Top 100 Quotes & Sayings by Barkha Dutt - Page 2

A hidden camera can only be a good journalist's last resort. But sometimes, it's the only option.

No one wants to trivialise the gigantic challenge of battling terrorism or undermine the sacrifice of our soldiers and policemen.

Most of us marvel at the ingenuity and imaginativeness of sting operations, defend their right to exist and will argue that if well-used, they are an invaluable tool for justice.

Women - whether in politics, media or business - can't have it both ways. We can't demand to be judged irrespective of our gender if we also plan to manipulate our sexual identity to our advantage. We can't both play the game and pretend to be sitting it out. We can't deliberately act 'female' and complain about male bias.

What we take away from our school and college years is especially personal and rarely transferable to someone standing outside that circle of experience.

Modi's masterstroke has always been to blur the battlelines and construct an artificial enemy one that plays into primal instincts of pride and insecurity.

Much of India's Hindu-Muslim divisions can also be located in the context of history, fomented further by the politics of divide and rule.

Even atheists and agnostics - and I'm an agnostic - can respond with respect to the cultural infiltration of religion into our everyday lives.

No matter what you think of him otherwise, there are no two ways about it - Narayana Murthy is inextricably linked to the modern Indian's sense of self. So also is Sachin Tendulkar. Every time he goes out to bat, he carries with him the dreams of a billion people. Like many sporting legends, he is an iconic symbol of our subliminal nationalism.

I feel unabashedly Indian, and this means that not just do I jump to my feet and sing along with the national anthem, it also makes me inexplicably sentimental, proud and teary-eyed.

We must first be able to look honestly at fundamentalism in our own backyard, if we are to have any hope of weeding it out.

Hindi news is much more determinedly populist and lowbrow than the English channels.

Nostalgia can be an awful bore, especially for those whose memories are painted in hues different from ours.

The hysterical competitiveness in the media bazaar has subverted the traditional hierarchy of news.

The fact is that a ghastly class prejudice defines our response to the Indian Diaspora.

Politicians know that as public opinion learns to assert itself more aggressively, a government that goes against a presidential opinion can find itself on the defensive.

Politics, by definition, is risk averse. Perhaps that's why America was so awestruck when Barack Obama ended the Black vs White debate by painting his political canvas in shades of grey.

If you leave out the magnetic stardom of sportsmen and actors, middle-class India today really has just two heroes - the army and the judiciary.

There are only a handful of educational institutions that can be called emblems of a Thinking India.

When passion turns to paralysis, when our bodies stop listening to our brains, when a fatal disease sucks our insides out, will we then decide that death may well be an act of kindness?

Parts of India treat Rushdie like he's a rock star; we especially like boasting about him to our Western friends and acquaintances. It's nice to act like one of the world's most successful authors is as homespun as our handloom saris.

Much like the death sentence, I believe, hidden cameras should be used in the 'rarest of rare' cases.

If the travels of a country were to be chronicled by its cars, in the journey from the Ambassador to the Nano is, perhaps, the story of India's evolution as a nation.

Even those of us who do not understand the nuances of economics have come to accept that reform cannot be bloodless. We are often impatient with the predictable, do-gooder campaigns against development. We argue passionately against the humbug protests of those who never want the poor to get rich.

India's middle-class knows better than most how hard and lonely the struggle of an ordinary man can be.

In a country like ours where the poor barely have the right to live, a legally recognised right to die would push them to the very margins of healthcare services.

When Sania Mirza says she feels hurt or fed up at constantly grabbing the headlines for the wrong reasons, it's an understandable reaction. But when she goes ahead to say she doesn't want to play in India anymore, we can't help thinking it's the sort of thing you'd expect a defeatist to say.

Textbook journalism everywhere in the world has always frowned upon the sting as a tool of reporting.

If we began deconstructing the myths at the heart of every religion, we would be citizens of a Marxian Utopia.

We can barely deal with men who set their own rules; to ask us to accept a woman who is individualistic, passionate, beautiful and yes, possibly annoyingly arrogant, makes us just a little nervous.

Every institution of India - politicians, journalists and corporate chieftains - comes within the purview of the judiciary but when it comes to auditing their own conscience, judges want everyone else to stay out.

Neither scientific laboratories nor excavation expeditions can unravel the human need to believe in a greater truth, a truth strangely made all the more grand and mysterious by the absence of empirical evidence.

In countries like the U.S., the courts have upheld the right to burn the national flag as a mark of protest or expression. In India, by contrast, we routinely get hysterical if the flag is ever taken out of the boundaries of officialdom.

The Christianity of the St Stephen's College I remember was atmospheric (how we loved the chapel, the choir and the Cross), cultural and entirely subtle.

Apart from democracy, globalisation and economic liberalism is our 20th century area of commonality with the U.S., the burgeoning numbers of skilled Indian workers in the U.S. and the outsourcing of American jobs to Indians who never even had to leave their desks, makes us feel that the relationship can eventually be a two-way street of equals.

The United States - aspiring India's favourite country - had to learn the hard way that you ignore the world outside your door at great cost to your own survival.

We like to say we would never want anyone we care about to suffer. But is it because it's we who cannot see them in pain?

The working conditions of Indian labourers in the Gulf countries are notoriously abusive.

We will unconditionally worship Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar, partly because we approve of their well-mannered modesty. They are non-threatening, good hearted blokes - the boys we take home to Momma.

The BJP brand of Hindutva was originally rooted in middle-class disenchantment with secular hypocrisies; Modi's version is defined simply by hard-edged hatred.