"That is why these thirty years have been just a failure. All the work that has been done since India attained its so-called freedom has not been of any value. In fact, we have more problems than we had before. We have not been able to solve a single problem; we have created thousands of other problems.

"I love democracy so much that I am even ready for a fifteen years' temporary benevolent dictatorship to train the country, to teach the country how to be free. It will appear paradoxical, it will appear contradictory, but don't be deceived by the appearance.

"It is easy to condemn and criticize my views because the paradox is so apparent. Any fool can say that it is contradictory. But life works in a dialectical way; it is not linear logic, it is dialectics. It is far more complex than you think it is.

"Two thousand years of slavery is a long time, very long. The slavery has gone into the very blood and bones, into the very marrow of the nation. To uproot it something surgical is needed. Just telling people to be free is not enough. And how can the surgery be done if democratic means are adopted?…Because 'democratic means' simply means telling people things, not doing anything, just telling people to be more understanding, to be more democratic, to be more independent. But that is not going to help – it is like telling an ill person to be healthy.

"Something drastic is needed, something radical is needed; not only medical treatment but something surgical. That is possible only if for fifteen years at least – that is the minimum limit – the country lives under a benevolent dictatorship. Then compulsory birth control can be imposed on the people. Otherwise their freedom to reproduce is going to create so many problems that no government can ever solve them. By the time you solve a few problems, thousands more people have arrived with all their problems. They don't bring land with them, they don't bring factories with them; they simply come empty-handed. And already millions of people are unemployed, half the country is starved.

"This country can be happy only with a population of two hundred million."