“The people of India may be poor, many of them may be illiterate, but few societies in the world can match the Indian people in the confidence and maturity with which they exercise their democratic rights.”

—  R. Venkataraman

Source: Commissions and Omissions by Indian Presidents and Their Conflicts with the Prime Ministers Under the Constitution: 1977-2001, P.184.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The people of India may be poor, many of them may be illiterate, but few societies in the world can match the Indian pe…" by R. Venkataraman?
R. Venkataraman photo
R. Venkataraman 24
seventh Vice-President of India and the 8th President of In… 1910–2009

Related quotes

Winston S. Churchill photo

“It may be said, therefore, that the military opinion of the world is opposed to those people who cry 'Democratize the army!' and it must be remembered that an army is not a field upon which persons with Utopian ideas may exercise their political theories, but a weapon for the defence of the State.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

British Cavalry, The Anglo-Saxon Review, March 1901.
Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol I, Churchill at War, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 60.
Early career years (1898–1929)

Jawaharlal Nehru photo

“We believe that it is the inalienable right of the Indian people, as of any other people, to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil and have the necessities of life, so that they may have full opportunities of growth. We believe also that if any government deprives a people of these rights and oppresses them the people have a further right to alter it or abolish it. The British government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually. We believe therefore, that India must sever the British connection and attain Purna Swaraj or complete independence.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Nehru wrote this resolution of Purna Swaraj (Complete Independence), which was adopted in the Congress session at Lahore on 26 January 1930; this was later celebrated as Independence Day until August 1947, and after 26 January 1950 as Republic Day; as quoted in India http://books.google.com/books?id=nHnOERqf-MQC&pg=PA204 (1999) by Stanley A. Wolpert

Thomas Jefferson photo

“The Constitution of the United States asserts that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to Justice William Johnson (1823)
1820s

John Marshall photo

“It is admitted that the power of taxing the people and their property is essential to the very existence of Government, and may be legitimately exercised on the objects to which it is applicable, to the utmost extent to which the Government may choose to carry it. The only security against the abuse of this power is found in the structure of the Government itself. In imposing a tax, the legislature acts upon its constituents. This is, in general, a sufficient security against erroneous and oppressive taxation. The people of a State, therefore, give to their Government a right of taxing themselves and their property, and as the exigencies of Government cannot be limited, they prescribe no limits to the exercise of this right, resting confidently on the interest of the legislator and on the influence of the constituent over their representative to guard them against its abuse.”

John Marshall (1755–1835) fourth Chief Justice of the United States

17 U.S. (4 Wheaton) 316, 428
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

Winston S. Churchill photo

“It may be said, therefore, that the military opinion of the world is opposed to those people who cry 'Democratize the army!'”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

and it must be remembered that an army is not a field upon which persons with Utopian ideas may exercise their political theories, but a weapon for the defence of the State.
British Cavalry, The Anglo-Saxon Review, March 1901.
Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol I, Churchill at War, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 60. ISBN 0903988429
Early career years (1898–1929)

William Morris photo

“So we will stick to our word, which means a change of the basis of society; it may frighten people, but it will at least warn them that there is something to be frightened about, which will be no less dangerous for being ignored; and also it may encourage some people, and will mean to them at least not a fear, but a hope.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

Signs of Change (1888), How We Live And How We Might Live
Context: The word Revolution, which we Socialists are so often forced to use, has a terrible sound in most people's ears, even when we have explained to them that it does not necessarily mean a change accompanied by riot and all kinds of violence, and cannot mean a change made mechanically and in the teeth of opinion by a group of men who have somehow managed to seize on the executive power for the moment. Even when we explain that we use the word revolution in its etymological sense, and mean by it a change in the basis of society, people are scared at the idea of such a vast change, and beg that you will speak of reform and not revolution. As, however, we Socialists do not at all mean by our word revolution what these worthy people mean by their word reform, I can't help thinking that it would be a mistake to use it, whatever projects we might conceal beneath its harmless envelope. So we will stick to our word, which means a change of the basis of society; it may frighten people, but it will at least warn them that there is something to be frightened about, which will be no less dangerous for being ignored; and also it may encourage some people, and will mean to them at least not a fear, but a hope.

Verghese Kurien photo

“Is the democratic form of government successful in all parts of India? But the solution to the problems of democracy is more democracy. There can be no democracy in India unless you erect a plurality of democratic structures to underpin democracy, like the village cooperative which is a people’s institution.”

Verghese Kurien (1921–2012) Indian founder of dairy-cooperative Amul

Quote, The man who revolutionised white

Thomas Jefferson photo

“Some are whigs, liberals, democrats, call them what you please. Others are tories, serviles, aristocrats, &c. The latter fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society; the former consider the people as the safest depository of power in the last resort; they cherish them therefore, and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which they are competent.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Letter to William Short http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/when-government-fears-people-there-libertyquotation (1825)
1820s

Sitting Bull photo

“The love of possessions is a disease in them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break, but the poor may not! They have a religion in which the poor worship, but the rich will not! They even take tithes from the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule. They claim this mother of ours, the earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbor away. … If America had been twice the size it is, there still would not have been enough.”

Sitting Bull (1831–1890) Hunkpapa Lakota medicine man and holy man

Sitting Bull: The Collected Speeches, p. 75
Sourced quotes

Related topics