“They never care to come to us, and to tell you the truth, we care less to recognize them. Being Christians, they are under the thumb of the white clergymen, who in their turn are subject to the Government.’ This opened my eyes. I felt that this class should be claimed as our own. Was this the meaning of Christianity? Did they cease to be Indians because they had become Christians?”
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Probable attribution
This saying is widely associated with Mahatma Gandhi, but the attribution is not supported by a reliable primary source.
Likely origin: From Gandhi's autobiography 'The Story of My Experiments with Truth'; a narrative passage on Indian Christians and whether conversion ended their Indian identity.
About this quote
One part of who a person is shouldn't cancel out another. When a change of faith or background gets treated as grounds for exclusion, a whole group quietly slides to the margins. Refusing that logic — claiming people as your own across the dividing line — is how a community stays whole.
When to use it
- A team keeps fully including a colleague after he converts to a different religion.
- A family stays close to a daughter who married outside their culture and language.
- A town welcomes refugees as neighbors instead of treating them as permanent outsiders.