Top 60 Barkha Dutt Quotes

The crests and troughs in Covid-19 cases and the spikes and falls of daily infographics by which we now measure the wellness of our lives have been based mostly on city-driven data.

The truth is that every news channel is a variant of the other and the difference is one of degree.

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.

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.

It has become impossible for India to talk about caste with any candour.

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

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

Hinduism especially – in the absence of codified rituals or a book of rules to circumscribe it – has always functioned as part philosophy, part mythology, leaving it open to competing and contradictory interpretations.

When Hindustan Motors rolled out the first Ambassador Car in 1957 its sturdy body, rounded contours and Mother Earth simplicity immediately bagged it a place in our collective consciousness.

Our ideas of consent have evolved and changed because feminism has pushed the boundaries.

The rise of Right-wing populism globally has divided not just countries, but families. It has broken relationships and torn apart friendships. It has created social media discord and abuse, and led to unprecedented name-calling.

For the Modi government, the calls for a ‘Naya Kashmir’ has paradoxically led them right back to old established political parties after a failed experiment at propping up an ‘alternative’ regime in the form of the Apni Party and other such flirtations.

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.

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.

A message you abhor has to be trumped with a more powerful one.

Most of us in the media are, by and large, sentimental about our national identity, but comfortable enough in our skins as Indians, to be deeply self-critical. The problem arises when loyalty to India gets mixed up with loyalty to the government of the day.

For many Indians, their future as global players is linked to the American dream.

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?

In many professional spaces, women are fighting twice as hard as men to get to the same place and get the same opportunities. If you then speak out about your experience of sexual harassment, there is every chance you will not be sent on certain assignments.

If there is a bulwark against the BJP juggernaut, it can only be India’s regional parties. But they too falter in the face of the Modi factor and their own lack of commitment to a full time, 365 days a year, 24-hour-a-day political life.

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

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.

The freedom of expression cannot be defined selectively.

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.

India cannot pretend anymore that none of its citizens fancy membership to the Global Jehad club. We need to examine where our secularism has failed.

For decades, the Left has occupied a special place in the minds of educated Indians – outside of the two states (Bengal and Kerala) where it has a political presence and is therefore treated like any other political party.

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.

The sanctimony that a section of the media wears like a second skin comes undone so fast when the scrutiny is on them.

I am not a pundit or a psephologist and thus not in the business of calling elections.

As women, many of us have internalised our lives as a prolonged version of boot camp, a sort of Darwinian call to toughen up or perish. As young women, we are terrified that men we consider our mentors can turn out to be monsters.

If the airline industry were to evolve a common fitness standard for both male and female employees, that would not just be acceptable, it would be entirely desirable.

I’m not a big fan of government interference in most matters.

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

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

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.

If anything, I believe, television anchors have become parodies of themselves, self-caricatures if such a thing is possible. And I’d dismiss it all with a scornful laugh if broadcast news were not so dangerous in fanning misogyny, communalism, fake news and divisiveness.

I don’t care if a flight attendant is fat as long as she doesn’t sneak back to the galley for a gossip when she should be pushing down the food trolley. I get annoyed when the food trays are slapped down on my seat by bored and disinterested men and women. I look for warmth and comfort, not cold efficiency.

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.

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.

For the BJP, the conversion of Bengal’s cultural Hindu into a political Hindu is a long-standing project.

The army’s original job description was to protect borders, but a demanding country depends on it for everything else too, from rebuilding bridges after a tsunami to keeping the peace when religious riots erupt.

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.

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 is an undeniable need to stop candy-flossing the impact of fundamentalism.

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

To call the coronavirus a great equaliser turned out to be the greatest falsification of our time.

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.

In 2020 we saw the poorest Indian citizen suffer as migrant workers, in the hundreds of thousands, fled the cities on foot, sometimes barefoot, to return to the villages.

My father, a former Air India official, but essentially an inventor at heart – a man who loved to sometimes break machines just so that he could have the joy of re-engineering them – was a twinkly-eyed, ever-optimistic man of science.

Politics was Ahmed Patel’s whole life.

For a man once called the Indian Obama by the historian and public intellectual Ramachandra Guha, the diminishing of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar could not be more dramatic.

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

What other, newer democracies find relatively easy – conducting an election, the counting of votes, the peaceful transition of power – seems to have befuddled the United States (U.S.).

Grief, like Covid-19, mutates and escapes the inoculation of both time and the reassurance of loving friends. It is less sledgehammer and more screwdriver, drilling little holes in your head and heart, leaving you haunted by the ifs and buts of your decisions.

You can’t define yourself either in shades of what you are contesting or entirely in antithesis to it. By doing so, what you reveal is that you have nothing to say for yourself. Or that you are unsure of your messaging.