Journalists

"Sikhs are kesadhari Hindus. Their religious source is Hinduism. Sikhism is a tradition developed within Hinduism. Guru Granth Sahib reflects Vedantic philosophy and Japji Sahib is based on the Upanishads."

"R.S.S is a communal organization and dangerous to the country's secular fabric. Look what they did to Muslims in Gujarat. However, they take a different approach with the Sikhs. During the 1984 Sikh pogrom, they did save many Sikh lives. R.S.S. volunteers participated during the tercentenary celebrations of the Khalsa in 1999. They consider the Khalsa to be a military wing of Hinduism and their savior."

"This is one of those things - a contradiction. It was an emotional issue for me. I was born and raised in a Sikh family. I still keep my beard and turban and identify myself with the Sikh community."

"When I was in England as a student, socialism was much talked about among us. We read and discussed Bertrand Russell and attended lectures by Harold J. Laski. I have not retained many socialistic ideas, but I am still an agnostic."

"It was the Congress leaders who instigated mobs in 1984 and got more than 3000 people killed. I must give due credit to RSS and the BJP for showing courage and protecting helpless Sikhs during those difficult days. No less a person than Atal Bihari Vajpayee himself intervened at a couple of places to help poor taxi drivers."

"Nelli was an unknown little village till over three thousand people were slain in one orgy of killing. It was Bangladeshi refugees killing Bengalis and Assamese; Assamese and Bengalis killing each other; tribals killing non-tribals; Muslims killing Hindus and Christians; Christians killing Hindus."

"More than a bomb or gun/ The footwear is a potent weapon,/ For, what years of shouting couldn’t do/ A momentary missile has done/ And, in the bargain, blackened/ A Journalist’s profession;/ Even if justice has won/ Even Bush to Chidambaram/ It is becoming a bit too common;/ Thank God, it is as yet with danger fraught/ Thank God, my wife has yet used it not."

"What matters most is whether or not India will continue to remain a secular state committed to socialism or become a Hindu Rashtra wearing a secular mask with an agenda of its own, including building a mammoth [[w:Ram Janmabhoomi|Ram Mandir at Ayodhya, preserving the Ram Setu and other relics associated with Hinduism. The choice is between an India of the dreams of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru on the one side (secular), and those of Vir Savarkar and Guru Golwalkar on the other (Hindutva). By no stretch of the imagination can it be called secular. We have to choose between remaining what we are or opt to become a Hindu Rashtra."

"Under its first two Indian editors [The Illustrated Weekly] became a vehicle of Indian culture devoting most of its pages to art, sculpture, classical dance and pretty pictures of flowers, birds, and dencing belles. It did not touch controversial subjects, was strictly apolitical and asexual (save occasional blurred reproductions of Khajuraho or Konarak). It earned a well-deserved reputation for dull respectability. I changed all that. What was a four-wheeled victoria taking well-draped ladies out to eat the Indian air I made a noisy rumbustious, jet-propelled vehicle of information, controversy and amusement. I tore up the unwritten norms of gentility, both visual and linguistic… . And slowly the circulation built up, till the Illustrated did become a weekly habit of the English-reading pseudo-elite of the country. It became the most widely read journal in Asia (barring Japan) because it reflected all the contending points of view on every conceivable subject: politics, economics, religion, and the arts."

"Well, my faith--if there is any, because I am an agnostic--I have faith in good people which I think is all that one can do. The principle I tried to follow is: Try not to lie, because then you tie yourself up in knots; you have to follow it up with other lies. The only religion I subscribe to is the one word--ahimsa--try not to hurt."

"I don't think so. I don't think any editor can make a difference to a daily paper because more than half, even three quarters is wire material and from correspondents in different places all over the country. And foreign news. And really the only thing the editor has is writing the editorials."

"Yes, in fact I was almost single-handed in protesting about holding the prisoners of war. It was largely on the pressure of Mujibur Rahman that Mrs Gandhi was holding them. Because she obviously recognised Bangladesh and his (Mujibur's) stand was clear: Let them recognise Bangladesh as an independent state and then we will free them. And that's what we did later."

"I’ve no patience with Hindi films. I find them so unreal. But some I was taken to, like Raj Kapoor’s Satyam Shivam Sundaram."

"Very important. A sense of belonging, and that's why I gave up the Padma Bhushan after Operation Bluestar. I was the only Indian to criticise Bhindranwale. I called him a homicidal maniac when I was in The Hindustan Times. And he threatened to finish us all. And then I had all this security for 15 years. They've all gone now. Nobody wants to kill me anymore."

"No, love is an ephemeral and illusive concept, it doesn't last; lust lasts."

"I've always been indifferent to dressing. Amita Malik got it right when she put me among the worst dressed men in India. But yes, I am a born joker."

"My mind is no dirtier than most men's. I am honest and I say it. Fantasising is a common phenomenon and there's no censorship here."

"But when she curbed the freedom of press during the emergency, I withdrew my support. Indira Gandhi had the habit of snubbing whoever opposed her. She was waiting for a chance to snub me. I never gave her the chance as I never met her after that."

