Aruna Roy Quotes

The strength of collective decision making and political responsibility is not only a question of recognizing other people's ability. It is also recognizing one's own limitations.

We call people who work with mud and earth, and sand and stone, unskilled labor in India. I cannot in this lifetime wield the implements that they use either to dig the earth or to shovel the earth. I can't carry the loads. That's extremely specialized. But they are called unskilled, and I am called skilled because I can write with the pen. I cannot accept this. I find it extremely non-egalitarian to say they are unskilled and I am skilled. It's only a way of looking at it. Knowledge is also like that.

The internal and external ethics of an organization must be the same; you cannot talk about minimum wages for poor people and not pay minimum wages to your own workers.

The right to know is the right to live.

You can never evaluate anything standing from outside; you have to evaluate yourself first.