Founding Fathers Of India

"It is no exaggeration to say that younger men who come in personal contact with him feeling as in a holy presence, not only uttering nothing base, but afraid of even of thinking unworthy thoughts, while in his company."

"Thought that the discourses were everything – the place where they were delivered was nothing. He wanted his ideas to reach his countrymenand he had no objection to going wherever they were assembled, provided he got an opportunity to speak to them."

"I had a farewell talk with Gokhale....On the whole his tone both attracted and impressed me. He promises very confidently a good reception for our Reforms by the Congress....But whether dealing with Parnell, Gokhale, or any other of the political breed, I have a habit of taking them to mean what they say until and unless I find out a trick. Parnell always so long as we were friends or allies, treated me perfectly honourably.... Mr. Gokhale is to stay in London until the end of the session, and I am in good hopes of finding him a help to me, and not a hindrance, in guiding the strong currents of democratic feeling that are running breast high in the House of Commons."

"The elections clearly showed me that a suitable Indian candidate has as good a chance as any Englishman, or even some advantages over an Englishman, for there is a general and genuine desire among English electors to give to India any help in their power."

"She made me what I am."

"The work that has so far been done has indeed been of the highest value. The growth during the last 50 years , of a feeling of common nationality, based upon common tradition, common disabilities, and common hopes and aspirations, has been most striking. The fact that we are Indians first, and Hindoos, Mahomedans, Parsees, or Christians afterwards, is being realized in a steadily increasing measure, and the idea of a united and renovated India, marching onwards to a place among the nations of the world worthy of her great past, is no longer a mere idle dream of a few imaginative minds, but is definitely the accepted creed of those who form the brain of the community-the educated classes of the country."

"Progress is implied in independence. Without self-government neither industrial progress is possible, nor the educational scheme will be useful to the nation…To make efforts for India’s freedom is more important than social reforms."

"The condition of the low castes—it is painful to call them low castes—is not only unsatisfactory as this resolution says—it is so deeply deplorable that it constitutes a grave blot on our social arrangements... I think all fair-minded persons will have to admit that it is absolutely monstrous that a class of human beings, with bodies similar to our own, with brains that can think and with hearts that can feel, should be perpetually condemned to a low life of utter wretchedness, servitude, and mental and moral degradation, and that permanent barriers should be placed in their way so that it should be impossible for them ever to overcome them and improve their lot. This is deeply revolting to our sense of justice… How can we possibly realize our national aspirations, how can our country ever hope to take her place among the nations of the world, if we allow large numbers of our countrymen to remain sunk in ignorance, barbarism, and degradation?"

"No taxation without representation"

"The Congress movement was for a long time purely occidental in its mind, character, and methods, confined to the English-educated few, founded on the political rights and interests of the people read in the light of English history and European ideals, but with no roots either in the past of the country or in the inner spirit of the nation. ... To bring in the mass of the people, to find the greatness of the future on the greatness of the past, to infuse Indian politics with Indian religious fervor and spirituality are the indispensable conditions for a great and powerful political awakening in India. Others, writers, thinkers, spiritual leaders, had seen this truth. Mr. Tilak was the first to bring it into the actual field of practical politics. ... There are always two classes of political mind: one is preoccupied with details for their own sake, revels in the petty points of the moment and puts away into the background the great principles and the great necessities, the other sees rather these first and always and details only with them. The one type moves in a routine circle that may or may not have an issue; it cannot see the forest for the trees and it is only by an accident that it stumbles, if at all, on the way out. The other type takes a mountain-top view of the goal and all the directions and keeps that in its mental compass through all the deflections, retardations and tortuosities which the character of the intervening country may compel it to accept; but these it abridges as much as possible. The former class arrogates the name of a statesman in their day; it is to the latter that posterity concedes it and sees in them the true leaders of great movements. Mr. Tilak, like all men of pre-eminent political genius, belongs to this second and greater order of mind."

"Interiorizing this notion, Tilak then went on to develop fanciful interpretations of Vedic verses to make them fit the scenario of a non-Indian, indeed Arctic setting of the oldest layer of Vedic literature. Perfectly innocuous verses about the dawn or the seasons, always read in their natural meaning by one or two hundred generations of Brahmins, were suddenly contrived to reveal references to the Arctic. It is this highly artificial and untraditional reading of the Vedic hymns which became and remains the sheet-anchor of Aryan invasion lore in European far-rightist and new-rightist circles. Tilak was no authority on Indo-European expansion history..."

"Such consistent refusal to consider a greater antiquity for the Vedic texts, and to suggest a foreign origin whenever the occasion presents itself, has been a source of puzzlement and resentment for many Indian scholars such as Tilak (n.d.a), who "cannot understand why scholars should hesitate to assign the Vedic works to the same period of antiquity which they allow to the Chinese and the Egyptians" (56)."

""To use the words of Max Muller, we must, in such cases, 'keep our preconceived notions of what people call primitive humanity in abeyance for a time'"."

