"When I see the spreading abuses, the cants, the hypocrisies and the general fall in the moral sense from the highest level down to the unfortunate poor, I do not feel inclined to run way from the struggle for improving things – old, weak and incapacitated though I am.” 

 "Montesquieu said in his famous book, The Spirit of the Laws, that there is no word which contains a wider variety of meanings than ’freedom’. Abraham Lincoln also said a hundred years later that we will declare in favour of freedom but we do not mean the same thing when using this word. By far the best word to denote the freedom which we desire in national economy is the word we use in India: Swatantra. It is the power of the individual to put his will in motion without having to submit to the coercion of another’s will in the management of his affairs”. 

What a fool Rama was say, Congressmen, to give up the crown and go to the forest in order to enable his father to keep his word of honour and not to break his pledge. ‘We break pledges without compunction’ the Congress Party says.’ Our ideas of morality and honour have marched with the times. We are not old fashioned like Gandhiji or Vallabhbhai Patel.’ 

The PM of India described that the payments to ex-rulers were an anachronism. I quite agree in another sense. It has now become an anachronism to keep promises. A people’s reputation cannot be saved when they look upon the keeping of promises and pledges made in return for performance of the obligation on the other side as out of date. Breach of promises and breaking of pledges have become the characteristics of the new era in India under Smt. Indira Gandhi. I am glad the small band of Swatantra Party members in the Lok Sabha as well as in the Rajya Sabha voted against the wreckers of the Constitution undaunted by the massive numbers ranged on the other side. 

Democratically based governments should be able to sense public opinion beforehand and act in advance of agitation and violence. Waiting till violent and intimidatory forms of agitation start and then swearing firmness but yielding to such agitation, step by step, is the surest way to kill parliamentary government. 

 Here are two gems taken from the Sunday Statesman (August 22) weekly record of unconscious humour: "Pakistan is a peace-loving country,” said Mr. Z. A. Bhutto. He might have chosen some other time to make this claim. Even more unconsciously humorous is the following statement of Mr. Morarji Desai; "If Hindi is made the official language, the country will produce more engineers and doctors than ever”. 

Here is a new thought, a complement to Lord Acton’s often quoted proposition which a new book on Herod gives us to understand and remember: "If power corrupts, the fear of the loss of power is the mightiest corrupter of all.” 

I don’t know if the story is apocryphal. But it deserves to be true. Max Mueller was asked by someone, why though taking so great an interest in the ancient wisdom of India, he did not go to India. "I do not wish to be disillusioned” was his answer.

 We can be said to have correctly understood a principle, political, moral or legal, only if we know when to make exceptions to the general rule. Dogmatic adherence to a general rule without understanding when to depart from it is stupidity.