Diplomats of India

"To speak of Hindu fundamentalism, is a contradiction in terms, since Hinduism is a religion without fundamentals. To be an Indian Hindu is to be part of an elusive dream all share, a dream that fills our minds with sounds, words, flavours from many sources that we cannot easily identify."

"Every Hindu may not be conscious of the finer points of his faith, but he has been raised in the tradition of its assumptions and doctrines, even when these have not been explained to him. His Hinduism may be a Hinduism of habit rather than a Hinduism of learning, but it is a lived Hinduism for all that."

"I do not look to history to absolve my country of the need to do things right today. Rather I seek to understand the wrongs of yesterday, both to grasp what has brought us to our present reality and to understand the past for itself. The past is not necessarily a guide to the future, but it does partly help explain the present. One cannot, as I have written elsewhere, take revenge upon history; history is its own revenge."

"No Indian nationalist leader ever needed to say: We have created India; now all we need to do is to create Indians."

"We all have multiple identities in India; we are all minorities in India. Our heterogeneity is definitional."

"Pluralist India must, by definition, tolerate plural expressions of its many identities."

"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."

"I was not blinded by faith, but the encounter was indeed astonishing at several levels. In our private talk, Sai Baba uttered insights about my family and myself that he could not possibly have known....He waved his hand in the air and opened his palm. In it nestled a gold ring with nine embedded stones, a navratan. He slipped it on my finger, remarking, "See how well it fits. Even a goldsmith would have needed to measure your finger.""

""It was as if he had heard what I wanted," she said. But a skilled magician can do that, and it would be wrong to see Sai Baba as a conjurer. He has channeled the hopes and energies of his followers into constructive directions, both spiritual and philanthropic."

"The only possible idea of India is that of a nation greater than the sum of its parts."

"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."

"India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay."

"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."

"The memories of the first Independence Day may have faded, but the power of that magical moment must never be forgotten."

"Does NRI (Non-Resident Indian) stand for Not Really Indian or Never Relinquished India? I believe a little of both!"

"Indian nationalism is the nationalism of an idea, the idea of an ever-ever land, emerging from an ancient civilization, shaped by a shared history, sustained by pluralist democracy."

"The pluralism and the linguistic diversity of India is something of which we can truly be proud."

"This is my story of the India I know, with its biases, selections, omissions, distortions, all mine.... Every Indian must for ever carry with him, in his head and heart, his own history of India."

"The British are the only people in history crass enough to have made revolutionaries out of Americans."

"Basic truth about the colonies, Heaslop. Any time there's trouble, you can put it down to books. Too many of the wrong ideas getting into the heads of the wrong sorts of people. If ever the Empire comes to ruin, Heaslop, mark my words, the British publisher will be to blame."

"The vehicles of human politics seem to run off course, but the site of the accident turns out to have been the intended destination."

"India has been born and reborn scores of times, and it will be reborn again. India is forever, and India is forever being made."

"Bureaucracy is simultaneously the most crippling of Indian diseases and the highest of Indian art forms."

"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."

"The British had the gall to call Robert Clive 'Clive of India' as if he belonged to the country, when all he really did was to ensure that much of the country belonged to him."

"How easily we Indians see the several sides to every question! That is what makes us such good bureaucrats, and such poor totalitarians. They say the new international organizations set up by the wonderfully optimistic (if oxymoronic) United Nations are full of highly successful Indian officials with quick, subtle minds and mellifluous tongues, for ever able to understand every global crisis from the point of view of each and every one of the contending parties. That is why they do so well, Ganapathi, in any situation that calls for an instinctive awareness of the subjectivity of truth, the relativity of judgement and the impossibility of action."

"Dissent, is like a Gurkha’s ‘khukri’ , once it emerges form its sheath it must draw blood before it can be put away again."

"On Gandhi: Don’t ever forget, that we were not lead by a saint with his head in clouds, but by a master tactician with his feet on the ground."

"On "Priya Duryodhani": She was a slight frail girl, with a thin tapering face like kernel of a mango and dark-brown eyebrows that nearly joined together over high-ridged nose, giving her to look of a desiccated school teacher at an age when she was barely old enough to enroll at school. She had dark and lustrous eyes. They shone from that finished face like blazing gems on a fading backcloth, flashing, questioning."

"There is, in short no end to the story of life. There are merely pauses. The end is the arbitrary intervention of the teller, but there can be no finality about the choice. Today’s end is, after all tomorrow’s beginning."

