Shashi Tharoor Quotes

We must not be deluded into making concessions, whether on Kashmir or any other issue, in the naive expectation that these would end the hostility of the ISI and its cohorts. We must understand that Pakistan’s fragile sense of self-worth rests on its claim to be superior to India, stronger and more valiant than India, richer and more capable than India. This is why the killers of 26/11 struck the places they did, because their objective was not only to kill and destroy, but also to pull down India’s growth, tarnish its success story and darken its lustre in the world. The more we grow and flourish in the world, the more difficult we make it for the Pakistani military to sustain its myth of superiority or even parity. There are malignant forces in Islamabad who see their future resting upon India’s failure. These are not motives we can easily overcome.

am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I remember having repeated a hymn from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings: “As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.”. . . [T]he wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita [says]: “Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to me.

Hinduism is great for encouraging social peace, because everyone basically believes their suffering in this life is the result of misdeeds in a past one... So Hinduism is the best antidote to Marxism.

In debate he thought high and aimed low.

He leaned towards the young man, his eyes, mouth and face all round in concentration. ‘“There was a banned crow,”’ he intoned sonorously. ‘“There was a cold day.” Not bad, eh? I learned those on the boat. Sounds like perfect Urdu, I’m told.’ He paused and frowned. ‘The devil of it is remembering which one means, “close the door,” and which one will get someone to open it.

We literally paid for our own oppression.

Democracy, Ganapathi, is perhaps the most arrogant of all forms of government, because only democrats presume to represent an entire people: monarchs and oligarchs have no such pretensions. But democracies that turn authoritarian go a step beyond arrogance; they claim to represent a people subjugating themselves. India was now the laboratory of this strange political experiment. Our people would be the first in the world to vote on their own subjugation.

By the end of the nineteenth century, India was Britain’s biggest source of revenue, the world’s biggest purchaser of British exports and the source of highly paid employment for British civil servants and soldiers all at India’s own expense. Indians literally paid for their own oppression.

...(It) is to one British colonial policy-maker or another that we owe the Boxer Rebellion, the Mau Mau insurrection, the Boer War, and the Boston Tea Party

Forget heaven and hell, yaar,” he says as he leaves. “It’s purgatory I’m concerned about. We call it Earth.

Pakistan was created by Jinnah’s will and Britain’s willingness’ — not by Nehru’s wilfulness.

As I was typing this last sentence, somewhat hastily, my computer’s spellcheck offered ‘Brutish’ as an acceptable substitute for ‘British’ rule in India!

The principles he stood for and the way in which he asserted them were always easier to admire than to follow

Nehru, speaking of his country’s dreams, said: ‘Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.’ It

While God waits for his temple to be built of love, man brings stones.’ Or