I was fortunate to be introduced to Gandhi's writings and sayings by my father, K. G. Ramakrishnan (KG to friends and intimates), a person of rare
insight, intellectual honesty and uncommon humanity. He gave me a sense of the greater dimension of Gandhiji — something more than the
traditional view of a pious old man who fought for India's freedom. KG was an affectionate scholar of Gandhi's writings on life and
liberty, individual growth and its stultification by the sin of pettiness, the role of industry and industrialization, trade and its manifestations, and the
interrelationship of personal actions and public policies. To Ramakrishnan, Gandhi's non-cooperation was at least as important as
Gandhi's non-violence, and Gandhi's writings against industrialism the underpinnings of his Ram Dhun.
Having been a student activist from his teens and having spent a stint in jail during the Quit India movement before turning 20, he retained
throughout his life a strong activist bent, and was associated with a number of public causes. He was also, through his life, associated
with journalism; producing several political pamphlets for the Freedom Movement, and continuing in journalism as a sub-editor at Indian Express,
news editor and senior correspondent of All India Radio, editor of several government journals, and contributor to various journals
and newspapers on political matters. He also founded and led the first active movement for administrative reform of the Indian bureaucracy, the
All India Confederation of Central Government Officers' Associations.
It was his constant frustration that the people of India never got a chance to read the most relevant pieces of Gandhi's writings, namely, anything which would impel
active questioning of authority. It was also his sense that independence had merely resulted in replacing
"the white sahib with the brown", while consumerism and acquisitiveness were growing apace.
"Where there was the torment of the
soul, there was now only the swagger of the body", KG once wrote. Though a devotee of 'development' in the early post-independence years, he was progressively
overcome with a sense of disquiet, seeing the "spree of self-aggrandisement", as he termed it, an
increasing characteristic of post-freedom politics and culture. He began questioning many of the policies
of Jawaharlal Nehru, whom he had long considered the great captain in India's road to advancement.
The Gandhi Centenary Year, which fell in 1969, was to be a life-changing event for him. Re-reading Gandhi during that period, he
became a strong opponent of the mantra of development for its own sake.
For some years, KG edited Kurukshetra, a Government of India publication on Panchayati Raj. He also served as
Chief Editor of Yojana, the Indian Planning Commission's marquee journal. He would publish quotes from Gandhi in both magazines,
a small contribution towards educating free India about its maker. It was his long cherished dream to write about Gandhi's views
on industry and industrialism, and give this vital aspect of Gandhiji's philosophy the public discussion it deserved. Unfortunately, he never
got around to the project.
KG died in March 2000. His 80th birth anniversary falls on November 14, 2003. Were he alive, we might have performed a Sadabhishekham, although
he was not very enamoured of religious ceremony. Instead, to honor his dream, I am starting Hind Swaraj,
which I hope will be a modest forum for analyzing and discussing the current state of the world, with globalization and urban sprawl being swallowed
without question in every part of the world. The inspiration for the website is Gandhi's Hind Swaraj (Indian Home Rule), a book
in which he questioned the accepted myths of his time. It is time for us too to question the current myths — globalization, trade, terrorism,
new world order, and the like.
The journal is expected to be published monthly, depending on the interest. We will carry quotes and relevant passages from Gandhi, articles and letters from
interested people all around the world who have an aversion to being modern slaves, howsoever well shod, in an increasingly stifling world.
