C. Rajagopalachari quotes

C. Rajagopalachari was an Indian politician, independence activist, writer, and statesman. A close associate of Mahatma Gandhi, he served as the last Governor-General of India and founded the Swatantra Party. He played a significant role in shaping modern Indian politics and promoting liberal democratic values. Here are 10 of his quotes:

What is wanted to save parliamentary democracy is an opposition that will operate not privately and behind the closed doors of the party meeting, but openly and periodically through the electorate. (C. Rajagopalachari)
Do not demand love. Begin to love. You will be loved. It is the law and no statute can alter it. If we do not follow the law, and let the law die with the teacher, we shall become accomplices to the murderer. But if follow the law with our hearts, [Bapu] will live with us and through us. View quote
C. Rajagopalachari
If we believe that God is everywhere... why should we not believe He is in objects to which so much concentrated devotion is attached? Christians believe in the doctrine of original sin. Hindus believe in the doctrine of acquired sin. But all of us believe that God, by whatever name we call Him, is in the world. View quote
C. Rajagopalachari
If civilization is to be bound up with material advancement, we must accept its inevitable consequence, loss of freedom in enact proportion to the forward march. View quote
C. Rajagopalachari
The most urgent reason for prohibition is the good of these depressed classes. No other single measure of reform can help these people, and at once raise them economically and socially as total prohibition can. The rich and the educated may be indifferent about this reform. It is most necessary for saving the poor and the lowly. View quote
C. Rajagopalachari
We must learn two things. One is to see ourselves as others see us. We apply one yardstick when we wish to appraise other people. Secondly, we cannot succeed in anything if we act in fear of other people's opinions. View quote
C. Rajagopalachari
There is no reality in the fond expectation that Britain will leave the country in simple response to a Congress slogan. Besides, by asking the British to leave, the Congress was issuing an open invitation to a colonising power more brutal by far, the Japanese. View quote
C. Rajagopalachari
The tradition in Hinduism is that it is not open to any Hindu, whatever be the name and mental image of the Supreme Being he uses for his devotional exercises, to deny the existence of God that others worship. He can raise the name of his choice to that of the highest, but he can not deny the divinity or the truth of the God of other denominations. The fervor of his own piety just gives predominance to the name and form he gives for his own worship and contemplation, and he treats the other gods as deriving the divinity therefrom. This reduces all controversy to a devotional technique of concentration on a peculiar name and mental form or concrete symbol as representing the supreme being. It makes no difference in the contents of Vedanta to which all devotees equally subscribe... ‘just as all water raining from the skies goes to the ocean, worship of all gods go to Keshava.' View quote
C. Rajagopalachari
If India's government is to be an institution integrated with her people's lives, if it is to be a true democracy and not a superimposed western institution staged in Indian dress, religion must have an important and recognized place in it with impartiality and reverence for all the creeds and denominations prevailing in India. View quote
C. Rajagopalachari
You must learn how to marry and live a married life. View quote
C. Rajagopalachari