Mahatma Gandhi's book 'Hind Swaraj' (Indian Home Rule), written in Gujarati on board a ship, was written in:

Mahatma Gandhi wrote "Hind Swaraj" (Indian Home Rule) in November 1909, in Gujarati, while he was travelling from London to South Africa on board the ship SS Kildonan Castle.

About Hind Swaraj:

• It was written in the form of a dialogue between a "Reader" (representing a young Indian nationalist who supported violent methods) and an "Editor" (Gandhi himself).
• It was written in just ten days, and Gandhi wrote with both hands when one got tired.
• It was first published in "Indian Opinion" in 1909, and as a book in 1910.
• The British government in India banned the Gujarati edition, considering it seditious.
• Gandhi then translated it into English himself and published it as "Indian Home Rule" (1910).

Main ideas of Hind Swaraj:

• Gandhi criticised modern Western civilisation, which he saw as materialistic and based on violence and greed; he described it as a "disease".
• He criticised railways, lawyers and doctors, as symbols of the modern system that had enslaved India.
• He argued that the British had not taken India; Indians had given it to them, because of their own weakness and cooperation.
• He said that Indians should not want "English rule without the Englishman"; true swaraj meant self-rule over one's own mind and life, not just a change of rulers.
• He advocated non-violence (satyagraha), self-reliance, and the revival of village industries.
• He rejected the use of violence, which some young Indian revolutionaries in London supported.

NCERT on Hind Swaraj:

• NCERT notes that in his famous book "Hind Swaraj" (1909), Mahatma Gandhi declared that British rule was established in India with the cooperation of Indians, and had survived only because of this cooperation.
• If Indians refused to cooperate, British rule in India would collapse within a year, and swaraj would come.

Significance:

It contains the core of Gandhi's political philosophy, and was the basis of his later movements.

Why not the other options?

• ✗1893, 1915 and 1920 are not the year in which Hind Swaraj was written.