“Agood part of the British case for having created India’s political unity and democracy lies in the evolution of three of democracy’s building-blocks during the colonial era: a free press, an incipient parliamentary system and the rule of law. This… — Shashi Tharoor Copy Share
“As Henry Nevinson also pointed out, the rule of law, such as it was, functioned in a system in which Indians were ‘compelled to live permanently under a system of official surveillance which reads their private letters, detains their telegrams,… — Shashi Tharoor Copy Share Image
“six decades of Independence have wrought significant change, as exposure to British practices has faded and India’s natural boisterousness has reasserted itself. Some of the state assemblies in our federal system have already witnessed scenes of furniture overthrown, microphones ripped out and slippers flung by unruly legislators, not to mention fisticuffs and garments torn in scuffles among politicians. Pepper spray… — Shashi Tharoor Copy Share
“My China Diary and Walking With Lions, were memoirs of his diplomatic and political experiences. The” — Shashi Tharoor Copy Share Image
The U.N. guards the vital principles entrenched in its charter, notably the sovereign equality of states and the inadmissibility of interference in their internal… — Shashi Tharoor Copy Share Image
“control. The people’s character is deliberately debased, their mind is denationalized and perpetually kept in ignorance and fed with stories of England’s greatness and ‘mission’ in the world… As Pankaj Mishra has observed: European subordination of Asia was not merely economic and political and military. It was also intellectual and moral and spiritual: a completely different kind of conquest than… — Shashi Tharoor Copy Share
“The past is not necessarily a guide to the future, but it does partly help explain the present. One cannot, as I have written… — Shashi Tharoor Copy Share Image
The steep decline in America's image and standing after 9/11 is a direct reflection of global distaste for the instruments of American hard power:… — Shashi Tharoor Copy Share Image
“On election days, the burdens of poverty and corruption and of a creaky economic system are put aside, and India celebrates. Many voters dress especially for the occasion... None quite voice the thought, but those who came in a steady stream to vote seemed to be saying that India may have fallen far behind its neighbors in the struggle for… — Shashi Tharoor Copy Share
“History, in any case, cannot be reduced to some sort of game of comparing misdeeds in different eras; each period must be judged in… — Shashi Tharoor Copy Share Image
“India is my country, and in that sense my outrage is personal. But I seek nothing from history—only an account of itself.” — Shashi Tharoor Copy Share Image
I make no bones about the fact that India matters to me, and I would like to matter to India. — Shashi Tharoor Copy Share Image
“Jawaharlal Nehru, who wrote in a 1936 letter to an Englishman, Lord Lothian, that British rule is ‘based on an extreme form of widespread violence and the only sanction is fear. It suppresses the usual liberties which are supposed to be essential to the growth of a people; it crushes the adventurous, the brave, the sensitive, and encourages the timid,… — Shashi Tharoor Copy Share
