Mukesh Kumar

“In fact, the anti-Muslim stance of much of Hindu nationalism can be construed as partly a displaced hostility against the colonial power which could not be expressed directly because of the new legitimacy created within Hinduism for this power. Such a dynamic would seem to roughly duplicate the displacement of Oedipal hostilities in the authoritarian personality.”
― Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism

“The outbreak revealed the surprising degree to which the Mughal court was still regarded across northern India not as some sort of foreign Muslim imposition – as some, especially on the Hindu right wing, look upon the Mughals today – but instead as the principal source of political legitimacy, and therefore the natural centre of resistance against British colonial rule.”
― William Dalrymple, The Last Mughal: The Fall of Delhi, 1857

“This is the kind of corruption we understand, the corruption of the petty clerk writ large, and so this is the kind of corruption we look for. This is the kind of guilt we expect and understand: personal, targeted, involving suitcases. We really need suitcases.”
― Mihir S. Sharma, Restart: The Last Chance for the Indian Economy

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
― Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism