreword by the author, fifth edition (Madras: Ganesh and Co., 1922; printed at the Modern Printing Works, Mount Road, Madras) - **Language:** English (translated from the Gujarati) - **Text source:** [Project Gutenberg, ebook #40461](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40461) - **Text basis:** Proofread transcription by Project Gutenberg's Distributed Proofreaders, produced from Internet Archive images of the 1922 edition and compared here with the Internet Archive's Wellesley College Library scan of the same edition. - **Rights:** Published in Madras in 1922; Gandhi died in 1948. A foreign work still protected in its home country in 1996 had its US copyright restored for 95 years from publication, which ended on 31 December 2017 for a 1922 book, so the edition is in the public domain in the United States (Project Gutenberg marks the ebook public domain in the USA; the Internet Archive lists the scan as not in copyright). The edition also prints a note by C. Rajagopalachari (died 1972), published with it in 1922 and covered by the same US rule; its term in India runs to 2032, so readers outside the United States should check their own law. - **Rights checked:** October 2, 2026 On this page - [Read the text](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/#read) - [Provenance and rights](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/#provenance) **Content note:** Period language and sweeping generalisations: calls Parliament "a sterile woman and a prostitute", makes broad claims about lawyers, doctors, Europeans and relations between Hindus and Muslims, and uses the period term "Mahomedans". This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was) Gandhi wrote Hind Swaraj in Gujarati in 1909, on a voyage from London to South Africa (his 1921 note in this edition says 1908), as a dialogue in which an "Editor" answers a "Reader" on home rule for India. The Bombay government prohibited its circulation, and the 1921 note says Gandhi replied by publishing a translation. This is the English text as reprinted in 1922, with three pieces added around it: a note signed by C. Rajagopalachari (Madras, 6 June 1919) urging the book's wide distribution against "the doctrine of violence", Gandhi's foreword of 28 May 1919, and Gandhi's reply to critics of 26 January 1921, in which he says he withdraws only one word, that he is individually working for the self-rule the book describes, and that his corporate activity is devoted to "Parliamentary Swaraj". The book condemns what it calls "modern civilization" and argues for passive resistance. It is included as a primary text of the Indian independence movement; the library takes no view on its argument. ## Read the text - [Note](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/01-note/) 216 words - [Foreword](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/02-foreword/) 154 words - [Hind Swaraj or the Indian Home Rule: Reply to Critics](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/03-hind-swaraj-or-the-indian-home-rule-reply-to-cri/) 849 words - [1. The Congress and Its Officials](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/04-the-congress-and-its-officials/) 1,719 words - [2. The Partition of Bengal](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/05-the-partition-of-bengal/) 675 words - [3. Discontent and Unrest](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/06-discontent-and-unrest/) 311 words - [4. What Is Swaraj?](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/07-what-is-swaraj/) 772 words - [5. The Condition of England](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/08-the-condition-of-england/) 1,023 words - [6. Civilization](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/09-civilization/) 1,166 words - [7. Why Was India Lost?](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/10-why-was-india-lost/) 936 words - [8. The Condition of India](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/11-the-condition-of-india/) 843 words - [9. The Condition of India (Continued)](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/12-the-condition-of-india-continued/) 973 words - [10. The Condition of India (Continued)](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/13-the-condition-of-india-continued/) 1,923 words - [11. The Condition of India (Continued)](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/14-the-condition-of-india-continued/) 985 words - [12. The Condition of India (Continued)](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/15-the-condition-of-india-continued/) 683 words - [13. What Is True Civilization?](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/16-what-is-true-civilization/) 1,091 words - [14. How Can India Become Free?](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/17-how-can-india-become-free/) 825 words - [15. Italy and India](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/18-italy-and-india/) 964 words - [16. Brute-force](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/19-brute-force/) 2,379 words - [17. Passive Resistance](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/20-passive-resistance/) 3,067 words - [18. Education](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/21-education/) 1,932 words - [19. Machinery](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/22-machinery/) 1,142 words - [20. Conclusion](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/23-conclusion/) 2,329 words - Appendices - [Some Authorities](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/24-some-authorities/) 98 words - [Testimonies by Eminent Men](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/25-testimonies-by-eminent-men/) 1,321 words [Download as plain text](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909/gandhi-hind-swaraj-1909.txt) 28,376 words, with the provenance header above the text ## Provenance and rights - **Edition:** Indian Home Rule, by M. K. Gandhi, reprinted with a new foreword by the author, fifth edition (Madras: Ganesh and Co., 1922; printed at the Modern Printing Works, Mount Road, Madras) - **Text source:** [Project Gutenberg, ebook #40461](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40461) - **Text basis:** Proofread transcription by Project Gutenberg's Distributed Proofreaders, produced from Internet Archive images of the 1922 edition and compared here with the Internet Archive's Wellesley College Library scan of the same edition. - **Rights:** Published in Madras in 1922; Gandhi died in 1948. A foreign work still protected in its home country in 1996 had its US copyright restored for 95 years from publication, which ended on 31 December 2017 for a 1922 book, so the edition is in the public domain in the United States (Project Gutenberg marks the ebook public domain in the USA; the Internet Archive lists the scan as not in copyright). The edition also prints a note by C. Rajagopalachari (died 1972), published with it in 1922 and covered by the same US rule; its term in India runs to 2032, so readers outside the United States should check their own law. Checked October 2, 2026. - **Changes made:** Line wraps rejoined and chapter headings set in title case. Removed: the Project Gutenberg licence header, footer and transcriber's note, the title pages, the printed contents list, and the publisher's advertisements printed before and after the text. The prefatory note, foreword, 1921 reply and both appendices are kept. Wording, spelling and punctuation are the source's own. Project Gutenberg's transcribers corrected obvious printer's errors without comment and recorded three changes: "four" to "our" (page 62), "cover" to "cower" (page 115) and "foot" to "roof" (page 128); two probable printer's errors they left ("the will give up his profession" and "It is worth nothing that") are left here too. - **Source file checksum:** `fa2a144d2bad6599…` (SHA-256 of the download this text was made from)