Indian National Congress Politicians

"We want freedom for our country, but not at the expense or exploitation of others, not us to degrade other countries…I want the freedom of my country so that other countries may learn something from my free country so that the resources of my country might be utilized for the benefit of mankind."

"The economic issues are most vital for us and it is of the highest importance that we should fight our biggest enemies – Poverty, unemployment. Whether it is agriculture or industrial development, or for that matter, development in other fields, the basic fact remains – that it would serve the largest number of our people."

"Judiciary in India holds a place of pride in the country and outside. At present, there is a tendency in our country to defy law and authority. If this were continued, it would be a bad day for India and would cut at the very roots of our nascent democracy. The rule of law should be respected so that the basic structure of our democracy is maintained and further strengthened."

"True democracy or the swaraj of the masses can never come through untruthful and violent means, for the simple reason that the natural corollary to their use would be to remove all opposition through the suppression or extermination of the antagonists."

"There comes a time in the life of every nation when it stands at the cross-roads of history and must choose which way to go. But for us there need be no difficulty or hesitation, no looking to right or left. Our way is straight and clear—the building up of a socialist democracy at home with freedom and prosperity for all, and the maintenance of world peace and friendship with all nations."

"Their strategy was simple. Moral domination. Nehru was a thinker. But Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul are no intellectuals. They took a different route. They redefined morality. Secularism included. Anti-Congress was new immoral. Pro-Hindu became anti-Muslim. India was morally polarized. Morality is subjective. No one can say with guarantee what is pure morality. Masses were forced to choose between moral standards (Secularism, unity in diversity, inclusive etc.) and quality of life (development). People who wanted quality of life were made to feel guilty. Hindus who wanted to celebrate their religious freedom were made to feel guilty. Muslims who wanted to be part of mainstream India were made to feel guilty. They filled India’s psyche with fear, hate and guilt. They hated all indigenous, grassroots thinkers. They hated Sardar Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Chandrashekhar, P.V. Narsimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and now Modi. They are the land grabbers of Sainik Farms and Adarsh Societies of India. They run NGOs. They run media. They coin useless and irrelevant jargon to confuse the masses. They have designations but no real jobs. They are irrelevant NRIs who want us to see a reality which doesn’t exist. They want a plebiscite in Kashmir. They defend stone-pelters. They want Maoists to participate in mainstream politics. They want Tejpal to be freed. Yaqub to be pardoned. But they want Modi to be hanged. They are the hijackers of national morality. Secularism included. They are the robbers of Indian treasury. They are the brokers of power. They are the pimps of secularism. They are the Intellectual Mafia."

"“As far as East Pakistan is concerned, its decision seems to indicate that all non-Muslims will be driven out from there. It is an Islamic state….non-Muslims cannot live there…”"

"“…in view of insecurity of life, property and honour of the minority communities in the eastern wing of Pakistan [present-day Bangladesh] and general denial of all human rights to them, the government of India should, in addition to relaxing restrictions in migration of people belonging to the minority communities from East Pakistan to the Indian Union, also consider steps for enlisting the world opinion.”"

"The claims of the most backward sections like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, who have suffered neglect and have hard to endure disabilities for many centuries. It would be my proud privilege to work for the establishment of a more just social order."

"India will have to hang down her head in shame if even one person is left who is said in any way to be untouchable."

"Sampling out corruption is a very tough job, but I say so in all seriousness that we would be failing in our duty if we do not tackle this problem seriously and with determination."

"Among the major tasks before us none is of greater importance for our strength and stability than the task of building up the unity and solidarity of our people. Our country has often stood as a solid rock in the face of common danger and there is a deep underlying unity which runs like a golden thread through all our seeming diversity."

"In this vast country of ours, people profess different religions, speak different languages, dress differently and observe different customs; but we are one nation; the history of our struggle for independence and our faith in our future development are our common bonds."

"We believe in peace and peaceful development, not only for ourselves but for people all over the world. Our main preoccupation is with economic and social development at home and peace and friendship abroad."

"The world as a whole is full of problems and difficulties and it is most important that every country which loves its Freedom and wants to maintain its Independence and sovereignty should work for peace and try to see that there is disarmament in the world which alone will lead to real peace."