"The instinctive Indian sense that nothing begins and nothing ends. We are all living in an eternal present in which what was and what will be is contained in what is, or to put it in a more contemporary idiom, that life is a series of sequel to history."

"A philosopher is a lover of wisdom, not of knowledge, which for all its great uses ultimately suffers from the crippling effect of ephemerality. All knowledge is transient, linked to the world around it and subject to change as the world changes, whereas wisdom, true wisdom is eternal, immutable. To be philosophical one must love wisdom for its own sake, accept its permanent validity and yet its perpetual irrelevance. It is the fate of the wise to understand the process of history and yet never to shape it."

"We Indians, Arjun, are so good at respecting outward forms while ignoring the substance. We took the forms of parliamentary democracy, preserved them, put them on pedestal and paid them due obeisance. But we ignored the basic fact that parliamentary democracy can only work if those who run it are constantly responsive to needs of the people and if parliamentarians are qualified enough to legislate. Neither condition was fulfilled in India for long. Today most people are simply aware of their own irrelevance to the process. They see themselves standing helplessly on the margins while professional politicians and unprofessional politicians combine to run the country to the ground."

"We Indians are notoriously good at being resigned to our lot. Our fatalism goes beyond, even if it springs from, the Hindu acceptance of the world as it is ordained to be. I must tell you a little story - a marvellous fable from our puranas that illustrates our resilience and self-absorption in the face of circumstances. A man is pursued by a tiger. He runs fast, but his panting heart tells him that he cannot run much longer. He sees a tree. Relief! He accelerates and gets to it in one last despairing stride. He climbs the tree. The tiger snarls below him, but he feels that he has at last escaped its snapping jaws..."

"But no - what’s this? The branch on which he is sitting is weak. That is not all: wood-mice are gnawing away at it: before long they will eat through it and it will snap and fall. The branch sags down over a well. Aha! Escape! Perhaps our hero can swim ? But the well is dry and there are snakes writhing and hissing on its bed. As the branch bends lower, he perceives a solitary blade of grass on wall of well. On top of the blade of grass gleams a drop of honey. What is our hero to do? What action does our puranic man quintessential Indian, take in the situation? He bends with the branch and licks up the honey.... What did you expect? Some neat solution to the problem? The tiger changes its mind and goes away? Amitabh Bachchan leaps to the rescue? Don’t be silly. One strength of Indian mind is that it knows some problems cannot be resolved and it learns to make best of them. That is the Indian answer to the insuperable difficulty. One does not fight against that by which one is certain to be overwhelmed; but one finds the best way, for oneself, to live with it. This is our national aesthetic. Without it, india as we know it could not survive."

"Our founding fathers wrote a constitution for a dream. We have given passports to their ideals."

"India imposes no procrustean exactions on its citizens: you can be many things and one thing."

"In India we celebrate the commonality of major differences; we are a land of belonging rather than of blood."

"Ultimately, what matters in determining the validity of a nation is the will of its inhabitants to live and strive together."

"If India had a Latin version of the American motto E Pluribus Unum, it would be E Pluribus Pluribum."

"If America is a melting pot, then to me India is a thali -- a collection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each may not mix with the next, but they combine on your palate to produce a satisfying repast."

"Extra judicial killings are not acceptable in a society of law."

"Secularism as principle and practice is in danger, but I do not see it falling anytime soon: India embodies tolerance and pluralism in its very essence, and I do not believe that forces of hatred can permanently overcome our fundamental secularism."

"When you ask, rightly, why is today's Muslim feeling offended when Ghazni or Ghori are denounced, the answer is because it is instrumentalised to demonise them today."

"Partition, split of the nationalist movement didn’t happen over ideology or geography. It happened on one key question – is religion the determinant of our nationhood."

"In India, history was pressed into the nation-building project. There was a desire to allay over some unpleasant details, the destruction of temples, some of the horrors that happened while stressing on the commonalities that also featured throughout the ages."

"I don’t go by my caste, creed, or religion. My works speak for me."

"No government has the right to inject religion into questions of citizenship. Citizenship is a privilege of people of all religions, all castes, all languages, if you're Indian."

