I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
So India’s problem turns out to be the world’s problem. What happened in India has happened in God’s name. The problem’s name is God.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that the issues faced by India are reflective of larger global problems tied to religious conflicts and interpretations.
In this quote, Salman Rushdie implies that the complexities and issues arising in India—particularly those related to religion—are not isolated but rather indicative of broader challenges faced by humanity. He suggests that these problems often stem from the way faith is interpreted and utilized, highlighting a universal struggle that transcends geographical boundaries and emphasizing the need for understanding beyond dogma.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the impact of religious conflicts in contemporary society, this quote could be used to highlight the interconnectedness of global issues.
More from Salman Rushdie
All quotes →Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
Similar quotes
I wanted to write a commentary on the Bible, to write about the Talmud, about celebration, about the great eternal subjects: love and happiness.
I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?
To know that God knows everything about me and yet loves me is indeed my ultimate consolation.
I do not hesitate to proclaim before you and before the world that all human life-from the moment of conception and through all subsequent stages-is sacred, because human life is created in the image and likeness of God.
The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst.
Character is not cut in marble - it is not something solid and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become diseased as our bodies do.