Top 5 A. D. Patel Quotes

Fijian politician (1905–1969)

Ambalal Dahyabhai Patel (March 13, 1905 – October 1, 1969) was an Indo-Fijian politician, farmers' leader and founder and leader of the National Federation Party. Patel was uncompromisingly committed to a vision of an independent Fiji, with full racial integration. He was one of the first to advocate a republic, an ideal not realized in his lifetime. He also advocated a common voters' roll and opposed the communal franchise that characterized, and continues to characterize, Fijian politics.

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Alternative Names: Ambalal Dahyabhai Patel

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We need university education in Fiji and must seriously think about starting post secondary education in Fiji. In the near future we hope to see a university college in Fiji and ultimately a fully fledged university

I believe that it is of the utmost importance that we all should feel and inculcate among the people and circulate amongst them what I call a sense of compatriotism. We should all feel that we are all nationals of one country, whatever our race, colour, creed, or sect…

There is a clear acknowledgement all over the world that we should not teach people to read and then to leave them without literature. For they would then relapse into a dreary and ultimately dangerous state of half-education, in which they would be easily satisfied by crude semi-pictorial approximations of the strip cartoon and by the abundant supply of degenerate literature which destroys, rather than promotes, a capacity to face the problems of the world with skill and courage

First and foremost must come the recognition and the realization that education is not a luxury in colonial areas, but it is as much a necessity as in free countries. It is an amenity to which every citizen has a right. It is a social service which should be the first charge on the finances of a country. And in advanced countries it is not uncommon for the state to spend as much as 25 per cent of their revenue on education.

Communal franchise is wrong in principle and harmful in practice; the time has come in Fiji for all races to get out of the thin water-tight compartments and start thinking in terms of residents of Fiji.