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Poverty Assumes So Many Aspects Here In India. There Aren't Only The Poor That You See In The Cities, There Are The Poor Among The Tribes, The Poor Who Live In The Forest, The Poor Who Live On The Mountains. Should We Ignore Them As Long As The Poor In The Cities Are Better Off? And Better Off With Reference To What? To What People Wanted Ten Years Ago? Then It Seemed Like So Much. Today It's No Longer So Much.

-Indira Gandhi

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Poverty Assumes So Many

Indira Gandhi

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Poverty Assumes So Many Aspects Here In India. There Aren't Only The Poor That You See In The Cities, There Are The Poor Among The Tribes, The Poor Who Live In The Forest, The Poor Who Live On The Mountains. Should We Ignore Them As Long As The Poor In The Cities Are Better Off? And Better Off With Reference To What? To What People Wanted Ten Years Ago? Then It Seemed Like So Much. Today It's No Longer So Much.

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Forgiveness Is A Virtue Of The Brave.

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Moments Of Happiness

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You Said, 'planning Is Something For Communist Countries; Democracy And Planning Don't Go Together!' But, With All The Errors We Committed, Our Plans Succeeded.

The Question Before The Advanced Nations Is Not Whether They Can Afford To Help The Developing Nations, But Whether They Can Afford Not To Do So.

If I Die A Violent Death, As Some Fear And A Few Are Plotting, I Know That The Violence Will Be In The Thought And The Action Of The Assassins, Not In My Dying.

People Tend To Forget Their Duties But Remember Their Rights.

Political Games

The Future Doesn't Frighten Me, Even If It Threatens To Be Full Of Other Difficulties.

To Be Liberated, Woman Must Feel Free To Be Herself, Not In Rivalry To Man But In The Context Of Her Own Capacity And Her Personality.

The Struggle For Independence Here Has Been Conducted In Equal Measure By Men And By Women. And When We Got Our Independence, No One Forgot That. In The Western World, On The Other Hand, Nothing Of The Kind Has Ever Happened - Women Have Participated, Yes, But Revolutions Have Always Been Made By Men Alone.

I Said, I'll Put On Weight. And I Started Having Massages, Taking Cod-liver Oil, And Eating Twice As Much. But I Didn't Even Gain An Ounce. I'd Made Up My Mind That On The Day The Engagement Was Announced I'd Be Fatter, And I Didn't Gain An Ounce. Then I Went To Mussoorie, Which Is A Health Resort, And I Ignored The Doctors' Instructions; I Invented My Own Regime And Gained Weight. Just The Opposite Of What I'd Like Now. Now I Have The Problem Of Keeping Slim. Still I Manage. I Don't Know If You Realize I'm A Determined Woman.

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Even I, When I Was A Student In London, Often Wore Western Clothes, And Yet I'm The Most Indian Indian I Know.

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It's The Same Story As When We Nationalized The Banks. I'm Not For Nationalization Because Of The Rhetoric Of Nationalization, Or Because I See In Nationalization The Cure-all For Every Injustice. I'm For Nationalization In Cases Where It's Necessary.

Poverty Assumes So Many Aspects Here In India. There Aren't Only The Poor That You See In The Cities, There Are The Poor Among The Tribes, The Poor Who Live In The Forest, The Poor Who Live On The Mountains. Should We Ignore Them As Long As The Poor In The Cities Are Better Off? And Better Off With Reference To What? To What People Wanted Ten Years Ago? Then It Seemed Like So Much. Today It's No Longer So Much.

I Began To Associate With Mahatma Gandhi When He Came And Went In Our House - Together With My Father And Mother He Was On The Executive Committee. After Independence I Worked With Him A Lot - In The Period When There Were The Troubles Between Hindus And Muslims, He Assigned Me To Take Care Of The Muslims. To Protect Them.

The Longer One Doesn't Write, The More Difficult It Is To Communicate.

We Should Not Mourn For Men Of High Ideals. Rather We Should Rejoice That We Had The Privilege Of Having Had Them With Us, To Inspire Us By Their Radiant Personalities.

No One Ever Indoctrinated Me.

... Where Does Strength Come From? It Is Not Muscle Strength Any More. It Is Not Also Mere Intellectual Strength. What Is Strength? Strength Is The Support Of The People.

A Lot Of Mythology Arose After [mahatma Gandhi] Death. But The Fact Remains That He Was An Exceptional Man, Terribly Intelligent, With Tremendous Intuition For People, And A Great Instinct For What Was Right.

In Fact The Communists Gained Strength In India When The People Thought My Party Was Moving To The Right. And They Were Correct.

