Excavations


... nothing is more essential to public interest than the preservation of public liberty.

- David Hume



Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Gandhi on ‘The condition of England’ (and on the condition of India today)

The condition of England at present is pitiable. I pray to God that India may never be in that plight. That which you consider to be the Mother of Parliaments is like a sterile woman and a prostitute. Both these are harsh terms, but exactly fit the case. That Parliament has not yet, of its own accord, done a single good thing. Hence I have compared it to a sterile woman. The natural condition of that Parliament is such that, without outside pressure, it can do nothing. It is like a prostitute because it is under the control of ministers who change from time to time. Today it is under Mr. Asquith, tomorrow it may be under Mr. Balfour.…

…  If you will read the literature on this subject, you will have some idea of it. Parliament is without a real master. Under the Prime Minister, its movement is not steady but it is buffeted about like a prostitute. The Prime Minister is more concerned about his power than about the welfare of Parliament. His energy is concentrated upon securing the success of his party. His care is not always that Parliament shall do right. Prime Ministers are known to have made Parliament do things merely for party advantage. All this is worth thinking over.[1]

M.K. Gandhi, Hind Swaraj (1909)



[1] Mahatma Gandhi, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule (Ahmedabad, India: Navajivan Publishing House, nd), Chapter 5.  For a readable and free online version of the text, see David Runciman’s podcast on Gandhi in Series 1 of Talking Politics: History of Ideas in association with the London Review of Books.

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