BENGALURU: Gandhi’s 1909 text Hind Swaraj has become the new weapon for culture activists, who are combining opposition to religious fundamentalism with corporate culture and uncontrolled mechanisation.On the heels of the posthumous publication of litterateur U R Ananthamurthy ’s work Hind Swaraj or Hindutva , that juxtaposes Gandhi’s work with that of Veer Savarkar, theatre activist Prasanna is taking Hind Swaraj as a street play and social movement to highlight the twin problems to Karnataka’s villagers.Gandhi’s original work, translated from Gujarati to English after the British banned the regional language publication, has been edited and rewritten in places by Prasanna to make it applicable to both British and modern India.Dialogues that Gandhi wrote in his book that have modern chilling resonance have been retained like this one: “A man is as useful as a cow! Do I fight with or kill a Muslim in order to save a cow? If we did that, we would become, an enemy of the Muslim, as also of the cow.The only method I know, of protecting a cow, is to approach my Muslim brother and urge him, with folded hands! If he would not listen to me, I should let the cow go, for the simple reason, the matter is beyond my ability.”The campaign is set to begin with a workshop in Bengaluru on July 8, with M S Sathyu, Arundhati Nag and K Marulasiddappa flagging it off. The play, to be presented by different local troupes in villages, schools, colleges, at minimal cost, largely in daylight and in open air, will be in Kannada and English. Translations into Tulu, Marathi, Telugu-,Malayalam and Hindi are likely to happen shortly, as the campaign is to be taken up in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Bihar, immediately after the Congress-ruled Karnataka. Prasanna told ET that the intent of the campaign is to promote simple living through the words of Gandhi.The political intent of tackling communalism and intolerance at various levels is implicit all through the play and the campaign, though not overtly stated. The indirect impact of the entire campaign, though, would be against the policies of the NDA government in New Delhi and to an extent, prepare the ground for the Karnataka state assembly polls in 2018.Techie Ratheesh Pisharodi, 35, who is part of the team driving the campaign, told ET: “It will implicitly connect the dots between corporate culture, uncontrolled industrialisation and religious fundamentalism.Even in Hilter’s Nazi Germany, big business provided a lot of the machinery, they are intrinsically connected.”Large sections of the play deal with the problem of mechanisation and how it has made man and his village lose the concept of self-reliance. Through Gandhi’s words, Prasanna argues that Western civilization and its mechanization are destructive and makes a strong push for simple, healthy living by working with one’s hands.“ Religious fundamentalism and modern civilization: Of course! They are two faces of the same coin,” Gandhi says in the play. The 90-minute theatre adaptation, like the work Hind Swaraj, is a dialogue between an Editor and a Reader.