Subramanian Swamy

"I do not fear a threat of war from Pakistan. We (India) are ten times bigger. If Pakistan were to attack us, we will smash them."

"The best economy for India is when the Government functions more like an umpire in a football match rather than a participant, unfortunately the Government is the umpire, the goalkeeper and the centre forward..."

"I'm in politics because I want to be the prime minister some day. At 41, I'm old enough to run the country, though young enough to wait."

"Raj Narain is a liability anywhere. When out of power, he behaves like a wrestler, which he is. It's martial art for its own sake, not for the sake of achieving an objective. And when in power, I don't trust this man at all. His conduct after he was thrown out of the Cabinet is all on record now. Like a worm, he crawled to Sanjay Gandhi to conspire against the prime minister. He was called a bar by Sanjay Gandhi, yet he smiled. It's unprecedented shamelessness."

"I still have a lot of admiration for RSS. They're disciplined. They're prepared to sacrifice. They love their nation. But I'm not their slave. I didn't quit the Janata Party to join BJP when the RSS ordered each of its friends and followers to do so. It was an immoral act. I've never compromised on principles at RSS's behest."

"I will be able to consolidate the national democratic forces, largely because of my clear identification against the communists. I also have a better relationship with Morarji Desai and Chaudhary Charan Singh. I sincerely believe that unless these two leaders come together it is not possible to counter the Soviet-inspired Left Front in the country."

"During the last few years, the party organisation has been neglected at all levels. There has been a complete neglect of party finances, front organisations and district level committees. I will concentrate on the organisation. Maybe because of my Jan Sangh background, I will do better. If I become the president, half the BJP will join the Janata."

"The people must know that V.P. Singh, the man leading the Opposition today, is untruthful, conspiratorial and lacks an ideology. His commitment to fight corruption is totally shallow. The people must know that Ramakrishna Hegde who claims to be Mr Clean is the biggest looter of the people of Karnataka: on every possible transaction of the Karnataka Government he has made a cut, either directly or through his relatives."

"Sanjay Gandhi admired me for my guts. We got along very well. In the case of Rajiv Gandhi, I will be frank, I find the vibes right. I can't not like him. I will not deny I find his company pleasant. He is very, very well behaved with me. I have met him in his office five times in the last year, in connection with China."

"I will accept money from anybody as long as it is Indian. As a good Brahmin it is my right to accept money. When I ask a businessman to give me money I speak as if I am demanding it. I collect money for the party. I have collected money for the Lok Dal(A), for the Janata Party elections and there is no secret about it. But my personal life has not been aggrandised by it."

"My mission has been to liquidate the Janata Dal. It is an illegitimate organisation."

"The operation Blue Star was supported by the BJP."

"If the Pakistan prime minister thinks he can threaten us with war, let him know that 98 crore Indians are ready for it."

"The US wants only 51 per cent adherence as against 100 per cent adherence demanded by Russia."

"If I can persuade Rajiv Gandhi and Chandra Shekhar to come together, I have sufficient self-confidence to make the prime minister Chandra Shekhar accommodate this concept of liberalism."

"V. P. Singh participated in the whole thing of Bofors. He and Arun Nehru were in cahoots. They misled the people. V. P. Singh held talks with Bofors and Swedish government officials in Stockholm on June 10 1985."

"Last week's measures increasing raising import surcharges on a wide range of industrial products run counter to India's commitments to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to reduce tariffs. Once we have managed the IMF loan negotiations we will get that (approach) reversed."

"National politics has become devalued today because of casteism, communalism and regionalism. A few seats from one state is enough to launch you nationally."

"I was later called by Morarji Desai who said I should not press the matter as it was in the national interest that the basement be kept sealed. The government has something to hide and the issue should be thoroughly investigated."

"Once, at a get together, I called him my guru and explained the gurukul system of our rishis. He said: "Ah! That is what the US needs." Samuelson was a rishi in the way he treated his chosen students and saw them through difficulties. He was a great and gentle guru."

"Earlier, the scams were related to the defence deals, where things were difficult. Now, they have got into things within the country. And since there are lots of players, some of them spill the beans."

"The recent announcement that the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Mr. Karunanidhi will patronize screening of the mega budget movie on Saint Thomas and his fictitious missionary activities in the first century in Tamil Nadu, read with the Union Government's decision to cancel the allotment of forest land to the Amarnath Shrine Board intended for creating facilities for housing and parking Hindu pilgrims, are a part of the pernicious and sinister attempt to put the Hindus under siege, about which I have been warning the nation for the last three years."

"It is first of all factually correct that Muslims of India have DNA wise the same DNA as us. And therefore there is nothing wrong with them acknowledging that their ancestors are Hindus. If they say Hindus are not their ancestors, then who could be their ancestors? Now after all we created Pakistan for those Muslims who didn't consider themselves as ready to live with their Hindu brothers."

"Fanatic Muslims consider Hindu-dominated India an unfinished chapter of Islamic conquests."

"Amartya Sen is not Indian. He had lost his Indian-ness after he left his Bengali ex-wife and married two foreign females. He has lived abroad and only visits the country for a couple of months, which cannot make you Indian."

"It has a very small life span. It is a party led by people committed to naxal ideology. They are not improving the society, but rather disrupting it."

"If Bangladesh does not agree to take back its people, then the country should compensate by giving land to India."