"I supported her [Indira Gandhi] when I thought she was right in imposing the emergency. With some reservations, I supported the Emergency proclaimed by Indira Gandhi on June 25, 1975. Let me explain why. I concede that the right to protest is integral to democracy. You can have public meetings to criticize or condemn government actions. You can take out processions, call for strikes and closure of businesses. But there must not be any coercion or violence. If there is any, it is the duty of the government to suppress it by force, if necessary."

"I am disappointed in him. He was an able and clean man. I supported him initially. After 1984, Sikhs did not want to vote for Congress. I put forward his name. He came to thank me. But when he was the Home Minister, and he came with his bodyguards in tow, during an event, I took the liberty to say, "You sowed the seed of communalism in the country and the country will pay for it." Advani doesn't womanize; such men are dangerous."

"You are being dishonest if you are not writing about sex in your book. It is very natural and normal. Well, I have earned the name of 'dirty old man' but there is not much sex in my books. What I have written is very serious stuff - biography, history, religious texts, etc."

"If my aunt had a male appendage, she'd be my uncle."

"...Everybody ran around like kids sucking on Pixie Stix having a sugar high. They were so excited, the Republicans. So what happens after your sugar high is you come to the crash. And the crash is where we are now, and people realize that John McCain didn't really know Sarah Palin when he chose her. And now that she's on the ticket, nobody has any real confidence that she's ready to be President."

"I think nobody really loves America more than black Americans, because black Americans loved America even when America didn’t love us back"

"We all make mistakes - we fall in love with tenors and sopranoes even though tenors are as dumb as quarrelsome women, because high tones damage their brains."

"What can man know about happiness except how to write it?"

"Faults of great people are idiots' consolation."

"Fucking is possible everywhere, but love is only possible remotely."

"If majority is always right - let's eat shit... millions of flies can't be wrong."

"If I knew you and you knew me— If both of us could clearly see, And with an inner sight divine The meaning of your heart and mine I'm sure that we would differ less And clasp our hands in friendliness: Our thoughts would pleasantly agree, If I knew you and you knew me."

"A rose to the living is more Than sumptuous wreaths to the dead."

"Though life is made up of mere bubbles, 'T is better than many aver, For while we've a whole lot of troubles, The most of them never occur."

"No man can feel himself alone The while he bravely stands Between the best friends ever known His two good, honest hands."

"When the war started in Abyssinia all Negro nationalists looked with hope to Haile Selassie. They spoke for him, they prayed for him, they sung for him, they did everything to hold up his hands, as Aaron did for Moses; but whilst the Negro peoples of the world were praying for the success of Abyssinia this little Emperor was undermining the fabric of his own kingdom by playing the fool with white men, having them advising him[,] having them telling him what to do, how to surrender, how to call off the successful thrusts of his [Race] against the Italian invaders. Yes, they were telling him how to prepare his flight, and like an imbecilic child he followed every advice and then ultimately ran away from his country to England, leaving his people to be massacred by the Italians, and leaving the serious white world to laugh at every Negro and repeat the charge and snare - "he is incompetent," "we told you so." Indeed Haile Selassie has proved the incompetence of the Negro for political authority, but thank God there are Negroes who realise that Haile Selassie did not represent the truest qualities of the Negro race. How could he, when he wanted to play white? How could he, when he surrounded himself with white influence? How could he, when in a modern world, and in a progressive civilization, he preferred a slave State of black men than a free democratic country where the black citizens could rise to the same opportunities as white citizens in their democracies?"

"My father, the Reverend Earl Little, was a Baptist minister, a dedicated organizer for Marcus Aurelius Garvey’s U.N.I.A. (Universal Negro Improvement Association). With the help of such disciples as my father, Garvey, from his headquarters in New York City’s Harlem, was raising the banner of black-race purity and exhorting the Negro masses to return to their ancestral African homeland—a cause which had made Garvey the most controversial black man on earth."

"For the Negroes in America, the death of Malcolm X is the most portentous event since the deportation of Marcus Garvey in the 1920s."

"In the course of his conversation Marcus Garvey said that ninety thousand of the people on the island of Jamaica were colored, and only fifteen thousand of them were white; yet the fifteen thousand white people possessed all the land, ruled the island, and kept the Negroes in subjection. I asked him what those ninety thousand Negroes were thinking about to be dominated in this way, and he said it was because they had no educational facilities outside of grammar-school work. He wanted to return to his native home to see if he could not help to change the situation there. Instead he went to New York, began to hold street meetings, and got many of his fellow countrymen as well as American Negroes interested in his program of worldwide Negro unity. For a time it seemed as if his program would go through. Undoubtedly Mr. Garvey made an impression on this country as no Negro before him had ever done. He has been able to solidify the masses of our people and endow them with racial consciousness and racial solidarity. Had Garvey had the support which his wonderful movement deserved, had he not become drunk with power too soon, there is no telling what the result would have been. Already the countries of the world were beginning to worry very much about the influence of his propaganda in Africa, in the West Indies, and in the United States. His month-long conference in New York City every August, bringing the dusky sons and daughters of Ham from all corners of the earth, attracted a great deal of attention... It may be that even though he has been banished to Jamaica the seed planted here will yet spring up and bring forth fruit which will mean the deliverance of the black race-that cause which was so dear to his heart."

