At first people asked us, 'Can you do it?' And we kept silent because we didn't believe in ourselves, we didn't believe that we could do things. Today people no longer say to us, 'Can you?' They say, 'When can you?' Because the Indians finally believe in themselves, they believe they can do things.

As my father [Javāharlāl Nehrū] said, you have to keep an open mind, but you have to pour something into it - otherwise ideas slip away like sand between your fingers.

That's always been my philosophy. - I've never thought of the consequences of a necessary action.

We have believed - and we do believe now - that freedom is indivisible, that peace is indivisible, that economic prosperity is indivisible

Now I don't get upset by unpleasant things, I don't play the victim, and I'm always ready to come to terms with life.

I always defended my father, as a child, and I think I'm still defending him - his policies at least. Oh, he wasn't at all a politician, in no sense of the word. He was sustained in his work only by a blind faith in India - he was preoccupied in such an obsessive way by the future of India. We understood each other.

I can't take it seriously when people get excited and scream that religion is in danger, and similar stupidities.