The Free Voice: On Democracy, Culture and the Nation (Revised and Updated Edition)

by Ravish Kumar

Communalism is being legitimized as patriotism. In the drawing rooms of the elite, communal talk is already like dessert after a good dinner. Bigotry isn’t always shabbily dressed; it also wears the robes of high culture.

Democracies are created and sustained by idealists who seek to understand their world; who demand information and question the status quo.

When a poor person takes refuge with a baba for the sake of spiritualism, it becomes superstition; when the rich take refuge with their babas for the sake of spiritualism, it becomes a stress-management course.