Hind Swaraj is Gandhi's seminal work, originally written in Gujarati during his return trip from England to South Africa in 1909. It was first published in 1909 in the Gujarati section of Indian Opinion, Gandhi's weekly in South Africa, and then in his own English rendering as Indian Home Rule by his press—The International Printing Press (Phoenix, South Africa)—in 1910. Through this work, which is in the form of a dialogue between a reader and the editor of a newspaper, Gandhi addressed the radical Indian expatriates whose views he opposed, members of the Indian National Congress, Indians, and the British. Through the voice of the editor, he articulated his ideas on civilization, self-rule, and the path for India's freedom from British rule. Major themes in Gandhian thought such as nonviolent political resistance and a critique of the modern civilization, elaborated in his later writings, appear here in a compressed form. This short treatise is seen as Gandhi's manifesto, a work in which he came closest to developing a political theory and which played an important role in establishing him in pre-independence Indian politics.

Hind Swaraj was banned in India in 1910. But since 1919, many editions of its Gujarati and English versions have appeared. Bajaj and Srinivas's edition, which is one of several centenary editions, is distinctive among them in its three-part organization in Gujarati, Hindi, and English. Each of the three parts has a foreword by Bajaj and a few photographs of the original manuscript pages. In the foreword, Bajaj gives the background of this work. Here, he pays tribute to Gandhi's movement, which led to its composition as a moral fight for human dignity. Bajaj also explains the focus on the original manuscript in the edition by stressing that every detail of the composition of an inspired text like Hind Swaraj is significant (p. 5). Toward the end, he evokes the image of “an old wise man, sitting in the village square and explaining the nuances of duty, morality, truth, and religion” (p. 8) to describe Gandhi's tone here, which aptly captures the spirit of the text that follows.

Of the three parts of the edition, the first contains the printed form of Gandhi's original Gujarati manuscript. The footnotes give references to corrections made by Gandhi and variations found in its first publication. Of the two appendices, one lists sentences with crossed-out parts as found in Gandhi's manuscript, and the other lists the variations in Indian Opinion. The second part includes the Gujarati text in the Devanagari script side by side with its Hindi translation by Bajaj, which tries to retain the colloquial flavor of the original. The appendices contain the same lists as the first part in Devanagari. The third part contains the text of the 1910 publication of Indian Home Rule, including Gandhi's preface to the English translation and foreword as well as his original appendices. Additionally, it includes sections on English editions, lists of variant readings, and explanatory notes.

The organization of this edition necessarily leads to repetition, some of which could have been avoided. Yet it also adds to the readability and usefulness of the edition as a scholarly resource. It allows each part to be read as an independent unit offering important information about the text. The lists of corrections in the first two parts throw light on the text's composition. In the English part, the section on publications of Indian Home Rule and lists of variations in them give a sense of the work's history in print, while the explanatory notes provide helpful background information.

Further, found in a single volume, the Gujarati and English originals also offer a window into Gandhi's approach as an editor at an important juncture in his career. On page 85 of the original manuscript, for example, in response to a question about religion as a source of conflict, the editor suggests that modern civilization is more dangerous, leading people to forget their souls. Here, Gandhi has crossed out a phrase with “ātmā,” a Hindu term for “soul,” and replaced it with “kharī vastu” (“right thing”). The correction (listed on p. 94) suggests that Gandhi's awareness about his readership, which included Gujarati Muslims and Parsis, likely kept him from using a term specific to a single community. In Indian Home Rule, where Gandhi admits in the preface his “inability to convey the exact meaning of the original” in English, the sentence is omitted, suggesting editorial cautiousness as he aimed to reach a wider audience.

Even with some repetition, in its distinctive organization and valuable details, the present edition offers a rich resource for the study of Gandhi's seminal work. It complements editions with longer scholarly introductions such as Anthony Parel's (1997, 2009) and will make a welcome addition to libraries and collections of individuals with an interest in Gandhi.