Status Updates From Indian Nationalism: The Ess...

If they committed any offence—who was to be responsible for them
and who was to bear the brunt? My dear friends: These theories are the
inventions of the privileged ones: They justify their usurped power, riches and
superiority by the help of these theories."
~Bhagat Singh

Suppose he commits a sin, who shall bear the consequences?
God, he or the learned ones of the society? What about the punishment of those
people who were deliberately kept ignorant by the haughty and egotist Brahmans
and who had to pay the penalty by bearing the stream of being led (not lead) in
their ears for having heard a few sentences of your Sacred Books of learning—
the Vedas? (TBC)

"What do you think shall be the fate of a man who has been
born in a poor and illiterate family of say a chamar or a sweeper? He is poor,
hence he cannot study. He is hated and shunned by his fellow human beings who
think themselves to be his superiors having been born in say a higher caste. His
ignorance, his poverty and the treatment meted out to him shall harden his heart
towards society. (TBC)

With no selfish
motive,or desire to be awarded here or hereafter,quite disinterestedly have I
devoted my life to the cause of independence, because I could not do otherwise.
The day we find a great number of men & women with this psychology who
cannot devote themselves to anything else than the service of mankind &
emancipation of the suffering humanity; that day shall inaugurate the era of
liberty
~Bhagat Singh

.. I, or to be more precise, my soul, as
interpreted in the metaphysical terminology, shall all be finished there. Nothing
further. "
~Bhagat Singh

..A God-believing
Hindu might be expecting to be reborn as a king, a Muslim or a Christian, might
dream of the luxuries to be enjoyed in paradise and the reward he is to get for his
sufferings and sacrifices. But what am I to expect? I know the moment the rope is fitted round my neck and rafters removed, from under my feet, that will be the
final moment—that will be the last moment.(TBC)

..if
he does, then we must conclude that he has got certain other strength than mere
vanity. This is exactly the situation now. Judgment is already too well known.
Within a week it is to be pronounced. What is the consolation with the exception
of the idea that I am going to sacrifice my life for a cause? (TBC)

‘Belief ’ softens the hardships, even can
make them pleasant. In God man can find very strong consolation and support.
Without Him, man has to depend upon himself. To stand upon one’s own legs
amid storms and hurricanes is not a child’s play. At such testing moments,
vanity—if any—evaporates, and man cannot dare to defy the general beliefs, (TBC)

By working from the cultural, educational and economic side, we can gradually undermine fanaticism and thereby render possible the growth of healthy nationalism in this country."
~ Subhas Chandra Bose

There is much more in common between a Hindu peasant and a Muslim peasant than between a Muslim peasant and a Muslim zamindar. The masses have only got to be educated wherein their economic interests be, and once they understand it, they will no longer consent to be pawns in communal feuds. (TBC)

"Fanaticism is the greatest thorn in the path of cultural intimacy, and there is no better remedy for fanaticism than secular and scientific
education. This sort of education is useful in another way, in that it helps to rouse our economic consciousness. The dawn of economic consciousness spells the death of fanaticism... (TBC)

I should say that the ‘monotypist’ is a fool to believe that his creed of uniformity will make for happiness.It may make for easy government & consolidation of national strength against outside aggression. It may make for energetic chauvinism, and make war and defence more easy. But it is not what makes happiness. We have
long allowed the prevalence of variations and that is the key to happiness.
~ C. Rajagopalachari

Race must not be confounded with nation.The truth is that there is no pure race;and that making politics depend upon ethnographical analysis, is allowing it to be borne upon a chimera.Racial facts, important as they are in the beginning, have a constant tendency to lose their importance.Human history is essentially different from zoology.Race is not everything, as it is in the sense of rodents and felines.
~Ambedkar

"Yet, when I look through the pages of history or study current events, I sometimes find that people who know one another most,
quarrel most. Countries, which are next door to one another in Europe or in Asia, somehow seem to rub one another up the wrong way, though they know one another very thoroughly. Thus, knowledge, by itself, does not lead to greater cooperation or friendship."
~Nehru