The Billionaire Raj Quotes

“Victor lived in the heart of the UP's crime belt, in an area often called the "wild east," which often featured as a locale for Bollywood movies featuring dacoits and mafia dons. But when traveling through the area it was lethargy rather than lawlessness that stood out.”
― James Crabtree, The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age

“His behavior proved shameful precisely because his ventures—in their ambition and indiscipline, in their capacity to innovate but also their willingness to cut corners—seemed so closely to resemble India itself.”
― James Crabtree, The Billionaire Raj: A Journey Through India's New Gilded Age

“The most important political distinction among countries concerns not their form of government but their degree of government,”
― James Crabtree, The Billionaire Raj: A Journey through India's New Gilded Age

“For any society to lift itself out of absolute poverty it needs to build three critical state institutions: taxation, law and security,”
― James Crabtree, The Billionaire Raj: A Journey through India's New Gilded Age

“India’s tradition of debate and an open spirit of enquiry is critical for its economic progress,”
― James Crabtree, The Billionaire Raj: A Journey through India's New Gilded Age

“India is often described as having a weak state but a strong society:”
― James Crabtree, The Billionaire Raj: A Journey through India's New Gilded Age

“Speaking in 1916, Mohandas Gandhi warned that India faced a pernicious new kind of commercialism. ‘Western nations are groaning today under the heel of the monster god materialism,’ he told students at a college in the heartland state of Uttar Pradesh. ‘Many of our countrymen say that we will gain American wealth, but avoid its methods. I venture to suggest that such an attempt, if it were made, is foredoomed to failure.’27 Gandhi’s views were rooted in his own era, chiming with the theories of anti-colonialism and non-violent protest that earned him the title ‘Mahatma’, or ‘great soul’ in Sanskrit. Almost a century later, his warnings seemed prescient.”
― James Crabtree, The Billionaire Raj: A Journey through India's New Gilded Age