These two characters in Hind Swaraj carry out the dialogue of the book. The Reader asks questions about Home Rule and how to get it, and the Editor answers with Gandhi’s prescription for independence. Both speak as if well educated, but the Reader often confronts the Editor with popular notions about India and its relationship to Britain, and the Editor refutes these ideas and replaces them with Gandhi’s advice. 

Mohandas K. Gandhi—also known as Mahatma Gandhi (“Great Soul Gandhi”) to India and the world and, affectionately, Gandhiji to his close followers—appears in the book as the Editor, patiently instructing his intelligent but often misguided Reader on the best strategy for attaining Indian independence. Hind Swaraj is Gandhi’s written testament to his beliefs, strategies, and faith in India’s ultimate political liberation from Britain. From 1909, the year of the book’s first publication, until his death in 1948, Gandhi works tirelessly for Indian freedom, applying the philosophy and techniques of nonviolent passive resistance, or Satyagraha, a strategy that bears fruit in 1947, when India becomes a sovereign nation.