"In India there was only one natural aggressive nationalist and he was Tilak."

"Love of India was the breath of life with Mr. Tilak and in it, he has left to us a treasure, which can only increase, by use. The endless procession of yesterday shows the hold the great patriot had on the masses."

"(A non-Hindu) may not perhaps go with me to the same temple to pray to God, perhaps there may be no intermarriage and inter-dining between him and me. All these are minor questions. But, if a man is exerting himself for the good of India, and takes measures in that direction, I do not consider him an alien."

"In the early geological ages, when the Alps were low and the Himalayas not yet upheaved... from geological evidence of fossil and fauna, we find that an equitable climate and uniform climate prevailed over the whole surface of the globe. It is now conclusively proved that before the advent of glacial and interglacial periods luxurious forest vegetation... flourished in the high latitude of the polar regions where the Sun goes below the horizon from November till March, thus showing that a warm climate prevailed in the Arctic regions in those days"

"The Vedic hymns were sung in post glacial times (8,000BC) by poets who had inherited their knowledge or contents thereof from their antediluvian forefathers."

"Lack of rain indeed causes famine but it is also true that the people of India have not the strength to fight evil. The poverty of India is wholly due to the present rule. India is being bled till only the skeleton remains…all the vitality of the people is being sapped and we are left in an emaciated state of slavery."

"...its ultimate origin is still lost in geological antiquity."

"The compilation of hymns into Sanhitas also appears to be a work of the early part of this period."

"It has been shown that Vedic religion and worship are both interglacial; and though that we can not trace their ultimate origin yet the Arctic character of the Vedic deities fully proves that the powers of nature represented by them has been already clothed with divine attributives by the primitive Aryans in their original home round about the North Pole, or the Meru of the Puranas."

"It has been said, gentlemen, by some that we Hindus have yielded too much to our Mohammedan brethren. I am sure I represent the sense of the Hindu community all over India when I say that we could not have yielded too much. I would not care if the rights of self-government are granted to the Mohammedan community only... When we have to fight against a third party — it is a very important thing that we stand on this platform united, united in race, united in religion, united as regards all different shades of political creed."

"If God is put up with untouchability, I will not call him God."

"Shatham prati shaathyam, ‘Wickedness to the wicked.’... Meet boldness with boldness; impertinence by impertinence must be met; villainy by villainy must be met.... Therefore, my friend, wise men have everywhere mentioned exceptions to the principle of forgiveness.... has made it clear that this rule should not be followed in a society, where there do not exist persons who follow the other religious principle, namely, others should not cause harm to us, which is the corollary from this first principle.... Therefore, just as the principle of non-violence is not violated by killing an evil-doer, so also the principle of self-identification [of seeing the same, Eternal Self in all] or of non-enmity, which is observed by saints, is in no way affected by giving condign punishment to evil-doers.... And the summary of the entire teaching of the Gita is that: even the most horrible warfare which may be carried on in these circumstances, with an equable frame of mind, is righteous and meritorious.... Religion and morality consist in behaving towards others in the same way as they behave towards us; one must behave deceitfully towards deceitful persons, and in a saintly way towards saintly persons.... But if the evilness of the evil-doers is not circumvented by such saintly actions, or, if the counsel of peacefulness and propriety is not acceptable to such evil-doers, then according to the principle kantakenaiva kantakam (that is, “take out a thorn by a thorn”), it becomes necessary to take out by a needle, that is by an iron thorn, if not by an ordinary thorn, that thorn which will not come out with poultices, because under any circumstances, punishing evil-doers in the interests of general welfare, as was done by the Blessed Lord, is the first duty of saints from the point of view of Ethics.... I give to them reward in the same manner and to the same extent that they worship Me.’ ‘In the same way, no one calls the Judge, who directs the execution of a criminal, the enemy of the criminal…’"

"The curriculum of the girl’s school should be vernacular, needlework and sanitation...teaching women amounted to the loss of nationality... English education had [a] de-womanizing impact on women by denying them a happy worldly life...hurt the sentiments of the Hindus…teaching Hindu women to read English would ruin their precious traditional virtues and would make them immoral and subordinate."

"You can never give the Musalmans too much."

"It may be providence's will that the cause I represent may prosper more by my suffering than by my remaining free."

"...for destroying the harmony in the villages by interfering on behalf of the peasants and betraying the moneylender."

"Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it!"

"It was Valentine Chirol, a Britisher, who gave Tilak the meaningful sobriquet ‘the father of Indian unrest”.... Lokmanya Tilak thundered “Swaraj is my birth-right and I will have it’ and blazed the path of Karma Yoga to achieve it."

"Belief in the Vedas, many means, no strict rule for worship: these are the features of the Hindu religion."

"Freedom is my birthright. I must have it."

"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 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."

"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."

"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."

"...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."

"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..!"

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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..."

"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""

"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."

"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."