My father cared very much about courage, physical courage as well. He despised those who didn't have it. But he never said to me, 'I want you to be courageous.' He just smiled with pride every time I did something difficult or won a race with the boys.

I myself, in my heart, say that people should have all the children they want. But it's a mistaken idea, like many of our ideas that go back thousands of years, and it must be rooted out.

In fact the communists gained strength in India when the people thought my party was moving to the right. And they were correct.

I discovered [Joan of Arc] toward the age of ten or twelve, when I went to France. I don't remember where I read about her, but I recall that she immediately took on a definite importance for me. I wanted to sacrifice my life for my country. It seems like foolishness and yet...what happens when we're children is engraved forever on our lives.

Martyrdom does not end something, it only a beginning.

I always wanted to have children - if it had been up to me, I would have had eleven. It was my husband who wanted only two.

All of a sudden inscriptions appeared on walls. Signs appeared. And that 'no' exploded all over India, in an act of pride that surprised even me. Then even the political parties, all of them, even the deputies in Parliament, said no: it's better to die of hunger than be taken for a nation of beggars.