Mahatma Gandhi radically re-interprets ‘Swaraj’ and gives it a dual meaning. Swaraj as ‘self-rule’ and Swaraj as ‘self-government’. The first as self-control, rule over oneself, was the foundation for the second, self-government. In this second sense, local self~government was what Gandhi really had in mind. Essential to both meanings, Swaraj, was a sense of self- respect that was precisely Gandhi’s answer to colonial rule.