India Quotes

“I have also a feeling that despite my deepest respect for the life and work of Jawaharlal Nehru, it was a grave error to codify Hindu laws instead of having a uniform civil code. If we have one criminal law for all the citizens of the Republic of India and one law in respect of Income Tax, transfer of property etc.., there is no reason to have separate codes for the Hindus and the Muslims,. All these distortions are the products of our not being able to think clearly about our past, present and future”
― PN Haksar

“But I forgave the tropics their heat for the sake of those magnificent starry nights.”
― Monica Martin, Out in the mid-day sun

“Cricket World Cup 2024 … When both Teams are Competitive, both Losing & Winning Teams CRY.

What a Finale ”
― Sandeep Sahajpal, The Twelfth Preamble: To all the authors to be!

“After Britain gifted Pakistan to Islam, Nehru began furthering the Islamic interests in India by seducing the gullible Hindus into believing that Hindutva is bad for them, and that's his real villainy.”
― B.S. Murthy

“In the comity of nations, India is an oddity in that its political matirx is inimical to its majority comminity.”
― BS Murthy

“73 Years Later, the "A-Bomb" Ginkgo Trees Still Grow in Hiroshima

On August 6, 1945, an Allied plane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, creating a fireball 1,200 feet in diameter. Disaster rained down upon the city, killing an estimated 150,000 people and leveling both the biological and man-made landscape. Little was left standing, but somehow the ginkgo trees were able to weather one of the most destructive moments in human history.”
― Sheikh Gulzar (jkmpic@gmail.com)

“Ashoka's political and moral philosophy, as he expressed it in his imperial inscriptions, initiated a tradition of religious tolerance, non-violent debate and a commitment to the idea of happiness which has animated Indian political philosophy ever since. But - and it's a big but - his benevolent empire scarcely outlived him. And that leaves us with the uncomfortable question of whether such high ideals can survive the realities of political power. Nevertheless, this was a ruler who really did change the way that his subjects and their successors thought.”
― Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects

“As far as I can tell, the Hindu-Muslim tensions in India are never-ending.”
― War on Islam

“I hated the imperialism I was serving with a bitterness which I probably cannot make clear. In the free air of England that kind of thing is not fully intelligible. In order to hate imperialism, you have got to be part of it. Seen from the outside the British rule in India appears—indeed, it is—benevolent and even necessary. . . . But it is not possible to be a part of such a system without recognizing it as an unjustifiable tyranny.”
― George Orwell

“Every country has its myths, and one that successful Indians liked to indulge was a romance of instability and adaptation—the idea that their country’s rapid rise derived in part from the chaotic unpredictability of daily life. […] In India, a land of few safe assumptions, chronic uncertainty was said to have helped produce a nation of quick-witted, creative problem-solvers. Among the poor, there was no doubt that instability fostered ingenuity, but over time the lack of a link between effort and result could become debilitating.”
― Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

“Magic realism journeys to help you find your true self and release your creative expression, sensuality, and sexuality, by opening your sacral chakra. If blocked, you may experience an inability to receive pleasure. Find out how Jeffrey Dharma unlocked this special power in DHARMA SUTRA. Jeffrey Dharma’s search for love and enlightenment takes him on a path where he meets beings, he thought were only myth and legend. They all help him find the power of love.”
― David Edwin Pugh, DHARMA SUTRA

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― Political Science Solution

“Why do people chant the OM mantra in India?”
― Paras Parivaar Organization

“Neville Maxwell is beyond redemption..My own view is that Neville faithfully reflects the poisonous sources of his information who are mostly our own counterparts”
― PN Haksar

“However, it is too much to expect that our politicians as a class possess either a feeling for history or a sense of history. They do not even ask the basic question of historiography, namely, how and why things have happened as they did.”
― PN Haksar

“From Ramakrishna to the 'brown boy, Gandhi' , threatening Indian icons stand 'effeminized' and turned into 'intimate' enemies' reinforcing the ambiguities and ambivalences of the postcolonial purloined self.”
― Renuka Sharma

“My India is the most radiant
beacon of multiculturalism,
Your India is a septic tank
of prehistoric nationalism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Divine Refugee

