Revolutionaries

"Every land which belongs to God is our land."

"Overflowing with the wine of Truth is the cup of India All philosophers of the Western world have acknowledged India It is the result of the elegant thinking of Indians That higher than the sky is the position of India This country has had many people of angelic disposition On whose account world renowned is the name of India India is proud of the existence of Rama Spiritual people consider him prelate of India This alone is the miracle of this light of righteousness That brighter than world’s morning is the evening of India He was expert in sword craft, was unique in bravery Was matchless in piety and in the enthusiasm of love."

"Human intellect is natures attempt at self criticism."

"Our India is the best of all countries in the world."

"Let the lament of this lonely bulbul pierce the hearts of all, Arouse the hearts of the sleeping, with this my clarion call. Transfused with fresh blood, a new compact of faith we'll sign. Let our hearts thirst again for a sip of the vintage wine. What if the pitcher be Persian, from Hejaz is the wine I serve. What if the song be Indian, it is Hejazi in its verve."

"Nations are born in the hearts of poets; they prosper and die in the hands of politicians."

"I have already indicated to you the meaning of the word religion, as applied to Islam. The truth is that Islam is not a Church. It is a State conceived as a contractual organism long before Rousseau ever thought of such a thing, and animated by an ethical ideal which regards man not as an earth-rooted creature, defined by this or that portion of the earth, but as a spiritual being understood in terms of a social mechanism, and possessing rights and duties as a living factor in that mechanism."

"Muslims are we, the country is ours, China and Arabia is ours, India is ours. Under the shadow of swords we have grown up. The crescent scabbard is our national emblem."

""I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India."

"[T]he tyranny of imperialism struts abroad, covering its face under the masks of Democracy, Nationalism, Communism, Fascism and heaven knows what else besides. Under these masks, in every corner of the earth, the spirit of freedom and the dignity of man are being trampled underfoot in a way to which not even the darkest period of human history presents a parallel. The so-called statesmen to whom government and leadership of men was entrusted have proved demons of bloodshed, tyranny and oppression. ... After subjugating and establishing their dominion over weaker peoples, they have robbed them of their possessions, of their religions, their morals, of their cultural traditions and their literatures."

""Muhammad of Arabia ascended the highest Heaven and returned. I swear by God that if I had reached that point, I should never have returned.” These are the words of a great Muslim saint, ‘Abd al-Quddūs of Gangoh. In the whole range of Sufi literature it will be probably difficult to find words which, in a single sentence, disclose such an acute perception of the psychological difference between the prophetic and the mystic types of consciousness. The mystic does not wish to return from the repose of “unitary experience”; and even when he does return, as he must, his return does not mean much for mankind at large."

"It cannot be denied that Islam, regarded as an ethical ideal plus a certain kind of polity – by which expression I mean a social structure regulated by a legal system and animated by a specific ethical ideal – has been the chief formative factor in the life-history of the Muslims of India. It has furnished those basic emotions and loyalties which gradually unify scattered individuals and groups, and finally transform them into a well-defined people, possessing a moral consciousness of their own."

"My forefathers were Brahmins. They spent their lives in search of God. I am spending my life in search of Man."

"The principle that each group is entitled to its free development on its own lines is not inspired by any feeling of narrow communalism. There are communalisms and communalisms. A community which is inspired by feelings of ill-will towards other communities is low and ignoble. I entertain the highest respect for the customs, laws, religious and social institutions of other communities. Nay, it is my duty, according to the teaching of the Quran, even to defend their places of worship, if need be. Yet I love the communal group which is the source of my life and behaviour; and which has formed me what I am by giving me its religion, its literature, its thought, its culture, and thereby recreating its whole past as a living operative factor, in my present consciousness. Even the authors of the recognise the value of this higher aspect of communalism."

"To this convention you must re-state as clearly and as strongly as possible, the political objective of Indian Muslims as a distinct political unit in the country. It is absolutely necessary to tell the world both inside and outside India that the economic problem is not the only problem in the country. From the Muslim point of view the cultural problem is of much greater consequence to most Indian Muslims. At any rate it is not less important than the economic problem."

