“Yes, I think India's economy always has been a mixed economy, and by Western standards we are much more of a market economy than a public sector-driven economy.” ThinkingHas BeensEconomyStandardsIndiaWesternDrivenMarket EconomyPublic SectorMixed Economy Author:Manmohan Singh
“England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating - the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia... When a great social revolution shall have mastered the results of the bourgeois epoch... and subjected them to the common control of the most advanced peoples, then only will human progress cease to resemble that hideous, pagan idol, who would not drink the nectar but from the skulls of the slain.” HumansSocialResultsCommonProgressMaterialsRevolutionDrinkIndiaEnglandFoundationWesternMissionsCeaseDestructiveIdolsAsiaPaganSkullsBourgeoisHideousAnnihilationEpochHuman ProgressNectarSocial RevolutionWestern Society Author:Karl Marx
“Postcolonialism is the invention of some rich guys from India who saw that they could make a good career in top Western universities by playing on the guilt of white liberals.” GuyWhiteCareersRichSawsIndiaGuiltWesternUniversityInvention Author:Slavoj Žižek
“The truths which are represented in England and Western countries generally, are those which refer to force of character, earnestness of purpose, conscientious strictness, noble charity, practical duty, whilst the truths which I find peculiarly developed in India - developed to a greater extent than anywhere else, - and in the Eastern countries generally, are those which have reference to sweetness of communion, sweetness of temper, meekness and resignation unto God.” CountryCharacterPurposeForceGreaterDutyIndiaEnglandCharityWesternNoblePracticalsTemperCommunionSweetnessEasternResignationMeeknessEarnestness Author:Keshub Chandra Sen
“What we deplore is not that the gate of western knowledge was thrown open to Indians, but that such knowledge was imported to India at the sacrifice of our own cultural heritage. What was needed was a proper synthesis between the two systems and not neglect, far less destruction, of the Indian base.” TwoSacrificeNeededDestructionIndiaWesternIndianThrownGatesNeglectHeritageSynthesisCultural Heritage Author:Syama Prasad Mukherjee
“it is in the oral traditions of the villages that the arts of India are really alive. The brief Western immortality of museums is pointless to people who have seen eternity in their earth.” PeopleArtEarthAliveTraditionIndiaEternityWesternImmortalityVillageMuseumsPointlessOral Tradition Book:Home to India Source: Home to India
“What's happened recently in Pakistan, India and Kuwait only goes to show that it's futile to imitate Western democracy. They've ended up exactly where they started.” ShowsDemocracyHappenedIndiaWesternPakistanKuwait Author:Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
“Through the deliverance of India, I seek to deliver the so-called weaker races of the earth from the crushing heels of Western exploitation in which England is the greatest partner.” EarthLanguageRaceIndiaEnglandWesternPartnersCrushHeelsExploitationEnglish LanguageEnglishmenDeliverance Book:The Penguin Gandhi Reader Source: The Penguin Gandhi Reader
“The commerce between India and Africa will be of ideas and services, not of the manufactured goods against raw materials after the fashion of the Western exploiters.” IdeasFashionMaterialsIndiaWesternGoodsCommerceRaw MaterialsE Commerce Author:Mahatma Gandhi
“The so-called Philosophy of India is even more blowsy and senseless than the metaphysics of the West. It is at war with everything we know of the workings of the human mind, and with every sound idea formulated by mankind. If it prevailed in the whole modern world we'd still be in the Thirteenth Century; nay, we'd be back among the Egyptians of the pyramid age. Its only coherent contribution to Western thought has been theosophy-and theosophy is as idiotic as Christian Science. It has absolutely nothing to offer a civilized white man.” IfsKnowsMenWorldMindHumansHas BeensStillsIdeasWarPhilosophyWholeAgeChristianSoundWhiteModernMankindCenturyOffersIndiaWestWesternContributionCivilizedHuman MindMetaphysicsWhite ManModern WorldPyramidsAbsolutely NothingIdioticChristian Science Author:H. L. Mencken
“I basically love classical music. I love a lot of musicians playing together and the whole culture of that whether it's Indian or it's Western. But in India, I think it's limited to filler music unfortunately. That's one thing I want to push in India where we have the infrastructure of an orchestra where you play Indian melodies with an orchestra and something different for a universal audience. It requires a lot of work from me.” ThinkingWantDifferentPlayWholeTogetherCultureAudienceOne ThingMusicianUniversalIndiaWesternIndianMelodyOrchestraInfrastructureClassical MusicFillersPlaying Together Author:A. R. Rahman