"I feel that only those who have been oppressed by the society and have been forced to live a backward life should given reservations. If Muslims want to study, then should be given scholarships, good schools, But Muslims and Christians can't have reservation as they have ruled our country."

"He (President Obama) should mind his own business. Two million Hindus who are working there (in the US) are not allowed to build their temples; they are not allowed to celebrate Diwali. He only gives lectures here. He says in America they have worked out a harmony. In America, the majority was brutalising the minority. In India, for 800 years, the Islamic minority was brutalising the majority Hindus."

"A mosque is not a religious place. It is just a building. It can be demolished any time. If anyone disagrees with me on this, I am ready to have a debate on the issue. I got this information from people of Saudi Arabia."

"We Hindus offer Lord Krishna's package to Muslims--give us 3 temples and keep 39,997 masjids. I hope Muslim leaders don't become Duryodhans."

"There is only one way to purify JNU. Shut down the university for four months, question every student, especially those pursuing courses in political science and sociology who are extending their stay by several years while insulting the nation."

"There is a need to make public the Operation Bluestar files so that people know the whole truth."

"The Indian State instead of the encouraging objective rendering of the history have encouraged few vested interests to hijack the historical narrative. This has resulted in present situation where the history, which is taught in our schools and colleges, is the British imperialist-sponsored one, with the intent to destroy our history... An accurate history should not only record the periods of glory but the moments of degeneration, of the missed opportunities, and of the failure to forge national unity at crucial junctures in time. It should draw lessons for the future generations from costly errors in the past... It is disturbing to read the amount of intellectual investment that has been made by the forces that are inimical to our country. These forces have penetrated into our democratic institutions to hollow them from inside."

"Operation Bluestar was a mischievous blunder and it should not have been done."

"The main problem is his (Narendra Modi) extraordinarily unhealthy centralization of decision making. And the utter disregard that party president (Amit Shah) has for the workers."

"This is not a Modi wave, but a Hindutva wave. Hindus are rising above caste. The younger generation of voters is very important. They are young nationalists. They don’t care about caste."

"Ninety-five per cent of the credit should go to P. V. Narasimha Rao, the execution was by Manmohan Singh and Montek Singh Ahluwalia but in terms of conception, it was mine. (About 1991 economic liberalisation)"

"This family is totally anti-national as far as India is concerned. (but) I must tell you this much: Rajiv Gandhi and I were very, very close friends, extremely close friends. In Parliament when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister, he used to sit next to me along the aisle. After he lost office, he and I used to meet at 2 am everyday for two hours. So I know almost everything about the circumstances in which he got married, and what the relationship between the two (Rajiv and Sonia) was. I thought well of Rajiv. He was a great patriot, thought he would make a great Prime Minister if he came back for the second time around, and I supported him. Openly, on the floor of Parliament, I said, he didn’t get the Bofors money, Ottavio Quattrocchi (Sonia’s close friend) got it, and these were proved quite later, too late."

"I cannot say I am anti-Nehru-Gandhi family per se, but I certainly was, from Day 1 anti-Nehru. Even when I was a school student, I took an intuitive dislike for Jawaharlal Nehru. There was no explanation. I just had it! The dislike was continuous as I learnt more and more about him. Therefore, to say that I have a pathological hatred for the Nehru-Gandhi family is not correct. Yes, I never liked Nehru, but that was pure policy. And, of course, I later on came to know that he gave up the offer of the UN Security Council, and then what he did on Kashmir, and the files I saw when I was one of the senior-most ministers in the Chandra Shekhar government. All this only bolstered that view."

"We're already a Hindu Rashtra. Right from the beginning, our Constitution mentioned faith, unlike any other constitution in the world. It bans cow slaughter. A Uniform Civil Code is also something that a Hindu Rashtra relies on."

"Recently, the abrogation of Article 370, the Special Protection Group for Sonia Gandhi and the CAA were three issues on which I was asked to speak at the Parliament. Do you know that the first resolution of the Congress party was to provide citizenship to those Hindus and Sikhs facing religious persecution? Gandhi and Manmohan Singh endorsed this. This Bill has nothing to do with the Muslims of India."

"The CAA is a commitment that we have to fulfil."

"Pervez Musharraf is a good friend. I was once asked to inaugurate his office in Rawalpindi because his mother wanted a Brahmin to inaugurate it. He's truly integrated with our culture."

"Income tax must be abolished. We must also increase the Fixed Deposit interest rates."

"Sachin Pilot is a right man in wrong party."

"I’m an ordinary member of the BJP. If one were to say that the BJP is represented by Modi and Amit Shah, I have nothing to do with them. If BJP is essentially a party floated by the RSS, I’m a part of that."

"I meet BJP MPs in the RSS shakhas. I sit with the BJP MPs (in Rajya Sabha), who are all extremely friendly. Yes, but it is a highly disciplined party. They don’t like to disobey decisions taken at the top. I think that is wrong in a democratic society. I’m very critical of the complete lack of knowledge of economics that is being foisted on us."

"Modi is ungrateful, and no one can doubt my talent for some of the ministries and my knowledge of the subject. They did not even let me become an MP. Eventually, it was the RSS that had to move in and it took till 2016 before they could budge him."

"He (Asaduddin Owaisi) polarises Hindus in our favour, but whether that is deliberate or not, I can’t say. I like Owaisi. He is my friend. If you see us meeting in Central Hall (Parliament), then you will feel like two buddies are meeting."