"If I were a dictator, religion and state would be separate. I will die for it. But it is my personal affair. The State has nothing to do with it. The State would look after secular welfare, health, communications, foreign relations, currency and so on, but not your or my religion. That is everybody’s personal concern."

"The emphasis on religion as a basis of defining majorities and minorities in a secular state is quite misplaced and contradiction in terms. You all understand, I am sure, that religion does not aim at dividing. On the other hand, all true religions have a basic unity."

"Success in science and scientific work come not through the provision of unlimited or big resources, but in the wise and careful selection of problems and objectives. Above all, what is required is hard sustained work and dedication."

"Science and technology, if they are to play their proper role in the progress of our country, must be intimately linked to the life and work of the common man in the country. Science must not, therefore, be confined to ivory towers or encased within the walls of big buildings and big laboratories; it should be carried to the factories and more so to the fields and to the farms and to the remote villages."

"Those who govern must see how the people react to administration. Ultimately, the people are the final arbiters."

"The basic idea of governance, as I see it, is to hold the society together so that it can develop and march towards certain goals. The task of the Government is to facilitate this evolution, this progress. It must provide proper conditions and a proper climate for this purpose. While governing, the administrator must, therefore, keep certain trends in view. He should be aware of the policies which he has to implement and of the methods which are open to him for their implementation. He should know what the Government wants and at the same time be attuned to the needs of the people."

"That loyalty to the country comes ahead of all other loyalties. And this is an absolute loyalty, since one cannot weight it in terms of what one receives."

"We strongly support increasing contact at the high level between Pakistan and India. We think the trip was a good thing, and we were pleased to see the visa progress that they made, which supports progress that they had made in the past on economic issues."

"I am making way for youngsters."

"We have to look at the Iran issue beyond the issue of energy trade. In the first place, we have to think about the security and stability in the Gulf region. India has vital stakes in the Gulf region. Six million Indians live and work in the Gulf region and beyond. It is one of the critical destinations of our external trade -- over $100 billion in exports, and over 60% of oil imports, and a major source of remittances."

"India calls upon all parties to abjure violence and the use of threat and force to resolve the differences. I think the need of the hour is cessation of armed conflict, air strikes will lead to harm to innocent civilians, foreign nationals and diplomatic missions and their personnel who are still in Libya."

"Well they have taken a few steps. They have arrested few persons and they are being tried by court in Pakistan but India feels that isn't enough. I think they will have to do more on this front."

"That is the wishful thinking by some interested parties. India and China are going to be the powers that will shape the 21st century. China knows it. India is conscious of it. Together, we can make a distinctive contribution toward global development and shaping of global disputes."

"The Chinese foreign minister Yang Jia Chi was in Bangalore Tuesday for a bilateral meeting. We are both quite satisfied with the extent of goodwill between us. We are working toward further cordiality between the two countries. The Chinese minister lingered at the dinner in his honor and such gestures indicate the level of relationship between our two countries."

"The Shehzada of the Congress said recently that our Rajas and Maharajas back in the day were ruthless. They snatched or took away the humble assets of the poor at their whim. The Shehzada insulted the revered Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Rani Chennamma, whose good governance and patriotism still fill us with national pride and honour. Does he not have any knowledge of the contribution of the royal family of Mysuru who we all regard very highly and are proud of? ... The Shehzada’s was carefully calibrated, on purpose, to appease a certain vote bank. He did not utter a single word on the atrocities committed by the Nawabs, Nizams, Sultans, and Badhshahs (on their peasants). The Congress seems to have forgotten the grave excesses perpetrated by (Mughal emperor) Aurangzeb, who destroyed thousands of our temples... The Benaras Hindu University (BHU) could not have been established without the help of the king, who ruled the city back in the day. Maharaja Gaekwad of Baroda had helped Baba Saheb Ambedkar pursue his higher studies abroad. The Congress’ Shehzada knows nothing about this and is making public statements that are aimed at advancing the party’s vote bank politics. The Congress is in an alliance with parties that glorify Aurangzeb. They don’t talk about kings who destroyed our pilgrimage sites, looted them, killed our people while also slaughtering livestock... Since the Congress came to power in Karnataka, the law and order situation in the state has been on a free-fall. The incident in Hubballi (the daylight murder of a sitting Congress corporator’s daughter) shook the country’s conscience. When the bereaved family sought action, the ruling Congress, yet again, preferred appeasement over justice. They do not value the lives of our daughters like Neha (Hiremath). All they care about is their vote bank."

