There is a concerted effort among 'critical theorists' in the academy to expose Mill as a racist. In fact, though he was as racist as liberals generally were in those days, he was not more racist in his language than Aurobindo was. His support of colonialism is problematic, but we must remember that he supported colonialism only when it was in the best interest of the colonized subjects (white or otherwise), and his justification of this is on utilitarian grounds. From a utilitarian pov, such a position is in fact moral and not necessarily premised upon racism. Mill rejected the concept of biological race, but not that of culture. 'Race' is often used to refer to any geographic or cultural grouping of people, not necessarily defined by biology. Given that he believed there were no innate differences between the races, this cultural meaning of race is a more plausible one. Liberalism is indeed connected to empire, and that is why it is the traditional conservatives that have tended to be non-racist and not the liberals. Aurobindo, however, was more close to liberals and progressives than to traditional conservatives. This doesn't make him a racist, of course, but he certainly adopted the language of progressivism. To say this was the only language available to him at that time is incorrect, as the language of traditional conservatism, among other things, was also available in England. So, we may try to attribute Aurobindo's use of 'backward races' to his social environment, but that does not explain why James Fitzjames Stephen put the term in inverted commas and rejected its use, while living in the same era and in the same country as Aurobindo and Mill. If we're willing to decry Mill as a racist, I don't see why we should apologize for other people who use language equally racist as JSM. It sounds like a need to defend a person who one is fond of, rather than an impartial academic analysis.