Subramanian Swamy Quotes

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

I am from a very vague caste. I don't belong to any of the four. I am kayastha. They are well read, largely clerks so they get treated respectfully.

I actually did a quick survey of how caste plays out in contemporary India. The idea that democracy and development have in some ways eroded caste turned out not to be the case, that it has in fact been entrenched and modernised.

Ideas are fatal to caste.

England is obsessed with where you came from, and they are determined to keep you in that place, be it in a drawing room or in the gutter.

I cannot believe there is caste system in society; I cannot believe people are judged on the basis of their prosperity.

There are only two classes - first class and no class.

There is no caste in blood.

A once-born man (a Sudra), who insults a twice-born man with gross invective, shall have his tongue cut out; for he is of low origin. If he arrogantly teaches Brahmanas their duty, the king shall cause hot oil to be poured into his mouth and into his ears

In a superior civilization, as, for example, that of the Indo-Aryans, the being who is without a characteristic form or caste... would emerge as a pariah. In this respect America is a society of pariahs. There is a role for pariahs. It is to be subjected to beings whose form and internal laws are precisely defined. Instead the modern pariahs seek to become dominant themselves and to exercise their dominion over all the world.

Caste in India is the first and last reality.

Caste is not a physical object like a wall of bricks or a line of barbed wire which prevents the Hindus from co-mingling and which has, therefore, to be pulled down. Caste is a notion; it is a state of the mind.

We can't deny the existence of caste in India. We have to live with it.

The caste system may be more highly developed in countries like India or England, but every tier of society in almost every culture tries to dominate a group it perceives as beneath it.

Caste hasn't been a part of creative thoughts and it never will be.

Indian leaders are saying, "You don't understand our caste system. It's really a lovely thing. People are very happy about it and so on." I don't think that's quite fair.

I had been in a film, playing a young British aristocrat. My wife told me that she was invited to a dinner and she invited me to dinner and the hostess had seen me and said, 'You cannot bring him.' but I think that I've done enough to shatter the image.

Hypocrisy is the essence of snobbery, but all snobbery is about the problem of belonging.

It is, of course, the first recourse of every elitist to see social barbarism in others.

Social distinctions concern themselves ultimately with whom you may and may not marry.

You have to be taught to be second class; you're not born that way.

I reject absolutely the idea that people should know their place, and know their class.

It is the dissimilarities and inequalities among men which give rise to the notion of honor; as such differences become less, it grows feeble; and when they disappear, it will vanish too.

I think the presence of caste in India, how the villages are geographically structured on caste lines, is very different from China. The presence of an egalitarian culture is striking in a Chinese village.

I think there's really strong social stratification in South Asia.