Quotes from Ramachandra Guha

The first such avenue was education. After Independence there was a great expansion in school and college education. By law, a certain portion of seats were reserved for the Scheduled Castes. By policy, different state governments endowed scholarships for children from disadvantaged homes.

will be remembered also for the great interest he took and the trouble he took over the question of Hindu law reform.

Peking followed Lenin's dictum that 'promises, like piecrusts, are meant to be broken'.

In India, credit for the victory was shared by countless mostly unnamed soldiers and a single specific politician – the prime minister. Mrs Gandhi was admired for standing up to the bullying tactics of the United States, and for so coolly planning the dismemberment of the enemy. Her parliamentary colleagues went overboard in their salutations, but even opposition politicians were now speaking of her as 'Durga', the all-conquering goddess of Hindu mythology.

Never, never underestimate a politician's need to survive . . . I will not make the mistake of underestimating the political instinct of a Kashmiri, who is, additionally, Jawaharlal Nehru's daughter.

When an opposition member taunted Nehru with regard to his remark that Aksai Chin was barren land, with no grass growing on it, a Congress MP added this telling supplement: 'No hair grows on my head. Does it mean that the head has no value?' This was widely viewed as a dig at Nehru who, of course, was completely bald himself.59

I do not hold with all these cracks and mockery/ At Krishna Menon./ It is his virtues I would rather pin on./ For instance, consider his skill with crockery:/ What could be finer/ Than the loving care with which he handles china?

To ask us to serve the nation is to ask chandan [sandalwood] to be fragrant.

The heart hoped that India would survive, but the head worried that it wouldn't. The place was too complicated, too confusing – a nation, one might say, that was unnatural. In truth, ever since the country

We claim reserved seats if accompanied by adult suffrage,' stated Ambedkar, 'but in the absence of adult suffrage we want separate electorates.

In Marsh's view man was an agent of destruction as well as regeneration, with the potential, as he so beautifully put it, to be a 'restorer of disturbed harmonies.

was already the most acute of Bombay's problems:

the most powerful enemy of the idea of India now is the Indian state.

If he is a bastard, at least he is our bastard'

an anonymous democrat was able to place an ad in the Times of India announcing the 'death of D. E. M. O'Cracy, mourned by his wife T. Ruth, his son L. I. Bertie, and his daughters Faith, Hope, and Justice'.

what is now in the past was once in the future'. There

Sir Jadunath Sarkar

These 'sinister communal elements' would if they came to power 'bring ruin and death to the country'.

Jana Sangh ko vote do, bidi peena chhod do/ Bidi mein tambaku hai, Kangresswala daku hai'.

The Shiv Sena was the handiwork of a cartoonist named Bal Thackeray, whose main target was south Indians, whom he claimed were taking away jobs from the natives. Thackeray lampooned dhoti-clad 'Madrasis' in his writings and drawings; while his followers attacked Udupi restaurants and homes of Tamil and Telugu speakers.

Nehru had an unusual capacity – unusual among politicians, at any rate – to view both sides of the question

From the time of the Congress split, Mrs Gandhi had worked to place loyal individuals in position of authority, and to make public institutions an instrument of her will.

These three conceptual and ideological challenges (Hindu fundamentalism, Communist dictatorship and ethnic separatism) all date to the founding of the nation. To these have, more recently been added, three more mundane and materialist challenges. These are inequality, corruption and environmental degradation.

The report first carefully outlined the arguments for and against linguistic states. It urged a 'balanced approach' which recognized 'linguistic homogeneity as an important factor conducive to administrative convenience and efficiency' yet not 'as an exclusive and binding principle, over-riding all other considerations'. Among these other considerations were, of course, the unity and security of India as a whole.33