Quote seems to check out ok. Although the context was the governmental recruiting campaign, Gandhi notes that if the Indian middle class became part of the Indian Army the ban on gun ownership would be lifted, and this apparently was thought good. Having been to India more than once, whether gun ownership is for them right now is debatable. They don't have law enforcement that is strong enough to handle large scale gun violence, but nor do they have the ability to protect individual citizens. Mob violence is a problem in a way it wouldn't be if mobs feared their victims could be armed. Either way, it seems Gandhi had a pragmatic bone in his body even as a pacifist. Apparently he knows the presence of the mechanisms of force is not the same thing as the presence of violence. They may afford the presence of justice and counter certain forms of corruption and oppression.