in today's world no country can be absolutely independent of another. It is a world of interdependence.

Education is a liberating force, and in our age it is also a democratizing force, cutting across the barriers of caste and class, smoothing out inequalities imposed by birth and other circumstances.

All my games were political games; I was, like Joan of Arc, perpetually being burned at the stake.

At a certain point the family moved to Jaipur, where no woman could avoid the doli or purdah. They kept her in the house from morning to night, either cooking or doing nothing. [My mother] hated doing nothing, she hated to cook. So she became pale and ill, and far from being concerned about her health, my grandfather said, 'Who's going to marry her now?' So my grandmother waited for my grandfather to go out, and then she dressed my mother as a man and let her go out riding with her brothers.

As a nation, I believe we've acquired faith in ourselves.

The old need the company of the young so that they renew their contact with life.

It's true that I refused foreign aid. It's true. It wasn't my personal decision, however - it was the whole country that said no.