Mahatmaji,

Now that you health has somewhat improved, and you are able to attend to public business to some extent, I am taking the liberty of addressing a few words to you with a view to acquainting you with the plans and the activities of patriotic Indians outside India.

Before I do so, I would like to inform you of the feelings of deep anxiety which Indians throughout the World had for several days, after your sudden release form the custody on grounds of ill-health. After the sad demise of Srimati Kasturbaiji in British custody, it was but natural for your countrymen to be alarmed over the state of your health. It has, however, pleased Providence to restore you to comparative health, so that 388 millions of your countrymen may still have the benefit of your guidance and advice.

I should next like to say some thing about the attitude of your countrymen outside India toward yourself. What I shall say in this connection is the bare truth and nothing but the truth.

There are Indians outside India, as also at home, who are convinced that Indian Independence will be won only through the historic method of struggle. These men and women honestly feel that the British Government will never surrender to persuasion or moral pressure or non-violent resistance. Nevertheless, for Indians outside India, differences in method are like domestic differences.

Ever since you sponsored the Independence resolution at the Lahore Congress in December, 1929, all members of the Indian National Congress have had one common goal before them. For Indians outside India, you are the creator of the present awakening in our country. In all their propaganda before the world, they give you that position and the respect that is due to that position. For the world-public, we Indian nationalists are all one-having but one goal, one desire and one endeavour in life. In all the countries free from British influence that I have visited since I left India in 1941, you are held in the highest esteem, as no other Indian political leader has been, during the last century.

Each nation has its own internal politics and its own attitude towards political problems. But that cannot affect a Nation's appreciation of a man who has served his people so well and has bravely fought a first-class modern power all his life. In fact, your worth and your achievements are appreciated a thousand times more in those countries that are opposed to the British Empire than in those countries that pretend to be friends of Freedom and Democracy. The high esteem in which you are held by the patriotic Indians outside India and by foreign friends of India's Freedom, was increased a hundred-fold when you bravely sponsored the 'quit India' resolution in August, 1942.

From my experience of the British Government while I was inside India-from the secret information that I have gathered about Britain's policy while outside India-and from what I have seen regarding Britain's aims and intentions throughout the world, I am honestly convinced that the British Government will never recognise India's demand for Independence. Britain's one effort today is to exploit India to the fullest degree, in her endeavour to win this war. During the course of this war Britain has lost one part of her territory to her enemies and another part to her friends. Even if Allies could somehow win the war, it will be United States of America, and not Britain, that will be top dog in future and it will mean that Britain will become a protégé of U.S.A.

In such a situation the British will try to make good their present losses by exploiting India more ruthlessly than ever before. In order to do that, plans have been already hatched in London for crushing the nationalist movement in India, once for all. It is because I know of these plans from secret, but reliable sources, that I feel it my duty to bring it to your notice.

It would be a fatal mistake on our part to make a distinction between British Government and the British people. No doubt there is a small group of idealists in Britain-as in the U.S.A.- who would like to see India free. These idealists, who are treated by their own people as cranks, from a microscopic minority. So far as India is concerned, for all practical purposes the British Government and the British people mean one and the same thing.

Regarding the war aims of the U.S.A.,I may say that the ruling clique at Washington is now dreaming of world domination. This ruling clique and its intellectual exponents, talk openly of the 'American Century,' that is, that in the present century the U.S.A. will dominate the world. In this ruling clique, there are extremists who go so far as to call Britain the 49th State if the U.S.A.

There is no Indian whether at home or abroad, who would not be happy if India's freedom could be won through the method that you have advocated all your life and without shedding human blood. But things being what they are, I am convinced that if we do desire freedom we must be prepared to wade through blood.

If circumstances had made it possible for us to organise an armed struggle inside India, throughout our own efforts and resources, that would have been the best course for us. But, Mahatmaji, you know Indian conditions perhaps better than anybody else. So far as I am concerned after twenty years' experience of public service in India, I came to the conclusion that it was impossible to organise an armed resistance in the country with out the help from outside-help from countrymen abroad, as well as from some foreign power or powers.

Prior to the outbreak of the present war, it was exceedingly difficult to get help from a foreign power, or from Indians abroad. But the outbreak of the present war threw open the possibility of obtaining aid-both political, and military-from the enemies of the British Empire. Before I could expect any help from them, however, I had first to find out what their attitude was towards India's demand for freedom. British propagandists for a number of years, had been telling the world that the Axis Powers were the enemies of Freedom and, therefore, of India's freedom. Was that a fact? I asked myself. Consequently, I had to leave India in order to find the truth myself and as to whether the Axis Powers would be prepared to give us help and assistance in our fight for freedom.

Before I finally made up my mind to leave home and homeland, I had to decide whether it was right for me to take help from abroad. I had previously studied the history of revolutions all over the world, in order to discover the methods which had enabled other nations to obtain freedom. But, I had not found a single instance in which an enslaved people had won freedom without foreign help of some sort. In 1940, I read my history once again, I came to the conclusion that history did not furnish a single instance where freedom had been won with out help of some sort from abroad. As for the moral question whether it was right to take help, I told myself that in public, as in private life one can always take help as a loan and repay that loan later on. Moreover, if a powerful Empire, like the British Empire, could go round the world with the begging bowl, what objection could there be to an enslaved and disarmed people like ourselves taking help as a loan from abroad.

I cam assure you, Mahatmaji, that before I finally decided to set out on a hazardous mission, I spent days, weeks and months in carefully considering the pros and cons of the case. After having served my people so long, to the best of my ability, I could have no desire to be a traitor or to give anyone a justification for calling me a traitor.

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