"Are we not the youth of this country? The SCs form three-fourths of the country. Then why do they say the youth are against you? You gave us something through Mandal, and the whole country pounced on us. It is not the question of 27 per cent or 10 per cent, do we have a place of even 1 per cent in the hearts of the ruling elite?"

“I believe whoever is in power, people should fight the establishment over issues. This is the weakness of our democracy. We vote, then for five years we remain dormant. The farmers’ movement will remain but we need a formal political party to fight elections.”

“I said bring equity back on the national agenda. And equity is a broad concept with facets like political equity, decentralisation, electoral reforms, freedom of the press. It includes economic and social equity: for women, for SCs and STs, for the minorities.”

“What struck me most was his naiveté. He was like someone in a coal mine who suddenly finds a diamond and starts exulting over it. He begins to seriously believe that it is possible to repeat the feat, so he will dig into the black soot again.”

“He has been called the most complete politician and, “the Houdini of Indian politics, because he creates the illusion of escaping from the hurly burly of ‘dirty politics’ without actually leaving the stage.”

“He has been called the Machiavelli of Indian politics.”

“The market theory is, there should be international mobility of capital. I said, why not international movement of labour? Marketing theory only envisages mobility of all factors of production. That means their medicines can come, but our doctors cannot go. Their engineering goods can come, our engineers cannot go. Secondly, they want the developing countries to open up but deny them access to technology. Certainly, our economies have been too protected. But that has to go gradually.”