“Hindi films are known and enjoyed worldwide for their songs and dances. These days it is fashionable to battle tradition by using a Western format of telling stories, where music stays in the background. I can't wrap my head around it. I don't think it helps the story move forward. I also believe that a film gets a lot of repeat value when an actor is wooing an actress with a popular song. We represent a dream world and our audiences love it. It may seem old-fashioned but I firmly believe that lip-syncing (by an actor) is the best way to picturize a song, to maximize its appeal. It simply does not have the same magic when the song is played in the background.”
― Rishi Kapoor, Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored

“You, without the fear of censure, can take meat and fish to your heart's content. The whole country is flooded with hermits who become gastric patients by living on vegetables. These are not the symbols of purity, but of terrible ignorance and ignorance is the name of the darkness of death.
A shining glow on countenance, irrepressible enthusiasm in heart and constant activity and inspired energy- these are the signs of purity. On the contrary, the signs of ignorance are indolence and weakness, indiscriminate attachment and desire for sleep.”
― Swami Vivekananda

“Nehru never made a secret of his deadly hostility to the Hindu nationalists. Once he told Mookerjee: "We will crush you!"(Mookerjee , always more polite than Nehru, replied: "We will crush this crushing mentality.”
― Koenraad Elst, Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism

“When the CPI defended the Partition Scheme with contrived socio-economic arguments, Ram Swarup objected that the Partition would only benefit the haves among the Muslims, not the have-nots.”
― Koenraad Elst, Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism

“It appears two things define an ideal Indian man: his hatred of Pakistan and his desire to be the first.”
― Daksh Tyagi, A Nation of Idiots

“Churchill said India wasn't a nation, just an abstraction. John Kenneth Galbraith more affectionately and more memorably, described it as a 'functioning anarchy'. Both of them, in my view, underestimated the strength of the India-idea. It may be the most innovative national philosophy to have emerged in the post-colonial period. It deserves to be celebrated because it is an idea that has enemies, within India as well as outside her frontiers, and to celebrate it is also to defend it against its foes.”
― Salman Rushdie, Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002

“India was operated upon by such clumsy hands and blunt knives that thousands of arteries were left open.”
― Ismat Chughtai, The Quilt and Other Stories

“Listen Colonel, Nepal has stood by me whenever I needed a support. And I will never ever give up my support to Nepal and to my friends and family in Nepal.”
― Avijeet Das

“You can live amicably with a religion whose principle is toleration. But how is it possible to live peacefully with a religion whose principle is "I will not tolerate you'? How are you going to have unity with these people. Certainly, Hindu-Muslim unity cannot be arrived at on the basis that the Muslims will go on converting Hindus while the Hindus shall not convert any Mohamedan.”
― Sri Aurobindo

“I am sorry they are making a fetish of this Hindu-Muslim unity. It is no use ignoring facts; some day the Hindus may have to fight the Muslims and they must prepare for it. Hindu-Muslim unity should not mean the subjection of the Hindus. Every time the mildness of the Hindus has given way. The best solution would be to allow the Hindus to organize themselves and the Hindu-Muslim unity would take care of itself, it would automatically solve the problem.”
― Sri Aurobindo

“Jains teach that your karma, meaning the deeds or actions that you perform in one birth, decides the level of birth in your next incarnation. For Jains, karma is a particulate substance, especially something produced by violence of any type. Some actions are so bad in karmic terms, like killing another jiva, that they are very substantial. Other actions are less violent, like violent thoughts, so the bad karmic matter they produce is subtler. [...] How can a person get rid of the karma that attaches to his or her jiva? The process of living in this world burns off some karma. People, animals, divinities, and other beings who burn off more karma than they produce through violence will move a little higher in the next life.”
― Michael H. Fisher, A History of India

“In retrospect, perhaps Dawood’s status as a fugitive and an outlaw beyond the reach of the Indian legal system suits many back home in India. Empires built with his money would collapse and many skeletons would tumble out of the closet if he was ever brought back home. The powers that be would rather have Dawood Ibrahim stuck in Pakistan. And so the cult of Dawood will be perpetuated. Movies with his trademark moustache and the cigar tucked in between his lips will continue to be made, and Dawood will be discussed between India and Pakistan forever. The man, of course, will forever be elusive;
the real Dawood may remain a myth. This book is an attempt to understand what is known of him and his world.”
― S. Hussain Zaidi, Dongri To Dubai : Six Decades of The Mumbai Mafia

“The greatness of a culture can be found in its festivals”
― Siddharth Katragadda, The Other Wife: A Novel in Verse