"...It seems to me that this allegation should have been seriously investigated. And it is not too late. Because on such an important matter, the nation has every right to know what really happened..." He further said, "The matter is extremely serious. Our concern is that when the LoP points to something which is an allegation that has been in the public domain for some time and which featured in a book by the former IG of police, Mushrif, who said that the bullets found in Karkare's body could not have been fired by the Ajmal Kasab and that it could have been fired by a police revolver, it seems to me that this allegation should have been seriously investigated. And it is not too late. Because on such an important matter, the nation has every right to know what really happened...We are not saying that the allegation is definitely true. We are saying it should be investigated."

"Shashi Tharoor will be just a puppet in the hand of Sonia Gandhi family, who will be the real driver."

"I am a Muslim and I am an Indian, and I see no distinction between the two. I don't know why should I fear the nuclear deal. It is a deal between two countries which, I hope, will become two equals in the future. The enemies of Indian Muslims are not America or deals like these. The enemies are the same as the enemies of all those who are poor—poverty, hunger, lack of development and the absence of a voice."

"No sensible Kashmiri has found justice. We need greater responsibility to make minorities safe here."

"“The unfortunate thing was that the J&K government had nothing to do with Afzal Guru's execution.” “Otherwise, you would have had to do it with the permission of the state government, which I can tell you in no uncertain terms would not have been forthcoming. We wouldn't have done it. I don't believe that any purpose was served by executing him.”"

"“There is a certain degree of angst against this execution. There are people who for their own political advantages will try to take advantage and add more inconvenience to people.”* *“We have made precautionary arrangements and forces have been mobilized in certain cities and districts.” “Unlike the case of Maqbool Bhatt, government of Jammu and Kashmir was not required to sign death warrant of Afzal Guru as there was no case was registered against him in the state.”*"

"“Omar Abdullah's statement is extremely objectionable and anti-India; any amount of criticism is not enough... He is speaking in favour of such terrorists.” .. The Congress is with such anti-India statements. There is no difference between Abdullah and Congress... The people of India will not forgive this."

"While I was going through it, although I must admit that I broke down many times as the indignities of repeated handcuffing, stripping and cavity searches, swabbing, hold up with common criminals and drug addicts were all being imposed upon me despite my incessant assertions of immunity, I got the strength to regain composure and remain dignified thinking that I must represent all of my colleagues and my country with confidence and pride."

"You have lost a good friend. It is unfortunate. In return, you got a maid and a drunken driver. They are in, and we are out."

"I wonder if I will be able to ever reunite with my family, my husband, my little kids. I miss them. What if my children choose to study and work in the US? What if I can never return to the US, which I cannot now. Does it mean we will never be able to live together as a family again?"

"Poetry cannot report the event, it must be the event, lived through in a form that can speak about itself while remaining wholly itself."

"The law protects the Babri Masjid even if it was constructed on the site of a temple after demolishing it, but in the interest of communal amity, as a one-time exception, the Muslim community is willing to make the offer, as a moral gesture, in accordance with the Shariat."

"If it is proven that the Babri Masjid has been built in forcible replacement of a Hindu temple, I will demolish it with my own hands."

"Syed Shahabuddin's Muslim India (27.3.89) declares: "They (Aryans) don't belong to India and hence, don't love India. They are foreigners, the enemy within. As Aryans, they are also India's first foreigners. If Muslims and Christians are foreigners, and must get out of India, as India's first foreigners, the Aryans are duty bound to get out first.""

"The Ayodhya dispute and the Rushdie affair are indeed connected. The ban on The Satanic Verses was part of a package of concessions by the Rajiv Gandhi Government to calm down Syed Shahabuddin, who had threatened a Muslim “march on Ayodhya” on the same day when the VHP would hold a rally there."

"Could Syed Shahabuddin be a communalist? After all, he played a key role in the three main "Muslim communalist" issues of recent years: the Babri Masjid campaign, the Shah Bano case and the Salman Rushdie affair (it is he who got The Satanic Verses banned in September 1988). Surely, he must be India's communalist par excellence? Wrong: if you read any page of any issue of Shahabuddin's monthly Muslim India, you will find that he brandishes the notion of "secularism" as the alpha and omega of his politics, and that he directs all his attacks against Hindu "communalism". The same propensity is evident in the whole Muslim "communalist" press, e.g. the Jamaat-i Islami weekly Radiance. Moreover, on Muslim India's editorial board, you find articulate secularists like Inder Kumar Gujral, Khushwant Singh and the late P.N. Haksar."

