"They have been making shoes – they are the chamars – and anybody who offers shoes as a garland only shows his poverty. He has nothing else to offer. Just a poor shoemaker.

"But even that will not destroy my argument. You can bring all the shoes of the whole world, but still what I have said, and what I am going to say, will stand absolutely intact and pure.

"These people went to the Deputy Police Commissioner. He seems to be a nice, educated, cultured man. He refused, saying that 'You cannot have any procession, because you don't understand. You are misinterpreting.' He came to the ashram, and said that 'I have refused their permission to take a procession against you, or I am going to arrest them, because there is no validity at all.'

"Whatever I have said, I can say to any court, any high court, any supreme court. And this will be the right action: to take me to the court. Or if they have intelligence enough, I can allow three persons – they should choose – to argue with me on each point that hurts their so-called, self-styled religious feelings. Just those three persons have to fulfill the conditions of this campus. They have to come here unarmed, and they have to come here with an AIDS-negative certificate. We will welcome them with flowers, not with shoes – we have enough flowers – and I will give them every chance to argue on every point they want.

"But this has been the whole conditioning for centuries. Poisoning Socrates, they thought that they were destroying his arguments. His arguments are still as alive, as strong as ever. Crucifying Jesus, they thought they were destroying the possibility of a new religion springing up. Now half of the world is Christian.

"You cannot argue with swords, you cannot argue with throwing stones, you cannot argue with ugly slogans. These simply prove that you are barbarous, subhuman.

"Perhaps if Charles Darwin were alive, I would have requested him to come here. His whole life he was searching for the middle agent – because monkeys or gorillas or chimpanzees cannot suddenly become man; they should pass through a transitory period."