Shashi Tharoor Quotes

Indians paid, in other words, for the privilege of being conquered by the British.

History, in any case, cannot be reduced to some sort of game of comparing misdeeds in different eras; each period must be judged in itself and for its own successes and transgressions.

An India that denies itself to some of us could end up being denied to all of us. This would be a second Partition: and a partition in the Indian soul would be as bad as a partition in the Indian soil. For my sons, the only possible idea of India is that of a nation greater than the sum of its parts. An India neither Hindu nor Muslim, but both. That is the only India that will allow them to continue to call themselves Indians.

All knowledge is transient, linked to the world around it and subject to change as the world changes.

When an Englishman wants something, George Bernard Shaw observed, he never publicly admits to his wanting it; instead, his want is expressed as ‘a burning conviction that it is his moral and religious duty to conquer those who possess the thing he wants’. Durant is scathing about this pretence: ‘Hypocrisy was added to brutality, while the robbery went on.’ And

I make no bones about the fact that India matters to me, and I would like to matter to India.

Gangaji’s truth required activism, not passivity.

but as an Indian, I find it far easier to forgive than to forget.

India is not an underdeveloped country but a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, as the British economic historian Angus Maddison has demonstrated, India’s share of the world economy was 23 per cent, as large as all of Europe put together. (It had been 27 per cent in 1700, when the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb’s treasury raked in £100 million in tax revenues alone.) By the time the British departed India, it had dropped to just over 3 per cent. The reason was simple: India was governed for the benefit of Britain. Britain’s rise for 200 years was financed by its depredations in India.

India’s rape law, enshrined in the colonial-era Indian Penal Code, placed the burden of the victim to establish her ‘good character’ and prove that a rape had occurred, which left her open to discredit by opposing counsel. Many rapes were never reported as a result of the humiliation to which this system subjected the victims.

Who knows whence this creation had its origin?
He, whether He fashioned it or whether He did not,
He, who surveys it all from the highest heaven,
He knows — or maybe even He does not know. — Rig Veda, X.129 1
‘Maybe even He does not know!’ I love a faith that raises such a fundamental
question about no less a Supreme Being than the Creator of the Universe
Himself. Maybe He does not know, indeed. Who are we mere mortals to claim a
knowledge of which even He cannot be certain?

History belongs in the past; but understanding it is the duty of the present.

If ever the Empire comes to ruin, Heaslop, mark my words, the British publisher will be to blame.

How to Sleep at Night

Try to think of nothing.
That's the secret.

Try to think of nothing.
Do not think of work not done,
or of promises unkept, calls to return,
or agendas you have failed to prepare for meetings
yet unheld.

Think of nothing.
Do not think of words said and unsaid,
or minor scandals and major investigations,
of humiliations endured, insults suffered,
or retorts that did not spring to mind
in time.

Think of nothing.
Do not think of your wife,
of lonely children and their reproachful demands,
or the smile of the pretty woman
whose handshake lingered just a shade too long
in your palm.

Think of nothing.
Do not think of newspaper headlines,
of the insistent transience of the shortwave radio,
or the seductive stridency of the TV microphones
thrust so thrillingly
into your face.

Think of nothing.
Do not think of the waif on the foreign sidewalk,
her large eyes open in supplication,
her ragged shift stained by dirt and dust,
stretching her despairing hand towards you
in hope

No, do not think
of the solitary tear, the broken limb,
the rubble-strewn home, the choking scream;
never think
of piled up bodies, blazing flames,
shattered lives, or sundered souls.
Do not think of the triumph of the torturer,
the wails of the hungry,
the screams of the mutilated,
or the indifferent smirk
of the sleek.

Think of nothing.
then you will be able
to sleep.