In India we celebrate the commonality of major differences; we are a land of belonging rather than of blood.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the unity and diversity of India, highlighting a sense of belonging over ethnic or blood ties.
Shashi Tharoor's quote reflects the essence of India's cultural fabric, where people of various backgrounds and differences coexist harmoniously. It suggests that India values connections and inclusivity, promoting the idea that belonging is defined by shared experiences and cultural ties rather than mere ancestry.
In practice
You can use this quote when discussing cultural harmony in a multicultural event.
Foreigners have a complex set of associations in their minds when they think of America - from Iraq to 9/11, certainly, but also from Coke to jeans. It is entirely possible for people around the world to love American products, American books, American movies, American music, and dislike the policies of the government of America.
The roots of India's soft power run deep. India's is a civilization that, over millennia, has offered refuge and, more importantly, religious and cultural freedom, to Jews, Parsis, several varieties of Christians, and Muslims.
Much of the conventional analysis of India's stature in the world relies on the all-too-familiar economic assumptions. But we are famously a land of paradoxes, and one of those paradoxes is that so many speak about India as a great power of the 21st century when we are not yet able to feed, educate and employ all our people.
I believe in an India of pluralism and diversity, not of religious bigotry and caste politics. I believe in an India that is secure in itself and confident of its place in the world, an India that is a proud example of tolerance, freedom and hope for the downtrodden.
I returned to India because I believe in an India of honesty and hard work, not of corruption and crookedness. I believe in an India of openness and straightforwardness, not of hypocrisy and double-dealing. I believe in an India where opportunities are available to all, and not just to a chosen few.
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: the Iraq invasion, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, torture, rendition, Blackwater's killings of Iraqi civilians.
Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.
If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn.
A man is what he thinks about all day long.
The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and become one's key to the experience of others.
And when there are enough outsiders together in one place, a mystic osmosis takes place and you're inside.
What I call middle-class society is any society that becomes rigidified in predetermined forms, forbidding all evolution, all gains, all progress, all discovery. I call middle-class a closed society in which life has no taste, in which the air is tainted, in which ideas and men are corrupt. And I think that a man who takes a stand against this death is in a sense a revolutionary.
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