Quotes on India

When 'Midnight's Children' came out, people in the West tended to respond to the fantasy elements in the novel, to praise it in those terms. In India, people read it like a history book.

My mother was very proud of her Indian heritage and taught us, me and my sister Maya, to share in the pride about our culture. We used to go back to India every couple of years.

In every democracy, it is the people's will that is supreme. We should translate the intense yearning of the people of India and Pakistan for friendship into meaningful measures of cooperation in every walk of life.

India is a proud and sovereign country. We do not take any decisions under pressure from the U.S. or any other power.

How can the mind take hold of such a country? Generations of invaders have tried, but they remain in exile. The important towns they build are only retreats, their quarrels the malaise of men who cannot find their way home. India knows of their trouble. She knows of the whole world's trouble, to its uttermost depth. She calls "Come" through her hundred mouths, through objects ridiculous and august. But come to what? She has never defined. She is not a promise, only an appeal.

I would say if you have a dream, follow it. It doesn't really matter whether you are a woman or from India or from wherever.

We have, I think, developed an inferiority complex. I think what is needed in India today is the destruction of that defeatist spirit.

India may be a land of over a 100 problems, but it is also a place for a billion solutions.

In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations . . . If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (the Philippines, South Africa . . . the independence movement in India . . .) the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn't work in the 'real' world.

Yes, I am very unhappy, extremely anguished at human rights violations against Kashmiris in India or against Rohingyas in Burma or, for that matter, Christians in Orissa; but obviously, I am going to be more concerned of violations taking place in my own house because I am closer to the people who I live with. I have more passion for them.

One of the biggest curses from which India is suffering - I do not say that other countries are free from it, but I think our condition is much worse - is bribery and corruption. That really is a poison.

Tell me, why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so many amazing success stories but we refuse to acknowledge them. Why?.

We will be remembered only if we give to our younger generation a prosperous and safe India, resulting out of economic prosperity coupled with civilizational heritage.

A developed India by 2020, or even earlier, is not a dream. It need not be a mere vision in the minds of many Indians. It is a mission we can all take up - and succeed.

Be the compromise you want to see in the world.

Violent means will give violent freedom. That would be a menace to the world and to India herself.

My father, Donald, came from Jamaica to study economics. My mother, Shyamala, came from India to study the science of fighting disease.

A child in India grows up with the idea that you have to make choices that will create a better future. In fact, your whole life is a continuum of choices, so the more conscious you are, the greater your life will be.

There is no doubt that as an economy grows in a great way like India has, that you have to step back and change your tax systems, because you start to get more disparities of wealth.

When you're out of your own cultural context you have conversations with yourself that you just don't have at any other point in your life. When you're in a hotel room on the border between India and Nepal you can really discover things about yourself.

One of the things that I have admired about India is the spiritualism of the people.