"The immediacy of mystic experience simply means that we know God just as we know other objects. God is not a mathematical entity or a system of concepts mutually related to one another and having no reference to experience."

"Ends and purposes, whether they exist as conscious or subconscious tendencies, form the warp and woof of our conscious experience."

"Democracy is a system where people are counted but not weighed."

"This is not a letter on Pakistan. If it were, I could have written a small book entitled "Glimpses of Pakistan's history". Time does not permit it. The nation is gripped in her worst crisis, standing in the middle of the road between survival and disintegration. Since the birth of Pakistan, crisis has followed crisis in rapid escalation. Millions of lives were sacrificed to create this country. Pakistan is said to be the dream of Mohammad Iqbal and the creation of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Quaid-e-Azam. Was anything wrong with the dream or with the one who made the dream come true? Opinions have differed and continue to differ. The next few years will most probably decide the issue, perhaps once and for all, and not without bloodshed. This process is not inevitable but the present policies of the ruling junta are driving this country towards a sad inevitability"

"Dr. Ambedkar never got disappointed with difficult tasks, but faced the situation with great courage. I am especially appealing to the younger generation of students to take a leaf out of Dr. Ambedkar's life. At difficult times, his life can be a great inspiration.... [Ambedkar] came to the RSS camp in Pune and appreciated its patriotism, discipline and complete absence of untouchability. But he said he was in a hurry and Sangh work appears to be a little slow.... We salute the Architect of our Constitution, his erudition and hard work, his great patriotism and practical outlook. But it was natural that he could not stomach the indignities heaped on the Dalits and the attitude of our upper castes in the Hindu society appeared to change too slowly. Let us take a vow on this occasion to make the Hindu society free from aberrations, a society full of harmony, self-confidence and knowledge, so that it can carry the message of the great Rishis to the whole world."

"Sitting in the Chair and watching the proceedings from day to day, I have realised as nobody else could have, with what zeal and devotion the members of the Drafting Committee and especially its Chairman, Dr. Ambedkar in spite of his indifferent health, have worked. We could never make a decision which was or could be ever so right as when we put him on the Drafting Committee and made him its Chairman. He has not only justified his selection but has added lustre to the work which he has done."

"Dr. Ambedkar is considered very wise not only because of his erudition and intellectual acumen, but because his learning and ability are being used for the good of the common people. Others use their knowledge and ability for the selfish or sectarian benefit."

"He (Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar) had pioneered the renaissance of Buddhism in India and was responsible for millions embracing Buddhism in the land of its birth."

"I have seen people who are born in the lowest category of Hindu law, the sudras, the untouchables, so intelligent: when India became independent, the man who made the constitution of India, Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, was a sudra. There was no equal to his intelligence as far as law is concerned — he was a world-famous authority... Ambedkar was educated in England, and he became the world-famous authority as far as constitutions are concerned. And when he came back to India, India became free and there was no choice; nobody was even close to him..."

"...though Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar had been a Buddhist for only seven weeks, during that period he had probably done more for the promotion of Buddhism than any other Indian since Ashoka. At the time of this death three quarters of a million Untouchables had become Buddhists, and in the months that followed hundreds of thousands more took the same step – despite the uncertainty and confusion that had been created by the sudden loss of their great leader… This was Ambedkar’s last and greatest achievement, so that even though it was as the Architect of the Constitution of Free India and the Modern Manu that he passed into official history and is today most widely remembered, his real significance consists in the fact that it was he who established a revived Indian Buddhism on a firm foundation."

"There was one portrait. And interestingly, it was not of the leader of the Shiv Sena or of Shivaji, the Sena's warrior god, but of the long-dead Dr. Ambedkar (...) Popular-and near-ecstatic-movements like the Shiv Sena ritualize many different needs. The Sena here, honouring an angry and (for all his eminence) defeated man, seemed quite different from the Sena the newspapers wrote about."

