Shashi Tharoor Quotes on Identity
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'India shaped my mind, anchored my identity, influenced my beliefs, and made me who I am. ... India matters to me and I would like to matter to India.' [2]
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'Does NRI (Non-Resident Indian) stand for Not Really Indian or Never Relinquished India? I believe a little of both!' [3]
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'We all have multiple identities in India; we are all minorities in India. Our heterogeneity is definitional.' [6]
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'No Indian nationalist leader ever needed to say: We have created India; now all we need to do is to create Indians.' [7]
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'The idea of India is not based on language, not on geography, not on ethnicity and not on religion. The idea of India is of one land embracing many. You can be many things and one thing: you can be a good Keralite, a good Muslim and a good Indian all at once.' [10]
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'Pluralist India must, by definition, tolerate plural expressions of its many identities.' [14]
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'India imposes no procrustean exactions on its citizens: you can be many things and one thing.' [15]
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'In India we celebrate the commonality of major differences; we are a land of belonging rather than of blood.' [15]
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'Like India herself, I am at home in hovels and palaces, Ganapathi, I trundle in bullock-carts and propel myself into space, I read the vedas and quote the laws of cricket. I move to the strains of a morning raga in perfect evening dress.' [16]