A collection of quotes and thoughts by Rajiv Gandhi on education, agriculture, dream, country, people, society, power, politics, decentralization and uplifting.
Rajiv Gandhi was the former Prime Minister of India. He became the 6th and the youngest Prime Minister of India at the age of 40. He attended college in the United Kingdom and returned as a professional pilot to India in 1966. He stayed out of politics and led a domestic life with his wife and two children in Delhi. However, after the death of his younger brother, he reluctantly entered politics. Rajiv’s first political achievement was winning the Amethi Lok Sabha elections in the year 1981. After the assassination of the them Prime Minister and his mother, Indira Gandhi, he was made the ‘Prime Minister’ of India. Rajiv contributed towards expanding and revamping the education sector. ‘Indira Gandhi Open University’ was established under his guidance and the new education policy. Besides the laurels, his office tenure was mired in controversies. In 1991, he was assassinated by a suicide bomber from LTTE while he was campaigning for the upcoming elections. He was posthumously awarded the ‘Bharat Ratan’ which is the highest civilian award in India. Let is browse through the quotes and sayings by Rajiv Gandhi which will surely inspire and motivate you.
It is compartmentalization of India into rigidly separated rural and urban settlements that has been the worst legacy of the colonial system of local-self government.
Rajiv Gandhi
India missed the Industrial Revolution; it cannot afford to miss the Computer Revolution.
Rajiv Gandhi
A responsive administration is tested most at the point of interface between the administration and the people.
Rajiv Gandhi
The world is changing much too fast for us to have a moribund system which is not flexible, which cannot evolve and develop with changes in our society, in our country, as they come about in the world.
Rajiv Gandhi
Instead of understanding the crisis facing the country and helping the country, the opposition wants to weaken the country by its deeds.
Rajiv Gandhi
The terrorists are busy in and outside the country in such activities which are a danger to the unity and integrity of the country.
Rajiv Gandhi
If my mother gets help from it, then I will enter politics.
Education must be a great equaliser in our society. It must be the tool to level the differences that our various social systems have created over the past thousands of years.
Our task today is to bring India to the threshold of the twenty-first century, free of burden of poverty, legacy of our colonial past, and capable of meeting the rising aspirations of our people.
Development is not about factories, dams and roads. Development is about people. The goal is material, cultural and spiritual fulfilment for the people. The human factor is of supreme value in development.
Rajiv Gandhi
India is an Old country but a young nation…I am young and I too have a dream, I dream of India Strong, Independent, Self-Reliant and in the front rank of the nations of the world, in the service of mankind.
If farmers become weak the country loses self-reliance but if they are strong, freedom also becomes strong. If we do not maintain our progress in agriculture, poverty cannot be eliminated from India.But our biggest poverty alleviation programme is to improve the living standard of our farmers. The thrust of our poverty alleviation programmes is on the uplift of the farmers.
Rajiv Gandhi
Every person should take a lesson from history. We should understand that wherever there have been internal fights and conflicts in the country, the country has been weakened. Due to this, the danger from outside increases. The country has to pay a big price due to this type of weakness.
Rajiv Gandhi
Thinking of this University [Ambedkar University] today, we are reminded of Mahatma Gandhi because if there was anyone who fought for the weak in India, the first one to raise his voice for Scheduled Castes, that was Gandhiji. There were social workers before him but not any people who raised this matter in the political arena as he did.
Rajiv Gandhi
I had no love for politics. I treasured the privacy of my family life. My mother respected both these sentiments. Then my brother, Sanjay was killed in the prime of his life. It broke a mother’s heart. It did not break a Prime Minister’s will. Without even a day’s break, she carried on her noble task single-minded in fulfilling her pledge to her people. There is a loneliness that only a bereaved mother can know...she called to me in her loneliness. I went to her side. At her instance, I left my love for flying at her instance I joined her as a political aide. From her I learned my first political lessons. It was she who urged me to respond to the insistent demand from the constituency and the part to take my brother’s place as Member of Parliament for Amethi. With her blessings I was made General Secretary of my party asking me to accept the challenge of stepping into her shoes. In accepting this challenge I fulfilled a national duty and a filial duty of a son to a mother.
We must see that regional imbalances in the growth of various parties of the country are removed and all the states progress evenly. We shall ensure that all citizens of the country get full opportunity to contribute their might towards India's progress.
Rajiv Gandhi
The late Indira Gandhi always used to warn about the dangers that the country was facing. She used to keep saying that the country was going through a very dangerous time. This danger is now many times more than what it was at that time. We should all be cautious now.
A right value system must be built into our education system. We must be very clear that religion and politics must be separated and there must be a very clear definition of the difference between spirituality of the religion and its rituals and dogmas. We must be clear that secularism as we understand it is not only anti-religion or non-religion; it is only the separation of government from religion. Religion has a great role to play in the development process of our nation and we should do nothing to undermine it.
Rajiv Gandhi
Thereby, we have weakened ourselves and fallen prey to the ills that the loss of invigorating mass contact brings. Millions of ordinary Congress workers throughout the country are full of enthusiasm for the Congress policies and programmes. But they are handicapped, for on their backs ride the brokers of power and influence, who dispense patronage to convert a mass movement into a feudal oligarchy.. They are self-perpetuating cliques who thrive by involving the slogans of caste and religion and by enmeshing the living body of the congress in their net of avarice.
When I was inspecting the guard of honor and as I walked past one person, I saw through the corner of my eye some movement. Then I saw a man reverse his rifle at me. I ducked down a little bit in a reflex action. By my ducking, he missed my head and the brunt of the blow came on my shoulder below the left ear.
Our plan cannot be hard and dogmatic. They must change with the times and move with the development of our country. Every year brings new compulsions, new circumstances, and with each Plan these must be taken into consideration.
The second point which must be part of the national goal, is caste less society. The constitution very clearly differentiates between Schedule Castes and Backward Classes. Why did out our Constitution makers make this distinction? They had something in their mind. Why have we lost that distinction today? I agree with you that reality is that caste accounts for a tremendous amount in this country. I do not disagree with that. But what is our goal? Is our goal a castless society? If out goal, is a casteless society, surely every step that we take must be towards that objective.
The fight against communal forces must be fought unitedly. We are the heirs to heritage of communal harmony; to Panditji’s scientific outlook; and to Indiraji’s struggle against the forces of destabilization – terrorists, separatists, and communalists. We cannot fail them. Communalism must not be used as a political tool. If I may read a sentence from the secret Will of Babar to his son, Humayun: It is incumbent on thee to wipe all religious prejudices of the tablet of thy heart.