"The 'progressive' people in this country show a remarkable eagerness to see communalism even in the most harmless observations of [Hindu] religious leaders, while overlooking such outrageously communal and provocative statements as the one made by the former government official Syed Shahabuddin, that contact with the Hindus debased the Muslim, or the one by Syed Abdullah Bukhari, the Imam of the Jama Masjid in Delhi, that the Muslims would resort to a civil war."

"Because Hindus fear the Muslims, they have fallen on the path of secularism. Each time they were conquered by Muslim soldiers, they have learnt to sink and bend like powerless blades of grass. This can be seen several times in our history."

"“I find nothing wrong in being called a ‘Hindu’ writer, but I dislike the implicit assumption in that terminology.”"

"Remember, in the Indian way, only the shruti scriptures are of divine origin. The laws, or smriti books, are not of divine origin, but man-made, which means we can change the laws depending on what society wants. There are many smritis besides the Manu Smriti, some are very liberal and some are conservative, and they reflect the mood of the society when these smritis were written."

"Our society has collectively chosen a smriti for now: it’s called the Indian Constitution."

"I wish I could explain, in a manner others may consider “rational”, how these plots come to me. But I can’t. I just open the laptop, and there is this parallel universe that opens up and I record what I see. I discover the story while writing just as much as readers discover the story while reading. So I know it may sound strange but I genuinely believe that these stories are the blessings of Lord Shiva. I am only a channel. I am only someone who is lucky enough to receive this blessing."

"This is not a crime, we are in the middle of a war."

"'It makes no sense... If you (the Centre) can allow it (an anti-terror law) in Maharashtra, why not in Rajasthan?'‘There’s no compromise on Sonia as PM. I have no problem with any other person, Priyanka or Rahul’‘India will never have a revolution. China will need one every two-three centuries, their society is hierarchical, has one core centre. India is diverse’‘I want govt to declare Chandigarh a hockey city and put five astroturfs there. Automatically the players will come’‘If you give computers to young children, they start to believe that you don’t have to think, all you have to do is search’"

""Even as we guard against the dangers from abroad, we cannot neglect the daunting challenge of terrorism from within our borders," Raje said. The chief minister said no economy is insulated from such threats. "Terrorism continuous to pose a global threat that is becoming increasingly complex and dynamic. This threat is not new, but technology and the Internet have increased its frequency and lethality," she said. Raje said there should be no distinction between terror groups. It is important that countries and institutions work together to ensure infrastructure and citizens are secure."

"Rajasthan is bigger than Germany and has more people than France. Being India’s biggest state without much water is a huge challenge. And having a young demographic profile (34 per cent of our population is between 18 and 39 years) means we need to create eight lakh new jobs every year. All this is complicated by the fact that for many decades after Independence, we lagged behind other states in investments and outcomes in most industrial, economic, education and social development indicators."

"One of my lifelong inspirations has been Mahatma Gandhi’s call to “become the change you seek”."

"It is important for policy makers to recognize that we don’t live in an economy but in a society. However, it is also important for them to realize that delivering social outcomes requires economic progress and financial resources. The Rajasthan model of development aims for outcomes and balance in three objectives—social justice, effective governance and job creation."

"I sincerely believe what is dangerous to the society is the religious fundamentalism, be it the Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs or whatever. Religious fundamentalism leads to hatred, and hatred leads to violence…"

"Therefore, I think malice, disease, and the virus are religious fundamentalism. Every society/religious group has to realise that everyone has the right to follow their tradition/faith. No one has the right to impose his faith/feelings/religion on anyone else."

"Democracy was not there in Kashmir when they revoked Article 370. Insaniyat (humanity) was not there because they put everyone behind bars. And Kashmiriyat is something that is fundamental to secularism. Because in a Muslim-majority State, there was a Hindu Raja (king)."

"Both worked together. In fact, the reservation in Kashmir was given to Kashmiri Pandits in government services. Therefore, revoking Article 370 and reducing the Statehood of J&K is an extremely sad decision. We (Congress party) will certainly have to relook at this issue."

"When they revoked Article 370 then humanity was missing as Kashmiriyat is something which is basically fundamentals of secularism because in a Muslim-majority state there was a Hindu king and both worked together. In fact, the reservation in Kashmir was given to Kashmiri pandits in government services."

"I am totally against the creation of Genocide Museum in Bhopal. Will not let the communal harmony of Bhopal get disturbed. I oppose it."

"I have received a few complaints, which I have not verified yet, but as per these complaints, some people from BJP themselves pay poor Muslim boys to throw stones."