"Marcus Garvey...roused the consciousness of the Negro from New York to British Guiana and from the Gold Coast (Ghana) to Kenya. Without ever setting foot in Africa he was able to kindle nationalism in the hearts of the young Kenyatta, Azikiwe and Nkrumah, giving them a purpose for dedicating their lives to their country."

"Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael, Amiri Baraka and other black male leaders have righteously supported patriarchy. They have all argued that it is absolutely necessary for black men to relegate black women to a subordinate position both in the political sphere and in home life."

"there arose early in this decade the case of Marcus Garvey. I heard of him first when I was in Jamaica in 1915 when he sent a letter "presenting his compliments" and giving me "a hearty welcome to Jamaica, on the part of the United Improvement and Conservation Association." Later he came to the United States. In his case, as in the case of others, I have repeatedly been accused of enmity and jealousy, which have been so far from my thought that the accusations have been a rather bitter experience. In 1920 when his movement was beginning to grow in America I said in The Crisis that he was "an extraordinary leader of men" and declared that he had "with singular success capitalized and made vocal the great and long suffering grievances and spirit of protest among the West Indian peasantry." On the other hand, I noted his difficulties of temperament and training, inability to get on with his fellow workers, and denied categorically that I had ever interfered in any way with his work. Later when he began to collect money for his steamship line I characterized him as a sincere and hard-working idealist but called his methods bombastic, wasteful, illogical and almost illegal and begged his friends not to allow him foolishly to overwhelm with bankruptcy and disaster one of the most interesting spiritual movements of the modern world. But he went ahead, wasted his money, got into trouble with the authorities and was deported. As I said at the time: "When Garvey was sent to Atlanta, no word or action of Ours accomplished the result. His release and deportation were a matter of law which no deed or wish of ours influenced in the slightest degree. We have today, no enmity against Marcus Garvey. He has a great and worthy dream. We wish him well. He is free; he has a following; he still has a chance to carry on his work in his own home and among his own people and to accomplish some of his ideas. Let him do it. We will be the first to applaud any success that he may have.""

"Marcus Garvey believed that blacks should return to Africa and build up and accept Africa as their home. And he led a movement, here, in the United States, and he got caught up in a lot of scandal, and, eventually, it collapsed, and that was that...I read everything I could about Marcus Garvey, and my father was such an ardent Garveyite that he would talk about him all the time."

"(What direction do you see the movement in the U.S. taking at this time?) I think it has become less domestic and more international. Marcus Garvey tried to articulate, after all, quite a long time ago, and even Frederick Douglass, that the situation of the black American slave was tied to the situation of the slaves all over the world."

"Marcus ... maintained forcibly that although the Afro-American people were legally "free" as a people, something of the slave mentality was still characteristic of them. Mentally they were still in chains on account of the crippling effect of an inferiority complex. Somehow the sunlight must be allowed to flood the dark corners of their minds, so that they could be truly free and truly men, confident of holding their own with men of other races."

"In the early 1950s-the Garvey movement-I went to Harlem and saw Black Ethiopia. These were my people and they didn't have accents, but they were Ethiopians. I mean, they didn't have African accents. Those that I listened to spoke just like everybody else and that broadened my light a great deal, my own understanding of our oneness... it must be remembered that in Garvey's heyday, there were not that many West Indians anywhere in the United States. His existence was used as a focal point for the West Indian community and they were able to stay together, but the Black American, without his charisma and his presence, went on into other things. But the tales of the Black American who didn't want to be connected with Africa can be recounted as the West Indians who didn't want to be connected either, who would say, 'I'm a British citizen'... The self loathing which is always part of oppression had its way with all of us."

"A Race without the knowledge of its history is like a tree without roots."

"I asked, "Where is the black man's Government?" "Where is his King and his kingdom?" "Where is his President, his country, and his ambassador, his army, his navy, his men of big affairs?" I could not find them, and then I declared, "I will help to make them.""

"I read "Up From Slavery," by Booker T. Washington, and then my doom--if I may so call it--of being a race leader dawned upon me in London after I had traveled through almost half of Europe."

"When the facts of history are written Haile Selassie of Abyssinia will go down as a great coward who ran away from his country to save his skin and left the millions of his countrymen to struggle through a terrible war that he brought upon them because of his political ignorance and his racial disloyalty."

"The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities' League is a social, friendly, humanitarian, charitable, educational, institutional, constructive, and expansive society and is founded by persons, desiring to the utmost, to work for the general up lift of the Negro peoples of the world. And the members pledge themselves to do all in their power to conserve the rights of their noble race and to respect the rights of all mankind believing always in the Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God. The motto of the organization is: One God! One Aim! One Destiny! Therefore, let justice be done to all man kind, realizing that if the strong oppresses the weak confusion and discontent will ever mark the path of man, but with love, faith and charity toward all the reign of peace and plenty will be heralded into the world and the generations of men shall be called Blessed."

"If you have no confidence in self you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence you have won even before you have started."