I received your letter late that morning and was sorry to learn that you had come to this hotel while I was engaged.
It is not unlikely that some unsuspected remnant of race-consciousness in your mind made you imagine that I gave vent to my feeling of anger against the British people in my lecture. I deeply feel for all the races who are being insulted and injured by the ruthless spirit of exploitation of the powerful nations belonging to the West or the East. I feel as much for the Negroes, brutally lynched in America, often for economic reasons, and Coreans, who are the latest victims of the Japanese imperialism, as for any wrongs done to the helpless multitude of my own country. I feel certain that Christ, were he living at the present day, would have been angry with the nations who attempt to thrive upon the life-blood of their victim races, just as he was with those who defiled God’s Temple with their unholy presence and profession. Surely he would have taken upon himself the chastisement of these miscreants, especially when those who professed to be his disciples, whose ostensible vocation was to preach peace and brotherhood of man, either kept a discreet silence whenever man’s history waited for a voice of judgment, or showed signs of virulence against the weak and the downtrodden greatly surpassing that of men whose profession it was blindly to kill human beings.
On the other hand, though I sometimes congratulate myself for my own freedom from race-consciousness, very likely a sufficient amount of it is lingering in my subconscious mind making itself evident to outsiders in my writings through special emphasis of pride at some great thoughts or good deeds of India, or special emphasis of indignation at any unjust suffering or humiliation she is made to undergo. I hope that I can claim forgiveness for this weakness considering that I never try to condone any wrongs done by my own countrymen against others belonging to different communities from ours. *