Bureaucracy is simultaneously the most crippling of Indian diseases and the highest of Indian art forms.
— Shashi TharoorThe Great Indian Novel (1989)
Use itGS2 on administrative reforms: bureaucracy as crippling disease and art form.
Quotes / Thinkers / Shashi Tharoor
Thinker · 13 quotes
Shashi Tharoor quotes for UPSC
13 sourced quotes by Shashi Tharoor on nation, unity & diversity, history & civilisation, governance & administration, justice & rule of law, with a use case for each in GS4, Essay and interviews.
✓ Attributions checked against Wikiquote's sourced list
Extra judicial killings are not acceptable in a society of law.
— Shashi TharoorOn the 2019 Hyderabad gang rape : "Hyderabad Rape Murder", The Times of India, 7 December 2019
Use itGS2/GS4: encounter killings violate due process and rule of law.
The only possible idea of India is that of a nation greater than the sum of its parts.
— Shashi TharoorThe Hindu, "Strengthening Indianness ", Sunday, Jan 19, 2003, Available Online
Use itEssay conclusion on unity: India as greater than the sum of its parts.
India imposes no procrustean exactions on its citizens: you can be many things and one thing.
— Shashi Tharoor"The Shashi Tharoor column: The creation of India," 2001
Use itEssay: Indian identity lets citizens be many things and one thing.
We all have multiple identities in India; we are all minorities in India. Our heterogeneity is definitional.
— Shashi TharoorThe Hindu, "License to Be Himself", April 1, 2001
Use itEssay on Indian diversity: multiple identities, everyone a minority somewhere.
In India we celebrate the commonality of major differences; we are a land of belonging rather than of blood.
— Shashi Tharoor"The Shashi Tharoor column: The creation of India," 2001
Use itEssay on civic nationhood: belonging rather than blood.
Ultimately, what matters in determining the validity of a nation is the will of its inhabitants to live and strive together.
— Shashi Tharoor"The Shashi Tharoor column: The creation of India," 2001
Use itEssay: nationhood rests on citizens' will to live and strive together.
India has been born and reborn scores of times, and it will be reborn again. India is forever, and India is forever being made.
— Shashi TharoorThe Great Indian Novel (1989)
Use itEssay on India's resilience: a civilisation forever being remade.
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.
— Shashi TharoorThe 125th Anniversary Jubilee Lecture, St. Stephen's College, Delhi, November 12 2005, "India: from Midnight to the Millennium and Beyond" A
Use itEssay on nationalism: civic nationalism of an idea sustained by pluralist democracy.
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.
— Shashi TharoorNehru: The Invention of India
Use itEssay intro: India as a thali, not a melting pot—unity without uniformity.
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.
— Shashi TharoorThe Great Indian Novel (1989)
Use itGS1: Gandhi as pragmatic strategist, not merely a saint.
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.
Use itGS1 on Partition: core question was whether religion defines nationhood.
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.
— Shashi TharoorThe Great Indian Novel (1989)
Use itGS1 on colonialism: Clive's plunder—Company rule as appropriation of India.