Page:Mahatma Gandhi, his life, writings and speeches.djvu/156

M. K. Gandhi country he wished to tender his thanks, and he wished also to ask them to forgive him if they had ever considered that during that awful time he was instrumental in bringing about any retaliation at all on the part of his countrymen. He wished to give them, this assurance that he had no part or parcel in it, and that, so far as he knew, not a single leading Indian had asked the men to retaliate. There were times in a man's life when he lost his senses, his self-control, and under a sense of irritation, fancied or real, began to retaliate when the brute nature in him rose, and he only went by the law of "might is right," or the law of retaliation—a tooth for a tooth. If his countrymen had done so, whether under a real sense of wrong or fancied, let them forgive him and let them keep a kind corner in their hearts; and, if there were any employers of indentured labour there present who would take that humble request to them, he did ask them not to think always selfishly, though he knew it was most difficult to eradicate self, and let them consider these indentured Indians not merely as cattle which they had to deal with, but as human beings with the same fine feelings, the same fine 42