To bear many children is considered not only a religious blessing but also an investment. The greater their number, some Indians reason, the more alms they can beg.

We always said that our struggle was not only against the British as representatives of colonialism, it was against all the evil that existed in India. The evil of the feudal system, the evil of the system based on caste, the evil of economic injustice.

You must also understand us - always undervalued, underestimated, not believed. Even when we believed, you didn't believe us. You said, 'How is it possible to fight without violence?' But without violence we obtained freedom.

I learned very soon to get along by myself.

I have certain objectives. They're the same objectives my father had to give people a higher standard of living, to do away with the cancer of poverty, to eliminate the consequences of economic backwardness.

The civil servant is primarily the master of the short-term solution.

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