Aravind Adiga Quotes

At a time when India is going through great changes and, with China, is likely to inherit the world from the West, it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society.

Again, as a gay man I look at that and say there's a hopelessness that surrounds it, but as a human being I look at it and say 'Why? Where's this disparity coming from, and why can't we as a culture and society dig deeper to examine that?' We're terrified of facing ourselves.

There is no justice in social justice, and there is no equality in social equality.

Every social injustice is not only cruel, but it is economic waste.

The only reality is our society, and I mean this seriously, Western Society is a very sick society.

The margins don't get erased by simply insisting that the powers-that-be erase them.

Minorities…are almost always in the right.

Social injustice is such a familiar phenomenon ... that it is readily regarded as something natural, even by its victims.

Our criminal justice system affirmatively depends on inequality.

It was not until I got down to Latin America that I began to get a political education. Whatever my ideas when I went down there, I saw things around me every day that influenced me. I saw the terrible economic and social conditions, and the injustices that could not be ignored.

Unlike 30 years ago, people now admire the wealth of the West and lament the poverty of China; they stare awestruck at the power of the Western armies and scorn the cowardice of the Imperial troops; they enjoy the fairness and ease of the Customs and detest the fault-finding of China’s own tax collectors; they praise the orderly governance of the Western-Administered cities, and resent the harassment of our officials, big and small.

The idea of the nation [India] itself is incompatible with the institution of caste.

How can you stand for the national anthem of a nation that preaches and propagates, 'freedom and justice for all,' that is so unjust to so many of the people living there?

When I was a kid in junior high, I had an assignment to discuss how to rescue poor people in India. I remember my teacher at the time considered it an impossible problem. Now, we're not talking that way anymore. We're sure not talking about that for China. They're rescuing themselves thanks to globalization.

Satire doesn't effect change.

Boxing is for the poor man. A lot of people don't know what's going on, but I've been able to see it first-hand, and if I can speak out on the behalf of fighters going through problems, I will, because... it's important to create awareness. Everyone should speak up. Because if people are aware, maybe there can be change.

I'm somewhat wary of being called 'woke' because it feels absolute in a way that I don't think is realistic.

I'd like to change the world. Eradicate poverty, racism, and sexism... all the usual things.

Intersectionality draws attention to invisibilities that exist in feminism, in anti-racism, in class politics, so, obviously, it takes a lot of work to consistently challenge ourselves to be attentive to aspects of power that we don't ourselves experience.

Separate but equal is a fraud.

All imperfections are forced upon the imperfect, so the 'perfect' can live content and oblivious.

The great majority of Americans are suspended between these opposing attitudes. They are uneasy with injustice but unwilling yet to pay a significant price to eradicate it.

You have countries like India that have tried to help untouchables, with essentially affirmative-action programs, but it hasn't fundamentally changed the structure of their societies.

The fact that there's a more open discussion about everything from feminism to racism ... I look at my two boys ... this is their future I'm talking about. When I'll be long gone, it'll be them and their kids. I know that sometimes the darkest times are followed by the lightest. Sometimes bad things have to happen for good things to happen. At the very worst, we're having very open discussions, discussions about things we didn't even know f-king existed. I talk to my friends about it and they are absolutely shocked. They didn't even know.

People have so manipulated the concept of freedom that it finally boils down to the right of the stronger and richer to take from the weaker and poorer whatever they still have.