"Responding to the Ambassador's query about Lashkar-e-Taiba's activities in the region and immediate threat to India, Gandhi said there was evidence of some support for the group among certain elements in India's indigenous Muslim community. However, Gandhi warned, the bigger threat may be the growth of radicalized Hindu groups, which create religious tensions and political confrontations with the Muslim community."

"The interview was an unmitigated disaster. The first problem was that he chose to give his first formal interview in English and not in Hindi. This strengthened the impression that he represented the privileged denizens of Delhi more than the people of India. The second problem was that of all of Indian television’s English anchors Arnab had been chosen. Arnab has made belligerence the defining characteristic of his anchoring style, and once he gets a victim into his studio rarely lets him get away with vague answers. Nobody seemed to have prepared him for the kind of questions he would be asked. So he spent most of his answers talking in abstractions. Democracy is about processes, he said, and Rahul Gandhi is sitting here because he wants to empower the people. And most puzzling of all was his repeated assertion that ‘the system’ had destroyed his grandmother and his father and would probably destroy him. As Arnab’s questions became tougher and more direct Rahul’s answers became more abstract. When I finished watching the interview I watched it again on YouTube and found myself marvelling at how many times he repeated that ‘the system’ was what he was in politics to change. It was as if nobody had told him that ‘the system’ for ten years had been a government that was controlled by his mother with an iron hand. And that ‘the system’ had been created by his great-grandfather and perpetuated by his grandmother and father after that. By the time I finished watching this interview for the second time I was certain that the Congress would lose the election with or without a Modi wave."

"In the sycophancy department she surpassed her own high standards when she began to recount Rahul Gandhi’s virtues. Even I, who knew her eternal need to be counted in Delhi’s highest echelons of political power, nearly fell off my chair when she said, ‘Do you know I believe that Rahul Gandhi has the best of Rajiv in him and the best of Sanjay?’ I recount this remark here to draw attention to how much support dynastic democracy has in the drawing rooms of Lutyens’ Delhi. And it is not just socialites who endorse this distorted form of democracy but bureaucrats, journalists and men and women who like to think of themselves as public intellectuals."

"It took this election campaign for ordinary Indians to notice what was going on. They noticed because Modi told voters that they were choosing between a ‘kaamdaar’ and a ‘naamdaar’. A working man and a prince. It did not help that the ‘naamdaar’ then mocked Modi and made fun of everything about him. Modi’s ‘hugplomacy’, ‘Gabbar Singh Tax’, demonetisation. Modi’s demonetisation, he said, was done to steal their money and give it to his rich friends. The country’s Chowkidar, he said too many times, was a ‘chor’. He forgot that he was demeaning not just a political opponent but the Prime Minister of India. Ordinary voters were appalled that the heir to India’s most powerful political dynasty should talk this way. He sounded arrogant, entitled and insulting and reminded them that there were too many political heirs in Indian politics"

"Rahul Gandhi has a nervous, unformed quality about him, as if he were a student who’d done the coursework and was eager to impress the teacher but deep down lacked either the aptitude or the passion to master the subject."

"Singh and I had developed a warm and productive relationship. While he could be cautious in foreign policy, unwilling to get out too far ahead of an Indian bureaucracy that was historically suspicious of U.S. intentions, our time together confirmed my initial impression of him as a man of uncommon wisdom and decency…. What I couldn’t tell was whether Singh’s rise to power represented the future of India’s democracy or merely an aberration.... In fact, he owed his position to Sonia Gandhi…more than one political observer believed that she’d chosen Singh precisely because as an elderly Sikh with no national political base, he posed no threat to her forty-year-old son, Rahul, whom she was grooming to take over the Congress Party... He feared that rising anti-Muslim sentiment had strengthened the influence of India’s main opposition party, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)... In the dim light, he (Singh) looked frail, older than his seventy-eight years, and as we drove off I wondered what would happen when he left office. Would the baton be successfully passed to Rahul, fulfilling the destiny laid out by his mother and preserving the Congress Party’s dominance over the ‘divisive nationalism’ touted by the BJP?"

