“A successful woman, especially one with a public profile, would be scrutinized in the most unsparing and quite often, unfair way.” ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
“A journalist’s relationship with a source – any source – is always part-acting; you flatter to deceive and act friendlier than you feel in order to elicit the maximum information.” ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
"Most worryingly, journalists, especially younger ones who are less used to being constantly judged by viewers – have begun to worry too much about being “liked” on Twitter, Facebook, often modulating what they say based on the sort of abuse they think they may have to face online." ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
"Despite their ability to win elections, women in Indian politics are most definitely victims of misogyny. But in a perplexing paradox, as their response to the Nirbhaya protests showed, they are also guilty of behaving in ways that are worthy of criticism. Worse, administrations handled by women have shown no special sensitivity when it comes to handling incidents of sexual abuse and violence." ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
"In a country where it is not uncommon for Hindi cinema to indulgently show a persistent suitor who never takes a no for an answer, courting and cajoling, even breaking into song whilst pulling at the heroine’s dupptta, the idea that a woman had the right to set her own boundaries of space and privacy was still an alien one." ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
"The country’s culture of patriarchy has its origins, not in its Constitution, but in age-old religious tenets and traditions. What is one to make of a country that worships women but blesses new mothers with exhortation to give birth to a “hundred sons”?"~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
“The superwoman tag is effectively a self-inflicted wound masquerading as a compliment. Indian men are not grappling with any of this; they are not agonizing over whether being a super-banker means they can never be a super dad.” ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
“While Indian society remains puritanical and closed when it comes to talking openly about sex, portrays of women in popular culture is hyper-sexualized like never before.” ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
“The sad truth about India is that sectarian tendencies always have the potential to turn into overtly terrorist actions. This is true of both Hindu & Muslim radicals.” ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
“Playing politics with terror, no matter of what kind – home grown, external or Maoist – is exceptionally dangerous.” ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
“Rape survivors are stigmatized and shamed by a cultural mindset that seeks to transfer blame from perpetrators to victims. But when sexual abuse becomes a tool of mob violence, it is a different matter altogether.” ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
“While the war for equality for Indian women will have to be waged on multiple fronts – legal, economic, political – the first conflict zone is the home, where even the best intentioned parents cossets their daughters and give their sons much greater freedom.” ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
“The partition of India was a blood and cataclysmic upheaval and the largest forced migration of people in the world. Between 1 and 2 million people were killed and estimated 17 million were uprooted from their homes. The violent rupture proved impossible to heal.” ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
“Terrorism and the debate around it, would always be tragically politicized in India.” ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
“It is hard to see when things will get better. with two hostile countries, both nuclear powers, as neighbors – Pakistan in the north, China in the east – terror travels easily across the border.” ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
“A child knows when her mother is using the crutch if untruth to somehow walk around the loss.” ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
“In his lifetime Mahatma Gandhi deplored the politics that surrounded the cow and the cow slaughter. He wrote and spoke on the issue many times, but Gandhi’s efforts did not put an end to the polarization of the issue.” ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
“Historically, the holy cow has long been an excuse for unholy, profane politics. But the expectation was that the mantra of an aspiration India – the economic dreams of a new generation – would have finally made the cow politics irrelevant.” ~~ Barkha Dutt (Book: This Unquiet Land)
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