Shashi Tharoor Quotes on Pluralism
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'What is most important to me is Jawaharlal Nehru's idea of India, India as a pluralist society and polity, an idea which is central to India's survival, which has held now in the four decades after his death and which is all the more in need of defending.' [4]
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'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]
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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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'If India had a Latin version of the American motto E Pluribus Unum, it would be E Pluribus Pluribum.' [12]
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'The pluralism and the linguistic diversity of India is something of which we can truly be proud.' [13]
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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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'There is no one way to look at India. There are many Indias. Pluralism is a reality that emerges from the very nature of the country; it is a choice made inevitable by India's geography and reaffirmed by its history. We are all minorities in India.' - Shashi Tharoor at the recently concluded PANIIT 2006 in Bombay.