"During Indira Gandhi's rule there were suggestions brought to parliament about how to tackle this problem. Immediately, opposition leaders from Morarji Desai's party argued that a poisoning of rats was out of the question because that would hurt the religious feelings of Maharashtran people. The only solution to this menace of rats destroying the grain stocks that was considered was to make the rats aware of birth control. But how to get this message to the rats? The opposition claimed that they had done their duty by suggesting this great solution; the implementing of birth control upon the rats would be the ruling party's affair. That was the end of the debate.'

"Since that time Morarji Desai himself has been a prime minister and again the question was brought up. Now he was in a difficult situation. As a Gandhian he is against birth control. Instead of birth control, celibacy is the solution. In the first place he should have considered that teaching rats birth control is going against Gandhian philosophy. They should be taught how to be celibate.

"Secondly, when he was in opposition he had himself proposed that birth control was the only solution. They cannot be killed, even though because of them the whole of India is suffering from poverty. Now that he was in the ruling party, the prime minister, he could not go against his word. He was in a difficult situation. And by this time the rats had grown far bigger and far more numerous than at the time of Indira.

"Right now they are eating three times more than the Indian population. Soon they will starve the whole population, but the politician cowards will not take any step. Morarji put it aside into the file, saying that an investigation should be made of how to introduce birth control to the rats. This is the way of the cunning politicians – always create an investigation committee which does great work in two, three years; then take their report and file it away. By that time most probably the prime minister is gone, and the new prime minister has no obligation to be bothered with any report that had been asked for by the previous one."