Life's Pleasures Quote by Morarji Desai

Desai’s line is a politician’s corrective, aimed as much at his own side as at his opponents. In a culture where vegetarianism can double as moral shorthand - a proxy for purity, nonviolence, even spiritual refinement - he refuses the easy halo. The first sentence is calibrated restraint: “I do not say…” signals an almost judicial posture, a leader policing his language to avoid turning dietary practice into a loyalty test. It’s also an implicit rebuke to the self-congratulatory tone that often surrounds ethical consumption, then and now.

The sting lands in the second sentence. “Very bad people” is deliberately blunt, almost homespun, because the target isn’t a philosophical argument; it’s social hypocrisy. Desai is puncturing a hierarchy that lets some people feel righteous by abstaining from meat while practicing cruelty in other, less visible forms - corruption, caste arrogance, domestic violence, indifference to poverty. The subtext: harm is not only what you put on your plate; it’s what you tolerate, exploit, or normalize.

Context matters. Desai belonged to a Gandhian political world that prized personal discipline, including vegetarianism, but also insisted that private virtue had to translate into public ethics. His warning is that symbolic purity can become a shield against accountability. It’s a reminder that morality isn’t a brand you wear; it’s a pattern you live, especially when power is involved.