I would ... request you not to regard the Muslims as your enemies. Just because the country has been divided into India and Pakistan, it does not befit us to slaughter the Muslims who have stayed behind. The Government of Pakistan has forgotten its duty to minorities. I want to tell my people that they should not become so barbaric. If the Hindus and the Sikhs here say that they will take revenge on the local Muslims because the Hindus and the Sikhs in Pakistan are in danger, because their homes have been destroyed there, and they have fled, it will be sheer barbarism. If any Hindu or Sikhs from the Punjab comes and tell me that his anguish is greater than mine because he has lost his brother or daughter or father, I would say that his brother is my brother, that his mother is my mother, and that I have the same anguish in my heart as he has. I am also a human being. But when I feel enraged I swallow my anger. That gives me great strength. What revenge can I take with that strength? How should I take my revenge so that they feel repentant for their crimes and admit them? Only by returning good for evil. Let us know our own dharma. In the light of our dharma, I tell you that our greatest duty is to see that the Hindus do not retaliate in frenzy, nor the Sikhs indulge in acts of madness. Till the Muslims are able to return to the places from which they have fled, we cannot have peace of mind. I appeal also to the Muslims of India that they should, with an open heart, declare that they belong to India and that they are loyal to India. If the minds and hearts of all of us are thus purified, we can live in amity."

Thousands of Muslims surrounded Gandhiji when, accompanied by Dewan Chamanlal and Dr. Dinshaw Mehta, he visited the Purana Qilla camp. Not all of the refugees who came up to the Mahatma were reverential. Wrath and vitriolic rage were rained upon him by many who blamed him squarely for not preventing atrocities being perpetrated against their kith and kin professing Islam ... Speaking in his gentle, soft manner, he said he could well understand the anger that they (the hapless victims) felt. He would only assure his accusers, and others too, that his only aim was to bring them comfort. Gandhiji vowed "I shall either put matters right here or I shall die in the process. In his prayer meeting speech later, he said, "Let the Hindus and the Sikhs invite every Muslim driven out to return to his home. This alone is right."                                                                                                                     (Source: The Hindu, 13 September, 1997)