Kamaladevi wrote a letter to Gandhi dated 27 August 1939. Gandhi reproduced all or almost all of it in his Harijan of 9 October together with his reply. Probably she wrote it in Britain, probably it was shortly after the release by the bandits. But it was a remarkable letter and is worth quoting at length(CWMG vol.70, pp.235-6).
She first analyzed the nature of the impending conflict.
'The present conflict is mainly centred round the usual scramble for colonies, or spheres of influence...On this question the world thinks there are only two opinions, for it hears only two views: one which believes in the maintaining of the status quo; the other which wants a change but on the same basis, in other words, a redistribution of the loot and the right to exploit, which of course means war.'
So there seem to be only these two viewpoints in the world and the natural consequence is an armed conflict. But she says that actually there is still another stand which is not to be incorporated in neither of the above.
'That there is a third view the world hardly seems to think, for it rarely hears it. And it is so essential that it should find expression: the voice of the people who are mere pawns in the game. Neither Danzig nor the Polish corridor is the issue. The issue is the principle on which the whole of this present Western civilization is based; the right of the strong to rule and exploit the weak.
So this third path does not belong to either of the two imperialistic ways. It will be in clear conflict with them. She then defines India's position in this picture.
'We are against the status quo. We are fighting against it for we want a change in it. But our alternative is not war for we know that the real solution does not lie there. We have an alternative to offer which is the only solution of this horrible muddle and the key to future world peace...It may seem today like a cry in the wilderness; still we know that it is the voice which will ultimately prevail; and it is those hands which seem so feeble before these mailed fists that will finally reshape a battered humanity.'
In placing the Indians' and the like-minded peoples' stand she depends on the experience of the non-violent struggle of her own people. Finally she puts a request to Gandhi as the leader of that struggle.
'You are eminently fitted to give voice to it. India has, I think, a peculiar place today in the colonies of the world. It has both a moral prestige and organizational strength enjoyed by few colonies. The others look to it for a lead in many matters...India has therefore to tell a very distraught and maddened world that there is another path that humanity must tread if it would save itself from these periodical disasters and bring peace and harmony to a bleeding world.'
This is not a simple analysis. A new view, an innovating view of the ongoing conflict which was to become a full-scale war at any moment, and a fervent appeal, on that analysis, to her mother country to take notice of her position and her mission in such a world for the sake of the world peace. One may see even a forerunner of the Non-Aligned Movement of later years here, although her own country seems to be paying less and less attention to it nowadays.
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