Gandhi, Sri Aurobindo and the Idea of Swaraj as ‘Inclusive Freedom’

Abstract

Mahatma Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo diverged significantly on crucial subjects pertaining to philosophical imaginaries and practical outcomes of the nationalist movement. But one idea that remained close to both Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo was that of swaraj. Swaraj had been previously used, interpreted and explained variously by nationalists during freedom struggle, but Gandhi’s and Sri Aurobindo’s engagement with the idea was significant because they went beyond traditional boundaries and used the idea in a creative way to imply meaning that was previously overlooked in the nationalist discourse. For both Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo, swaraj had a deeper meaning than just national independence or political freedom. Their understanding, as I argue, was based on an inclusive idea of freedom. Inclusive freedom connotes an amalgamation of political, social and spiritual freedom dwelling upon a quest for harmony between individual liberation and social unity. This ideation of swaraj as ‘inclusive freedom’ also helps these thinkers to transcend, at least philosophically, the territorial boundaries of nation and to reflect over ethical and moral concerns of humanity at large, based on their vantage point of ‘spiritual universalism’. In a way the idea of swaraj (though Sri Aurobindo prefers not to use the term in his later writings) hints at a meeting ground of these two makers of modern India, who were otherwise diversely separated in their philosophy and politics.