"I have spent more than 32 years in the Congress and when the Ram Mandir decision came, after getting advice from his wellwisher in America, Rahul Gandhi in a meeting with his close aides said that after the Congress government is formed, they will form a superpower commission and will overturn the Ram Mandir decision just like Rajiv Gandhi overturned the Shah Bano decision."

"Tradition dictates you should first win from Raebareli before challenging for top!"

"When a man is touching 50 and has never had any productive job in his life, he cannot elicit respect from me as an individual... If you stand in the capital of India and say you support “Bharat ke tukde honge” (India will be broken into pieces), I don’t have an iota of respect for such individuals."

"The fact that he chose to belittle the Prime Minister is not surprising, in fact expected... After failing to connect with the people of India, Mr Gandhi chooses a platform of convenience for beating his political opponents.... Indian democracy gives opportunity to merit and is not beholden to dynasty... A failed dynast today chose to speak about his failed political journey."

"Stop jumping with joy every time a crime happens, Mr Rahul Gandhi. The state has already assured strict and prompt action. You divide the society in every manner possible for electoral gains and then shed crocodile tears. Enough is enough. You are a MERCHANT OF HATE."

"Rahul Gandhi has no right to use the Gandhi surname. He has reached the level of a fourth-class citizen. Can such a person be born in the Nehru family? I have doubts about it. His DNA should be examined."

"Their strategy was simple. Moral domination. Nehru was a thinker. But Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul are no intellectuals. They took a different route. They redefined morality. Secularism included. Anti-Congress was new immoral. Pro-Hindu became anti-Muslim. India was morally polarized. Morality is subjective. No one can say with guarantee what is pure morality. Masses were forced to choose between moral standards (Secularism, unity in diversity, inclusive etc.) and quality of life (development). People who wanted quality of life were made to feel guilty. Hindus who wanted to celebrate their religious freedom were made to feel guilty. Muslims who wanted to be part of mainstream India were made to feel guilty. They filled India’s psyche with fear, hate and guilt. They hated all indigenous, grassroots thinkers. They hated Sardar Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Morarji Desai, Charan Singh, Chandrashekhar, P.V. Narsimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and now Modi. They are the land grabbers of Sainik Farms and Adarsh Societies of India. They run NGOs. They run media. They coin useless and irrelevant jargon to confuse the masses. They have designations but no real jobs. They are irrelevant NRIs who want us to see a reality which doesn’t exist. They want a plebiscite in Kashmir. They defend stone-pelters. They want Maoists to participate in mainstream politics. They want Tejpal to be freed. Yaqub to be pardoned. But they want Modi to be hanged. They are the hijackers of national morality. Secularism included. They are the robbers of Indian treasury. They are the brokers of power. They are the pimps of secularism. They are the Intellectual Mafia."

"There is a word 'Shakti' in Hinduism. We are fighting against a Shakti."

"Narendra Modi wants people to sit on their phone the entire day and chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’. And while you do this, you die of hunger."

"My name is not Savarkar, it is Gandhi and Gandhi never offers apology."

"The surprising thing is that the so called defenders of democracy like US and Europe seem to just be oblivious of the fact that a huge chunk of the democratic model has come undone in India. While the opposition is fighting that battle, US and Europe are not doing enough to restore the democracy in India. The inaction may be because of the trade and money they are getting."

"Modi ji, you said the war against corona will be won in 18 days. You asked people to bang thali, light up candles and show mobile phone torch… but corona intensified. Please stop event-bazi now and arrange for vaccines for all. And provide income support to the poor."

"The country needs vaccines against coronavirus. You also raise your voice for this — everyone has the right to have a safe life. Speak up for vaccination for all."

"India needs quick and complete vaccination - not BJP's usual brand of lies and rhyming slogans to cover up vaccine shortage caused by Modi government’s inaction."