"We believe that the future is what we make it. We believe that no matter who you are or where you come from, every person can fulfill their God-given potential. Just as a Dalit like Dr. Ambedkar could lift himself up and pen the words of the constitution that protects the rights of all Indians. We believe that no matter where you live – whether a village in Punjab or the by lanes of Chandni Chowk, an old section of Kolkata or a new high-rise in Bangalore – every person deserves the same chance to live in security and dignity, to get an education, to find work, and to give their children a better future."

"His (Dr. Ambedkar's) personality, erudition and capacity to lead and organise-would have by themselves marked him out as an outstanding asset to our nation. But in addition to that the in-estimable services he has rendered to our motherland in trying to stamp out untouchability and the result he has achieved in instilling a manly spirit of self-confidence in millions of the depressed classes, constitute an abiding, patriotic as well as humanitarian achievement. The very fact of the birth of such a towering personality among the so-called untouchable castes could not but liberate their souls from self-depression and animate them to challenge the super-arrogative claims of the so-called touchables."

"I have met Doctor Ambedkar. He was one of the intelligent men I have ever met."

"He [Ambedkar] was quite clear that Muslims proposed to hold to their demands for 50:50 and so gradually lay the foundation of Pakistan, and he was perfectly content himself, he said, with that state of things, and in favour of the Pakistan idea quite frankly because it meant the British would have to stay in India. He saw not the least prospect of our overcoming difficulties here by guarantees of any sort and (like most minorities) he has, I suspect, little interest in constitutional progress...."

"I am coming from a 'backward section of society,' and was prime minister today only because of Ambedkar."

"The House is perhaps aware that of the seven members nominated by you, one had reigned from the House and was never replaced One had died & wasn’t replaced. One was away in America & his place was not filled up, and another person was engaged in state affairs, & there was a void to that extent. One or two people were far away from Delhi and perhaps reasons of health did not permit them to attend. So it happened ultimately that the burden of drafting this Constitution fell upon Dr. Ambedkar and I have no doubt that we are grateful to him for having achieved this task in a manner which is undoubtedly commendable."

"Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar like God to me, I am President because of him. I feel happy and privileged that I am attending the convocation ceremony of the Dr Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University which is named after Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar. His life was full of struggles and so it was with notable works."

"The year 1940 was coming to an end when Ambedkar's magnum opus, Thoughts on Pakistan, was published. Written at a psychological moment, it fell like a bombshell on the heated atmosphere of the day... This historic book castigates the anti-reformist tendency of the Muslims... Some penetrating and caustic paragraphs describing the regressive bent of the Muslim mind, however, were deleted, it is said, at the instance of Ambedkar's close admirers. Otherwise [Ambedkar] would have experienced what H.G. Wells experienced at the hands of Muslims in London!... Thoughts on Pakistan is a masterpiece in which learning and thinking are blended and displayed at their highest order. It is entracing in its magic, intriguing in its construction, terse in its style, and provocative in its manner. It is a model in scientific propagation.... The effect of this book was terrible... It was applauded as an epitome of the political and social history of India; and it rocked Indian politics for over a decade. The Muslims rejoiced at this support to their ideal."

"B R Ambedkar deserves to be remembered always by us because of his fight against social injustice. The great service that he had rendered in framing the constitution of India."

"Ambedkar is my Father in Economics. He is true celebrated champion of the underprivileged. He deserves more than what he has achieved today. However he was highly controversial figure in his home country, though it was not the reality. His contribution in the field of economics is marvelous and will be remembered forever..!"

"Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar was fearless. He propogated love and humanity. He loved people and gave them a thought of humanity. Babasaheb never gave up he was fearless. So today I have had difficulties, problems or situation is bad I remember Babasaheb. That's why I get inspiration from him. That's why Babasaheb is my role model""

"There is not one instance, not one single, solitary instance in which Ambedkar participated in any activity connected with the struggle to free the country. Quite the contrary- at every possible turn he opposed the campaigns of the national movement, at every setback to the movement he was among those cheering for failure."

"You have found your saviour in Ambedkar. I am confident that he will break your shackles. Not only that, a time will come, so whispers my conscience, that he will shine as a front-rank leader of all-India fame and appeal."

