Date:03/02/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/02/03/stories/2008020355240900.htm

National

In a way, we are all minorities in India: Tharoor

Staff Reporter

Kolkata: Democracy is vital to India as there is no other way of safeguarding its pluralism, Shashi Tharoor, writer and former Under Secretary-General of the United Nations said here on Saturday.

“In a way, we are all minorities in India,” he said, drawing attention to the country’s diversities of language, religion, race and culture. The difference is more than the elements of commonality, he added. “We are not a melting pot…we are a thali,” he said, adding that pluralism emerged from the very nature of our country.

Mr. Tharoor was speaking at the 30th annual reunion of St. Xavier’s Collegiate School Old Boys association-the Alumnorum Societas (Alsoc). Mr. Tharoor is also a former student of the school. While Alsoc honoured him with a citation, Mr. Tharoor said he owed his Xavierian ethos to his alma mater.

It was important not to let political opportunists and religious fundamentalists undermine the soft power that India enjoyed. In Afghanistan, India’a strongest presence was the daily Hindi soap ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’ that brings the country to a standstill and disrupts religious functions and wedding banquets, he added.