"Writing about Kashmir was a strange and painfully isolating experience, but an absolutely crucial one. It made me see that, whether you are Indian or American, black, brown, or white, it is best not to get morally intoxicated by words like "secularism" and "liberalism" or to simply assume that you stand on the right side of history after having professed allegiance to certain ideological verities. Rather one should try to perceive the scramble for power, the clash of interests, that these resonant claims to virtue conceal; one should ask who is using words like "secularism" or "liberalism" and for what purposes…"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Pankaj Mishra
8 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Pankaj Mishra →
Related Quotes
"Even equality is a deeply problematic concept. It has its origins in Christianity, where it is conceived as equality …"
"Supremacy of all stripes—racial, ethnic, national—works in insidious ways, burrowing deep inside impeccably liberal m…"
"As a writer I am more interested in describing the past accurately than in outlining the future; we need a new past i…"
"Governments around the world say they're engaged in a war against the coronavirus. [...] This kill-or-die idiom is mo…"
"The public broadcaster's critique of the government was stinging in part because Johnson enjoys a high degree of supp…"
"In addition to economic and military , wartime measures typically encourage a high degree of political, social and in…"
"Awakening late to the pandemic, authoritarian or authoritarian-minded leaders have turned it into an opportunity both…"
"In a certain sense, many of us mutilate the mind and render it impotent, for there is in the nature of man an irresis…"
"Lamb had written to Coleridge about one of their old masters, who had been a severe disciplinarian, intimating that h…"
"Dined at Gooden’s, where I met among others , the Secretary of the . He surprised me by saying that he knew Goethe on…"