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[Mahatma Gandhi] said that the first president of India ought to be a harijan girl, an untouchable. He was so against the class system and the oppression of women that an untouchable woman became for him the epitome of purity and benediction.

Indira Gandhi

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Indira Gandhi
Age: 66 †
Born: 1917
Born: November 19
Died: 1984
Died: October 31
Former Prime Minister Of India
Politician
Writer
Prayag
Indira Nehru
Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi
Indira Priyadarshini Nehru
Indira Ghandi
Women
India
Firsts
Became
Mahatma
First
Ought
Untouchable
System
Benediction
Class
Epitome
Woman
Gandhi
President
Purity
Girl
Oppression

More quotes by Indira Gandhi

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My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group there was much less competition.
Indira Gandhi
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When [my father] asked me to help him, I really didn't suspect the consequences.
Indira Gandhi
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Muslim women had to go out in purdah, that heavy sheet that covers even the eyes. Hindu women had to go out in the doli, a kind of closed sedan chair like a catafalque. My mother always told me about these things with bitterness and rage.
Indira Gandhi
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People often ask me: Who has influenced you the most? Your father? Mahatma Gandhi? Yes, my choices were fundamentally influenced by them, by the spirit of equality they infused in me - my obsession for justice comes from my father, who in turn got it from Mahatma Gandhi.
Indira Gandhi
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I think I'm cold, indeed icy, hard. Then there's another reason, one that goes with my frankness: I don't put on act.
Indira Gandhi
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You found an uncle on one side and a nephew on the other, a cousin here and a cousin there. Besides it's still true today. I'll tell you something else. There was a time when even two ambassadors to Switzerland, the one from India and the one from Pakistan, were two blood brothers. Oh, the Partition imposed on us by the British was so unnatural!
Indira Gandhi
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I don't see the world as something divided between right and left.
Indira Gandhi
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I don't waste time in flowery small talk, as people do in India.
Indira Gandhi
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We must protect families, we must protect children, who have inalienable rights and should be loved, should be taken care of physically and mentally, and should not be brought into the world only to suffer.
Indira Gandhi
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My father was a statesman, I'm a political woman. My father was a saint. I'm not.
Indira Gandhi
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Difficulties can't be eliminated from life. Individuals will always have them, countries will always have them...The only thing is to accept them, if possible overcome them, otherwise to come to terms with them. It's all right to fight, yes, but only when it's possible.
Indira Gandhi
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America always thought it was helping Pakistan. But if it hadn't helped Pakistan, Pakistan would have been a stronger country.
Indira Gandhi
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To become capable, one must have faith in oneself.
Indira Gandhi
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The struggle for independence here has been conducted in equal measure by men and by women. And when we got our independence, no one forgot that. In the Western world, on the other hand, nothing of the kind has ever happened - women have participated, yes, but revolutions have always been made by men alone.
Indira Gandhi
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I don't mind if my life goes in the service of the nation. If I die, every drop of my blood will invigorate the nation.
Indira Gandhi
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In any case, I married Feroze Gandhi. Once I get an idea in my head, no one in the world can make me change my mind.
Indira Gandhi
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It's not right to say that my father influenced me more than others, and I wouldn't be able to say whether my personality was formed more by my father or my mother or the Mahatma [Gandhi] or the friends who were with us.
Indira Gandhi
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I want to succeed. And I want to succeed in the best way possible, without caring whether people call my actions leftist or rightist.
Indira Gandhi
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I can't take it seriously when people get excited and scream that religion is in danger, and similar stupidities.
Indira Gandhi
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The India I want, I'll never tire of repeating, is a more just and less poor India, one entirely free of foreign influences. If I thought the country was already marching toward these objectives, I'd give up politics immediately and retire as prime minister.
Indira Gandhi