Resisting Colonial Enterprise: A Postcolonial Study of Hind Swaraj by M. K. Gandhi

Subverting the colonial hegemony in all its manifestations has been the prime concern of postcolonial literature right from its inception. As a counter narrative, postcolonial literature aims at challenging the socalled hierarchy set by the colonizing masters and exposing the colonial hypocrisy. However, the study of postcolonialism is closely associated with the works of certain critics like Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and others. But, a retrospective approach to the history of decolonization places some other figures like Frantz Fanon, M. K. Gandhi, Cesaire and others at the centre of postcolonialism. M. K Gandhi who is very often studied as a pacifist, humanist and nonviolent revolutionary bears a great relevance to the study of postcolonialism. Being a voluminous writer, his writings are characterized by a strong resistance to the then colonial enterprise. Hind Swaraj, a seminal text of Gandhi with a strong opposition to the colonial evils, can be classified as one of the important writings in the gamut of postcolonial literature. This paper mainly endeavours to reassess Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj in the light of postcolonial theory to establish it as one of the foundational postcolonial texts