'No Indian nationalist leader ever needed to say: We have created India; now all we need to do is to create Indians.' [7]
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Indian leaders never had to create Indians because the nation was already formed through shared culture and history.
- In plain terms
- India was already created; leaders didn't need to make Indians.
- What can you take from it?
- National identity can exist organically before political creation.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Did India exist before it was a nation?
- What creates a people?
Another view
Organic identity may not prevent political fragmentation.
More from Shashi Tharoor
'We all have multiple identities in India; we are all minorities in India. Our heterogeneity is definitional.' [6]
Permalink to quote #6 'In building an Indian nation that takes account of the country's true Hindu heritage, we have to return to the pluralism of the national movement.' [8]
Permalink to quote #8 'Indian nationalism is the nationalism of an idea, the idea of an ever-ever land, emerging from an ancient civilization, sustained by pluralist democracy.' [5]
Permalink to quote #5
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