"Ambedkar took a cool and hard look at Islam as a sworn enemy of Hindu society, even while being bitterly critical of the latter. Dr. Ambedkar was particularly outspoken about the social injustices in Islam, especially in his book Pakistan or the Partition of India... Many of Dr. Ambedkar’s observations on Islam would now be branded as “Hindu communalist” by the very people who claim his heritage. In fact, the literature of the RSS Parivar offers no counterpart to Ambedkar’s strong language about Islam: he was more openly anti-Islamic than Savarkar, Golwalkar or any Hindutva stalwart who is regularly accused of being just that. From the Hindu Revivalist point of view, Ambedkar, in writing his incisive criticism of Islam, did the homework which the Hindutva ideologues neglected... At Sangh Parivar functions, a picture of Ambedkar is mostly displayed along with pictures of Maharana Pratap, Shivaji, Guru Govind Singh, Hedgewar, Golwalkar and other more obvious Hindutva heroes. During BJP President L.K. Advani's flopped Rath Yatra (car procession) before the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, his car carried just two pictures: of freedom fighter Subhash Chandra Bose and of Dr. Ambedkar."

"Dr. Ambedkar has become a saint, and his opinions can now only be recited and quoted as final authority, but not subjected to any criticism on penalty of being dubbed "Brahminical reactionary". Dr. Ambedkar was a complex personality, not fit for simple glorification, nor of course for vilification. Undoubtedly, he was a very strong man, who stood his ground, and who rendered sterling services to the nation. On his intellectual achievements, our judgment will be more diversified. He was essentially a Western-educated man, and had imbibed some of the condescending incomprehension so typical of westernized Natives. Yet, among this class of Western-educated Indians, there is hardly any who has to such extent freed himself from pervasive prejudices and fashionable beliefs, such as the claim of a racial basis of caste. Because he himself had suffered the humiliation which many caste Hindus kept on inflicting on the untouchables, it is not abnormal that he was intemperately bitter against Hinduism. Nevertheless, he remained loyal to Hinduism in the broad sense, and rejected eager offers to take his followers into mass conversion to soul- greedy and imperialist religions. If we have uttered some criticism of his intellectual shortcomings regarding specific subjects, we could do so in a spirit of respect because we are also aware of his substantial intellectual qualities and merits, apart from his well-known political achievements for his country and his community. As an independent thinker, Dr. Ambedkar contrasts brightly with wind-bags like M.N. Roy and Jawaharlal Nehru, whose parrotting of fashionable slogans has not prevented them from remaining trendsetters for the secularist elite which is still ruling India. If he was not perfect in every respect, we would say that there is only so much which a man can do in a lifetime, so if a busy politician could not always find the time to seek out all the historical facts about complex subjects, it is really not abnormal."

"Nothing is infallible. Nothing is binding forever. Everything is subject to inquiry and examination."

"Ambedkar stands as the fountainhead of wisdom and knowledge in modern India."

"Dr. Ambedkar, the creator of Indian Constitution, spread awareness about the religion in 1956. Today, we need to understand the real meaning of Buddha, Buddhism."

"His contributions are great."

"Majorities are of two sorts: (1) Communal majority and (ii) political majority. A political majority is changeable in its class composition. A political majority grows. A communal majority is born.The admission to a political majority is open. The door in a communal majority is closed. The politics of political majority are free to all to make and unmake. The politics of community majority are made by its own members born in it."

"“May I mention the R.S.S. and the Akali Dal? Some of them are very dangerous associations. It may be that one Government may recognize them and another Government may not recognize them, all these possibilities are there.”"

"Indifferentism is the worst kind of disease that can affect people."

"On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognizing the principle of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which is Assembly has to laboriously built up.”"

"Freedom of mind is the real freedom. A person whose mind is not free though he may not be in chains, is a slave, not a free man. One whose mind is not free, though he may not be in prison, is a prisoner and not a free man. One whose mind is not free though alive, is no better than dead. Freedom of mind is the proof of one's existence."