“At the beginning of the 20th century, there were less than 3 billion people on the earth, closer to 2 billion. By all measures that we can come up with right now,. with the lifestyle and consumption pattern of the Western industrial civilization, we can probably sustain about 2 billion people on this earth. We already have over 6 billion. China and India are aspiring to come on as industrial nations, aspiring to the lifestyle of the Western world, and it simply can't happen.” PeopleWorldHappensEarthNationsCenturyCivilizationRight NowIndiaWesternPatternsCome UpChinaBillionsLifestyleConsumption20th CenturyWestern WorldChina And India Author:Edgar Mitchell
“There is more food in the world than we could possibly use. There's a huge surplus of food per capita, but it's locked away and rotting in the storehouses of the Western world, whereas in the East, in many parts of Africa, India and South America, people are starving to death. Millions of people are dying of starvation in a time in which there is a huge surplus of food.” PeopleWorldUseAmericaMillionsDyingHugeIndiaSouthWesternEastLockedStarvingStarvationWestern WorldSurplusRottingSouth America Author:Benjamin Creme
“In India, crossbreeding programs aimed at mimicking the milk yields of Western cows like the Jerseys and the Holsteins actually breed out the capacity of our animals to pull ploughs and pulley-cars. So, thanks to cross-breeding programs, we now have humpless cattle with no stamina.” AnimalCarCapacityProgramCrossesIndiaWesternThanksYieldMilkCowsJerseyBreedingCattleStaminaMimickingPulleys Author:Vandana Shiva
“I've just been told that Nestle has taken out patents on the making of pullao. (Pullao is the way we make our rice in India, with either vegetables or meat or whatever.) Before you know it, every common use of plants will be patented by a Western corporation.” KnowsWayUseCommonTakenIndiaPlantWesternCorporationsMeatVegetablesRicePatents Author:Vandana Shiva
“India went through a dramatic revolution after the '90s when our economy started opening up for the first time and Indians were now experiencing the Western life, if you will. Drugs and sex and a lot of those influences came in as the economy stabilized, and we were growing up and experiencing that. The Indian writing market was very small at that time. Our literature was very attuned to what Western audiences were interested in, so everybody was writing about the slums in India and magic realism or stories about Hindus and Muslims and partition.” IfsWritingFirstsStoriesLiteratureSexAudienceEconomyGrowing UpGrowingMagicInfluenceRevolutionDrugFirst TimeIndiaWesternOpeningIndianDramaticRealismOpening UpSlumsPartitionMagic Realism Author:Karan Bajaj
“The Western press has always insisted that India was Pakistan's enemy and vice versa, that the Hindus were against the Muslims and vice versa. They've never said, for instance, that my party has been fighting this attitude ever since we have maintained that religious hostilities are wrong and absurd, that minorities cannot be eliminated from a country, that people of different religions must live together.” PeopleHas BeensSaidDifferentCountryTogetherFightingReligiousPartyAttitudeEnemyIndiaPressesWesternVicesAbsurdInstanceMinoritiesPakistanHostilityVice VersaDifferent Religions Author:Indira Gandhi
“In the Western world, women have no other choice. In India, no. And I'll explain the reason. It's a reason that also has to do with my own case. In India women have never been a hostile competition with men - even in the most distant past, every time a woman emerged as a leader, perhaps as a queen, the people accepted her. As something normal and not exceptional.” PeopleMenWorldReasonPastChoicesMy OwnLeaderCasesNormalIndiaCompetitionWesternAcceptedQueensHostileExceptionalWestern World Author:Indira Gandhi
“The big lamas coming from Tibet, Ladakh, India - everywhere - have been very friendly. But I don't figure in their world. For one thing, being Western puts you outside the limits. A token female doesn't hurt - there's only one.” WorldHas BeensBigsHurtOne ThingFiguresLimitsFemaleIndiaWesternFriendlyTokensLamaTibetLadakh Author:Tenzin Palmo
“In the forests of central India and in many, many rural areas, a huge battle is being waged. Millions of people are being driven off their lands by mining companies, by dams, by infrastructure companies, and a huge battle is being waged. These are not people who have been co-opted into consumer culture, into the western notions of civilisation and progress. They are fighting for their lands and their livelihoods, refusing to be looted so that someone somewhere far away may "progress" at their cost.” PeopleMayHas BeensCultureFightingCompanyMillionsProgressLandHugeBattleCostAreasIndiaWesternNotionDrivenForestsConsumersFar AwayInfrastructureCivilisationLivelihoodMiningDamsRural AreasConsumer Culture Author:Arundhati Roy
