Rajiv Chopra

“He found the Mahasabha’s policies, especially towards Muslims, abhorrent, saying that it came out ‘from time to time with the stupidest of proposals’. But he also noticed that ‘stupidity has a market, if it puts on some kind of a nationalist garb’.”
― Rahul Bhatia, The Identity Project: The Unmaking of a Democracy

“And the truth is that I truly didn’t think of them as human beings. “They’re not human beings, they’re kulak trash!” – that’s what I heard again and again, that’s what everyone kept repeating. And when I think about it all now, I wonder who first talked about kulak trash. Lenin? Was it really Lenin? How the kulaks suffered. In order to kill them, it was necessary to declare that kulaks are not human beings. Just as the Germans said that Yids are not human beings. That’s what Lenin and Stalin said too: The kulaks are not human beings. But that’s a lie. They are people. They are human beings. I can see now that we are all human beings.60”
― Vasily Grossman, Everything Flows

“Most civilization is based on cowardice. It’s so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame. —The Stolen Journals”
― Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune

“How enlightened of you, Moneo! Small souls who seek power over others first destroy the faith those others might have in themselves.”
― Frank Herbert, God Emperor of Dune