Humbling was a nice word, Rahel thought. Humbling along without a care in the world

Because of the caste system, because of the fact that there is no social link between those who make the decisions and those who suffer the decisions, the Indian government just goes ahead and does what it wants. The people also assume that this is their lot, their karma, what was written. It's quite an efficient way of doing things. Therefore, India has a very good reputation in the world as a democracy, as a government that cares, that has just got too much on its hands, whereas, in fact, it's actually creating the problems.

But remember that if the struggle were to resort to violence, it will lose vision, beauty and imagination. Most dangerous of all, it will marginalize and eventually victimize women. And a political struggle that does not have women at the heart of it, above it, below it, and within it is no struggle at all.

When you say things like, 'We have to wipe out the Taliban,' what does that mean? The Taliban is not a fixed number of people. The Taliban is an ideology that has sprung out of a history that, you know, America created anyway.

In India, the poverty is so vast that the state cannot control it. It can beat people, but it can't prevent the poor from flooding the roads, the cities, the parks and railway station platforms.

Non-violence is a piece of theatre. You need an audience. What can you do when you have no audience?

The idea of "human rights," for example - sometimes it bothers me. Not in itself, but because the concept of human rights has replaced the much grander idea of justice.