Hello, Bastar - The Untold Story of India's Maoist Movement Quotes

“On 10 September 2008, Raghuram Rajan, noted economist and honorary advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, delivered a speech at the Bombay Chamber of Commerce where he spoke about how most of India's billionaires did not derive their wealth from IT or software but from land, natural resources, and government contracts or licences. He spoke of India being second only to Russia in terms of wealth concentration (the number of billionaires per trillion dollars of GDP). To show how extraordinary this number was he quoted the case of Brazil which had only 18 billionaires despite a greater GDP than India. Or Germany, which had three times India's GDP and a per capita income 40 times India's but had the same number of billionaires. 'If Russia is an oligarchy, how long can we resist calling India one?' he wondered.”
― Rahul Pandita, Hello Bastar

“Revolution is not a dinner party, nor an essay, nor a painting, nor a piece of embroidery; it cannot be advanced softly, gradually, carefully, considerately, respectfully, politely, plainly, and modestly. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.' By”
― Rahul Pandita, Hello Bastar

“Even as it sends missions to the moon and boasts of being a nuclear power, India has so far failed to ensure that nobody goes hungry. There have been cases where foodgrains were left out in the open to rot while the godowns of the state-run Food Corporation of India were rented out”
― Rahul Pandita, Hello Bastar

“Even as it sends missions to the moon and boasts of being a nuclear power, India has so far failed to ensure that nobody goes hungry. There have been cases where foodgrains were left out in the open to rot while the godowns of the state-run Food Corporation of India were rented out to liquor companies to store alcohol. So,”
― Rahul Pandita, Hello Bastar

“Amalendu's crime, Kalpana's crime, is the crime of all those who cannot remain unmoved and inactive in an India where a child crawls in the dust with a begging bowl; where a poor girl can be sold as a rich man's plaything; where an old woman must half-starve herself in order to buy social acceptance from the powers-that-be in her village; where countless people die of sheer neglect; where many are hungry while food is hoarded for profit; where usurers and tricksters extort the fruits of labour from those who do the work; where the honest suffer whilst the villainous prosper; where justice is the exception and injustice the rule; and where the total physical and mental energy of millions of people is spent on the struggle for mere survival.”
― Rahul Pandita, Hello Bastar

“Naxals burst Laxmi crackers and the CRPF exhaust their ammunition in the return fire,”
― Rahul Pandita, Hello Bastar

“It would also brutally punish 'class enemies' by ordering that they be shortened by six inches—which meant beheading.”
― Rahul Pandita, Hello Bastar

“growth must not be treated as an end in itself, but as an instrument of spreading prosperity to all.”
― Rahul Pandita, Hello Bastar

“For the convenience of readers, the terms 'Naxal' and 'Maoist' are used interchangeably throughout this book. This is common practice in the media and even the police. In fact, the Maoists too use both terms to define themselves.”
― Rahul Pandita, Hello Bastar

“The spasms had been troubling him again. In fact, amoebic dysentery had been his constant companion, a result of a harsh life of more than three decades. And an enlarged prostate too. He was more comfortable with the pain these afflictions caused than the feel of the cold metal of a gun in his hands whenever he had had to hold it. But that was on very rare occasions, deep inside the forest along the Eastern Ghats: memorial meetings for fallen comrades, ceremonial parades or military drills. Presently, though, he was hundreds of miles away from the jungles of central India.”
― Rahul Pandita, Hello Bastar