Beyond a Boundary and Hind Swaraj

BEYOND A BOUNDARY:

In cricket, James was taught to practice the British ideals of fair play and perseverance.  While in today’s society, being a good sport is seen as an admirable trait, it essentially seems to be an exercise in repressing what James calls “personal inclinations”.  The code under which the cricket players operate can thus be extended to the British’s control over the West Indies, in which those being imperialistically ruled can be compared to personal inclinations whereas the code represents the erasure of these personal inclinations, or people.  In other words, the practice of this code is an example of how culture oppresses.  By becoming self-aware of how easily he consumes English practices, James begins his own form of protest against this cultural oppression. 

HIND SWARAJ:

Essentially, the use of European machinery and the consumption of its products represent a kind of hegemony.  In agreeing to continue to economically support this method of making things, India is also agreeing to continue to be dominated by British rule.  Gandhi’s call for India to forsake machinery and take up the loom again brings us back to Baudhillard’s method of fighting hegemony, which was to withdraw the consent that fueled hegemonic rule in the first place.  Furthermore, through Gandhi’s argument, we are able to see that something as simple as the use of machines are multifaceted in that they wield social, economic, and political power over those that consume it.