"“I have received a few complaints, which I have not verified yet, but as per these complaints, some people from BJP themselves pay poor Muslim boys to throw stones. I will check the facts and will raise the issue then”, the Congress leader was quoted at Nemmuch, Madhya Pradesh."

"Singh had also later launched a book in which he had accused that the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai was executed by the Hindus and the members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Singh had reportedly attempted to link Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare’s death during the 26/11 terror attack to some alleged threats he received from a Hindu outfit. “Two hours before the terrorist attack, Karkare told me that he was receiving threats from ‘Hindu extremist’ groups who are opposed to the ATS probe into the 2008 Malegaon blast”, he had said. The book ’26/11 RSS ki Saazish’ which was launched by Digvijaya Singh was written by Aziz Burnet."

"I've said this earlier, too, that there was no official information on Hindu terror till 2010. Even after that, there was no such thing. I've written a book that clearly states how Digvijay Singh laid the foundation of Hindu terror and spread it... In the name of Hindu terror, he saved real terrorists using government resources. Arif Qasmani, the accused in the Samjhauta Express blast, had escaped. In the Mecca Masjid blast case, Bilal escaped. I don't know his political agenda, but there's no Hindu terror."

"So the terrorists were not Hindus, yet the talk about Hindu terror continued. In December 2010, incredibly, a book was released by Digvijaya Singh, a prominent Congress leader, titled ‘26/11—RSS ki Saajish (RSS conspiracy)?’ ... The accusations against Hindus in those years of the UPA government were unproven, yet unrelenting. Since the Congress traditionally depended on Muslim votes, there may have been a temptation to play to the gallery. The Indian Express reported that Digvijaya Singh, during the release of the book said to a cheering audience, ”Hemant Karkare had come forth as a form of Ishwar (God) for Muslims in this country… he saved a community from being defamed.” And then went on to accuse the BJP ruled states as becoming bastions of majority (read Hindu) terrorism."

"In the distant past, in India as in many other countries, all recognized branches of learning had had a religious and philosophic bias. Education was not merely a means for earning a living or an instrument for the acquisition of wealth. It was an initiation into the life of spirit, a training of the human soul in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue."

"One afternoon, Mrs Gandhi had some free time and decided to go for a drive, along with me. A few miles outside Kabul she saw a dilapidated building surrounded by a few trees, and asked the Afghan security officer what it was. Bagh-e-Babur, he told us, and Mrs Gandhi decided to drive up to it. The protocol department went into a tizzy as no security arrangements had been made. Regardless, we headed towards Babur’s grave. She stood at the grave with her head slightly lowered and I behind her. She said to me, ‘I have had my brush with history.’ I told her I had had two. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. I said that paying homage to Babur in the company of the Empress of India was a great honour."

"All the gods were witness when I was being violated."

"It is our duty to remove thorns from the minds of the growing children, which will shape up as barriers for the national integration. Such thorns are mostly seen in history lessons. We can even find them occasionally in the lessons of language, social science and history. We have to weed out such thorns. We have to include only such thoughts that will inculcate the concept of national integration in the minds of our children. This committee has this great responsibility."

"‘Ghazni Mohammed looted Somnath Temple, Aurangzeb built the mosques by demolishing the temples in Kashi and Mathura, he collected jizya, etc. How do such useless facts help build a strong India other than creating hatred in the minds?’"

"‘Plenty of truths are there. To use these truths with discrimination is the wisdom of the historians.’"

"On my return from the bazar, I asked my companion to shew me the house of a slave-dealer; so I was conducted through numerous hot streets, and after a short walk, I got into the caravansarae where the merchant resided. He received me with courtesy and sent for three women from the room next to his own. They sat unveiled, and their master asked me which of the three I liked the best. I pretended to select the younger one; she had regular features and most agreeable manners, her stature was elegant, and her personal attractions great. On my choosing her, the others retired to their lodgings, and she followed them, but sat in a separate room guarded by an old slave. The merchant told me to go to her, speak to and content her. After a good deal of conversation, she felt pleased with my choice; but told me to swear not to sell her again. She was thirteen years of age, and an inhabitant of Chatrar, a place near Badakhshan. She said that she belonged to a large family, and had been carried off by the ruler of the country, who reduced her to slavery. Her eyes filled with tears, and she asked me to release her soon from the hands of the oppressive Uzbeg. As my object was only to examine the feelings of the slave-dealer, and also to gratify my curiosity, and not to purchase her, I came back to my camp without bidding farewell to the merchant."