India is destined for spiritual supremacy. There is no parallel in the world for the process of purification that this country has voluntarily undergone.
India is less in need of steel weapons, for it has fought with divine weapons, it can still do so. Other nations have been votaries of brute force. India can win all by soul force. Numerous instances in history prove that brute force is nothing before soul force...
If India takes up the doctrine of the sword, she may gain momentary victory. Then India will cease to be the pride of my heart. I am wedded to India because I owe my all to her. I believe absolutely that she has a mission for all the world... India's acceptance of the sword will be the hour of my trial. I hope I shall not be found wanting. My religion has no geographical limits. If I have a living faith in it, it will transcend my love for India herself. My life is dedicated to the service of India through the religion of non-violence.
If India makes violence her creed, and I have survived, I would not care to live in India. She will cease to evoke any pride in me. My patriotism is subservient to my faith in ahimsa. I cling to India like a child to its mother's breast, because I feel that she gives me the spiritual nourishment I need. She has the environment that responds to my highest aspirations. When that faith is gone, I shall feel like an orphan...
I would like to see India free and strong so that she may offer herself a willing and pure sacrifice for the betterment of the world. India's freedom must revolutionise the world's outlook upon peace and war. Her impotence affects the whole of mankind.
I am humble enough to admit that there is much that we can profitably assimilate from the West. Wisdom is no monopoly of one continent or one race. My resistance to western civilisation is really a resistance to its indiscriminate and thoughtless imitation based on the assumption that the Asiatic are fit only to copy everything that come from the West... I do believe that if India has patience enough to go through the fire of suffering and to resist any unlawful encroachment upon her own civilisation which, imperfect though it undoubtedly is, has hitherto stood the ravages of time, she can make a lasting contribution to the peace and solid progress of the world.
India's destiny lies not along the bloody way, of which she shows signs of tiredness, but along the bloodless way of peace that comes from a simple and godly life. India is in danger of losing her soul. She cannot lose it and live. She must not, therefore, lazily and helplessly say, "I cannot escape..." She must be strong enough to resist it for her own sake and that of the world.
This is not to say that we may not adopt and assimilate whatever may be good and capable of assimilation by us as it does not also mean that even the others will not have to part with whatever evil might have crept in. The incessant search for material comforts and their multiplication is such an evil, and I make bold to say that we should not perish under the weight of the comforts.
I know that for India to run after the Golden Fleece is to court certain death. Let us engrave in our hearts the motto of a western philosopher, 'plain living and high thinking'. Today it is certain that the millions cannot have high living and we the few who profess to do the thinking for the masses run the risk, in a vain search after high living, of missing high thinking.
(Excerpts from India of My Dreams, a collection of M K Gandhi's writings.)