“To achieve effectiveness and legitimacy it is time to scrap the right of veto given to permanent members of the UN, or at least severely restrict its use. It is also time to either abandon the idea of permanent membership or broaden it to reflect the rise of non-Western states to the status of global leaders (e.g. Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey, South Africa), and to downgrade European representation by either giving the European Union a single seat or rotating a European state among Germany, France, UK, and Italy.” GivingIdeasStatesUseGivenLeaderAchieveMembersIndiaUnionsSouthWesternFrancePermanentGermanySeatsAbandonSouth AfricaRepresentationTurkeysIndonesiaEffectivenessEuropean UnionScrapBrazilMembershipLegitimacyVetoRotating Author:Richard A. Falk
“India, she now knew, would not be content staying in the background, was nobody's wallpaper, insisted in interjecting itself into everyone's life, meddling with it, twisting it, molding it beyond recognition. India, she had found out, was a place of political intrigue and economic corruption, a place occupied by real people with their incessantly human needs, desires, ambitions, and aspirations, and not the exotic, spiritual, mysterious entity that was a creation of the Western imagination.” PeopleNeedsHumansRealSpiritualPoliticalDesireFoundImaginationEconomicCreationAmbitionIndiaWesternCorruptionBackgroundsMysteriousRecognitionAspirationStayingEntityIntrigueExoticHuman NeedsIncessantlyMeddlingMolding Author:Thrity Umrigar
“Hinduism has made marvelous discoveries in things of religion, of the spirit, of the soul. We have no eye for these great and fine discoveries. We are dazzled by the material progress that Western science has made. Ancient India has survived because Hinduism was not developed along material but spiritual lines.” MadeSoulEyeSpiritualSpiritLinesProgressMaterialsFineDiscoveryIndiaWesternAncientHinduismMarvelousSurvivedHindu ReligionAncient India Author:Mahatma Gandhi
“The western model of growth that India and China wish to emulate is intrinsically toxic. It uses huge resources - energy and materials - and generates enormous waste... it remains many steps behind the problems it creates. India and China have no choice but to reinvent the development trajectory” UseProblemChoicesEnergyWishGrowthBehindsVisionStepsMaterialsHugeDevelopmentFutureWasteModelsResourcesIndiaRemainsWesternChinaEnormousToxicSustainable DevelopmentEmulateTrajectory Author:Sunita Narain
“In Western lands there is a distinct division between the religious and the secular life. There is one rule of conduct for laymen and another for clergymen. This distinction has never found its place in the life of the people of India. There, all of life is included in the word 'religion.'” PeopleLife IsFoundReligiousLandIndiaWesternDistinctionDivisionSecularClergymenLayman Author:Virchand Gandhi
“Every schoolchild knows that Columbus set out across the sea to prove that the world was round. But the belief in a spherical earth had a long and illustrious pedigree, as Columbus himself was well aware. . . . "The second reason that inspired the Admiral [Columbus] to launch his enterprise and helped justify his giving the name 'Indies' to the lands which he discovered was the authority of many learned men who said that one could sail westward from the western end of Africa and Spain to the eastern end of India, and that no great sea lay between."” KnowsMenWorldGivingWellsLongSaidEndsReasonEarthNamesBeliefSeaLandProveAuthorityIndiaLaysWesternInspiredRoundsEnterpriseJustifySailEasternSpainColumbusPedigreeAdmiral Author:Ferdinand Columbus
“The hope that fuels the pursuit of endless economic growth - that billions of consumers in India & China will one day enjoy the lifestyles of Europeans and Americans - is as absurd & dangerous a fantasy as anything dreamt up by Al-Qaeda. It condemns the global environment to early destruction & looks set to create reservoirs of nihilistic rage & disappointment among hundreds of millions of have-nots - the bitter outcome of the universal triumph of Western Modernity, which turns the revenge of the East into something darkly ambiguous, and all its victories truly Pyrrhic.” LooksTurnsEnjoyGrowthMillionsFantasyEnvironmentEconomicDangerousVictoryOne DayDestructionUniversalIndiaWesternDisappointmentChinaRevengeEastRageBillionsLifestylePursuitEndlessAbsurdBitterConsumersTriumphOutcomesFuelAlsEconomic GrowthModernityAl QaedaAmbiguousReservoirs Author:Pankaj Mishra