Rajiv Gandhi quotes

Rajiv Gandhi was an Indian politician who served as the Prime Minister of India. As a member of the influential Nehru-Gandhi family, he played a significant role in modernizing the country and promoting technological advancement. He became one of the youngest leaders to hold the nation's highest office and left a lasting impact on India's political landscape. Here are 42 of his quotes:

Every person should take a lesson from history. We should understand that wherever there have been internal fights and conflicts in the country, the country has been weakened. Due to this, the danger from outside increases. The country has to pay a big price due to this type of weakness. (Rajiv Gandhi)
If farmers become weak the country looses self-reliance but if they are strong, freedom also becomes strong. If we do not maintain our progress in agriculture, poverty cannot be eliminated from India. But our biggest poverty alleviation programme is to improve the living standard of our farmers. The thrust of our poverty alleviation programmes is on the uplift of the farmers. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
We must see that regional imbalances in the growth of various parties of the country are removed and all the states progress evenly. We shall ensure that all citizens of the country get full opportunity to contribute their might towards India's progress. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
When a big tree falls, the earth shakes. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
For some days, people thought that India was shaking. But there are always tremors when a great tree falls. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
Thereby, we have weakened ourselves and fallen prey to the ills that the loss of invigorating mass contact brings. Millions of ordinary Congress workers throughout the country are full of enthusiasm for the Congress policies and programmes. But they are handicapped, for on their backs ride the brokers of power and influence, who dispense patronage to convert a mass movement into a feudal oligarchy.. They are self-perpetuating cliques who thrive by involving the slogans of caste and religion and by enmeshing the living body of the congress in their net of avarice. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
Our plan cannot be hard and dogmatic. They must change with the times and move with the development of our country. Every year brings new compulsions, new circumstances, and with each Plan these must be taken into consideration. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
Rajiv Gandhi was not a great Prime Minister by any yardstick. He had his high points and his low points. He did try hard in some ways, but history will judge him not as a man who left behind a great legacy, but as someone who squandered the greatest opportunity India provided to any Prime Minister in living memory to take the country to new heights. He left the country in chaos and in self-doubt, and the economy in the dust. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
As far as that event is concerned, I would say it is a great tragedy, a monumental historical tragedy for which we deeply regret. We call upon the Government of India and the people of India to be magnanimous, to put the past behind and to approach the ethnic question in a different perspective. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
As Rajiv Gandhi was going past me, I got a thought in my head. I thought of how India was helping the terrorists with money, arms and military training. As these thoughts came into my head, when Gandhi was about two or three feet away from me. Yes, I felt an emotion. I despised the Indian Prime Minister. I aimed a blow with my rifle at Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi�s back, below the shoulder. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
Since his childhood he was of a gentle and peaceful nature. (Rajiv Gandhi)
Rajeev used to play with Gandhiji in the same way in which his mother, Indira used to play with Gandhiji in Sabaramati ashram when she was four years old. One day, Rajeev plucked some flowers and kept them at Gandhiji's feet. Gandhiji laughed and said – Rajeev! Don't you know that flowers are not kept at the feet of a person who is alive? View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
Our party is for the building of the temple to Lord Ram, and we should, if possible, work towards an amicable settlement which, while upholding the principles of secularism, enables the construction of the temple to start, with the approval and support of all concerned. ... The key issue appears to be whether or not there was a temple erected to Lord Ram at the site where the Babri Masjid stands today. This question of historical fact would appear to hold the key to a resolution of the problem to the satisfaction of all reasonable, secular-minded persons of all communities. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
A responsive administration is tested most at the point of interface between the administration and the people. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
If my mother gets help from it, then I will enter politics. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
It is compartmentalization of India into rigidly separated rural and urban settlements that has been the worst legacy of the colonial system of local-self government. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
The late Indira Gandhi always used to warn about the dangers that the country was facing. She used to keep saying that the country was going through a very dangerous time. This danger is now many times more than what it was at that time. We should all be cautious now. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
Better a brain drain than a brain in the drain. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
Development is not about factories, dams and roads. Development is about people. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
For nation-building, the first requisite is peace- peace with our neighbours and peace in the world. Our security environment has been vitiated. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
A right value system must be built into our education system. We must be very clear that religion and politics must be separated and there must be a very clear definition of the difference between spirituality of the religion and its rituals and dogmas. We must be clear that secularism as we understand it is not only anti-religion or non-religion; it is only the separation of government from religion. Religion has a great role to play in the development process of our nation and we should do nothing to undermine it. (Rajiv Gandhi)
Instead of understanding the crisis facing the country and helping the country, the opposition wants to weaken the country by its deeds. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
Nothing is more important than the unity and integrity of our nation. India is indivisible. Secularism is the bedrock of our nationhood. It implies more than tolerance. It involves an active effort for harmony. No religion preaches hatred and intolerance. Vested interests, both external and internal, are inciting and exploiting communal passions and violence to divide India. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
India is an old country, but a young nation; and like the young everywhere we are impatient. I am young, and I too have a dream. I dream of an India strong, independent and self-reliant and in the front rank of the nations of the world in the service of mankind. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi
The second point which must be part of the national goal, is caste less society. The constitution very clearly differentiates between Schedule Castes and Backward Classes. Why did out our Constitution makers make this distinction? They had something in their mind. Why have we lost that distinction today? I agree with you that reality is that caste accounts for a tremendous amount in this country. I do not disagree with that. But what is our goal? Is our goal a castless society? If out goal, is a casteless society, surely every step that we take must be towards that objective. View quote
Rajiv Gandhi