India After Gandhi - pg. 115

In Governance are realised all forms of renunciation; in Governance are united all sacraments; in Governance are combined all knowledge; in Governance are centred all the Worlds.

-- The Mahabharata

Constitutional morality is not a natural sentiment. It has to be cultivated. We must realize that our people have yet to learn it. Democracy in India is only a to-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic.

-- B. R. Ambedkar

B. R. Ambedkar

"All I would like to say in this connection is that the Hindus before determining their attitude towards this question should note certain important considerations.

In particular they should note that there is a difference between Macht Politic [Power politics] and Gravamin Politic[in which the main strategy is to gain power by manufacturing grievances.] ; that there is a difference between Communitas Communitatum and a nation of nations; that there is a difference between safeguards to allay apprehensions of the weak and contrivances to satisfy the ambition for power of the strong: that there is a difference between providing safeguards and handing over the country.

Further, they should also note that what may with safety be conceded to Gravamin Politic may not be conceded to Macht Politic. What may be conceded with safety to a community may not be conceded to a nation and what may be conceded with safety to the weak to be used by it as a weapon of defence may not be conceded to the strong who may use it as a weapon of attack.

These are important considerations and, if the Hindus overlook them, they will do so at their peril."

India: A Million Mutinies Now - pg. 3

No leader of comparable authority or esteem had risen among the castes for whom Dr Ambedkar spoke. He had remained their leader, the man they honoured above all others; he was almost leader, the man they honoured above all others; he was almost their deity. In every Dalit house, I had been told, there was a photograph of Dr Ambedkar. It was a photograph I had seen many times, and it was strange that a better photograph hadn't been used. The Ambedkar icon was like a grey passport photograph reproduced in an old-fashioned newspaper process: the leader reduced to a composition of black and white dots, frozen in an image of the 1940s or 1950s, a plumpish man of unmemorable features, with the glasses of a student, and in the semi-colonial respectability of jacket and tie. Jacket and tie made for an unlikely holy image in India. But it was fitting, because it went against the homespun and loincloth of the mahatma.