Have You Ever Climbed A Mountain? You See, Once You Arrive At The Top Of A Mountain, You Think You've Reached The Highest Point. But It's Only An Impression That Doesn't Last Long.

I Know You Were Surprised When, After The Fall Of Dacca, Pakistani And Indian Officers Shook Hands. But Do You Realize That, Up Until 1965, In Our Army And The Pakistani One You Could Come Across Generals Who Were Brothers? Blood Brothers, Sons Of The Same Father And The Same Mother.

All Unprejudiced Persons Objectively Surveying The Grim Events In Bangla Desh Since March 25 Have Recognized The Revolt Of 75 Million People, A People Who Were Forced To The Conclusion That Neither Their Life, Nor Their Liberty, To Say Nothing Of The Possibility Of The Pursuit Of Happiness, Was Available To Them.

Pursuit Of Happiness

I Am Proud That I Spent The Whole Of My Life In The Service Of My People ... I Shall Continue To Serve Until My Last Breath And When I Die, I Can Say, That Every Drop Of My Blood Will Invigorate India And Strengthen It.

I Can't Take It Seriously When People Get Excited And Scream That Religion Is In Danger, And Similar Stupidities.

Being Prime Minister Isn't The Only Job In Life! As Far As I'm Concerned, I Could Live In A Village And Be Satisfied.

I Always Defended My Father, As A Child, And I Think I'm Still Defending Him - His Policies At Least. Oh, He Wasn't At All A Politician, In No Sense Of The Word. He Was Sustained In His Work Only By A Blind Faith In India - He Was Preoccupied In Such An Obsessive Way By The Future Of India. We Understood Each Other.

I Don't Mind If My Life Goes In The Service Of The Nation. If I Die, Every Drop Of My Blood Will Invigorate The Nation.

When You Govern A Country, And Especially A Country So Vast And Complex As India, You Never Arrive At Anything.

There Exists No Politician In India Daring Enough To Attempt To Explain To The Masses That Cows Can Be Eaten.

My Father Was A Saint. He Was The Closest Thing To A Saint That You Can Find In A Normal Man.

Yes, He [mahatma Gandhi] Was A Great Man. However...between Me And Gandhi There Was Never The Understanding There Was Between Me And My Father.

Not Only My Parents But The Whole Family Was Involved In The Resistance - My Grandfather And Grandmother, My Uncles And Aunts, My Cousings Of Both Sexes. So Ever So Often The Police Came And Took Them Away, Indiscriminately. Well, The Fact That They Arrested Both My Father And Mother, Both My Grandfather And Grandmother, Both An Uncle And An Aunt, Made Me Accustomed To Looking On Men And Women With The Same Eyes, On An Absolute Plane Of Equality.

I Discovered [joan Of Arc] Toward The Age Of Ten Or Twelve, When I Went To France. I Don't Remember Where I Read About Her, But I Recall That She Immediately Took On A Definite Importance For Me. I Wanted To Sacrifice My Life For My Country. It Seems Like Foolishness And Yet...what Happens When We're Children Is Engraved Forever On Our Lives.

To Become Capable, One Must Have Faith In Oneself.

Every New Experience Brings Its Own Maturity And A Greater Clarity Of Vision.

New Experiences

In Today's World No Country Can Be Absolutely Independent Of Another. It Is A World Of Interdependence.

Forgiveness Is The Virtue Of Brave.

I See Nothing Wrong In Sterilizing A Man Who Has Already Brought Eight Or Ten Children Into The World. Especially If It Helps Those Eight Or Ten Children To Live Better.

You Found An Uncle On One Side And A Nephew On The Other, A Cousin Here And A Cousin There. Besides It's Still True Today. I'll Tell You Something Else. There Was A Time When Even Two Ambassadors To Switzerland, The One From India And The One From Pakistan, Were Two Blood Brothers. Oh, The Partition Imposed On Us By The British Was So Unnatural!

Finally We Promised To Limit The Birth Rate. And This You Really Didn't Believe; You Smiled Scornfully. Well, Even In This Things Have Gone Well. The Fact Is That We Have Grown By Over Seventy Millions In Ten Years, But It's Also True That We Have Grown Less Than Many Other Countries, Including The Countries Of Europe.

Until The Day She Died, My Mother Continued To Fight For The Rights Of Women. She Joined All The Women's Movements Of The Time; She Stirred Up A Lot Of Revolts. She Was A Great Woman, A Great Figure. Women Today Would Like Her Immensely.

I Have Certain Objectives. They're The Same Objectives My Father Had To Give People A Higher Standard Of Living, To Do Away With The Cancer Of Poverty, To Eliminate The Consequences Of Economic Backwardness.

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