Make the world safe for diversity
By Shashi Tharoor
"The Hindu", Online edition of India's National Newspaper
July 30, 2006

A FEW weeks ago (The Hindu, July 2) I wrote of attending the Ideas Festival of the Aspen Institute in Colorado. What I didn't know at the time was that I'd be asked to open the festival as its first speaker, on the intriguing theme of "An Idea That Makes a Difference to the World".

It didn't take me very long to choose the idea I wanted to talk about. Both as an Indian writer and a United Nations official, I am profoundly convinced that the one idea that has been indispensable to human progress is the idea of pluralism. So that was what I chose to speak about.

Of course there was a self-serving element to the choice, since it fitted my fundamental convictions both as a son of plural India and as one who has chosen to work in the international arena.

The Indian adventure is that of human beings of different ethnicities and religions, languages and beliefs, working together under the same roof, dreaming the same dreams. That is also what the United Nations, at its best, seeks to achieve.

Indian pluralism

Of course I acquired my faith in pluralism by the experience of growing up in India. And it was not just our multilingual rupee notes, which remind every Indian that he or she belongs to a community of multiple voices exchanging a common currency.

I remember how, in the Calcutta neighbourhood where I lived during my high school years, the wail of the muezzin calling the Islamic faithful to prayer blended with the tinkling of bells accompanying the chant of the mantras at the Hindu Shiva temple, both merging with the crackling loudspeakers outside the Sikh gurudwara reciting verses from the Granth Sahib — and two minutes down the road stood St Paul's Cathedral. That was Indian pluralism made audible, and all of us in that corner of Calcutta simply took it for granted.

I have written elsewhere that if America is a melting pot, then to me India is a thali, a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next, but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast.

Two years ago, after the awe-inspiring experience of the world's largest exercise in democratic elections, India offered the world the sight of a Roman Catholic political leader (Sonia Gandhi) making way for a Sikh (Manmohan Singh) to be sworn in as Prime Minister of India by a Muslim (President Abdul Kalam) — in a country 82 per cent Hindu.

What better example of pluralism could any country provide, and that too in the political arena, known for contention rather than co-existence? Growing up in India, I valued the idea that a nation may celebrate differences of caste, creed, conviction, colour, culture, cuisine, costume and custom, and still rally around a democratic consensus. That pluralist consensus is on the simple principle that in a democracy you don't really need to agree — except on the ground rules of how you will disagree.

It is the same for the world at large: the great achievement of the last century has been that we have finally attained a global consensus on how to manage without consensus. The reason that that is essential is because we live in a world of multiple truths. In my novel Riot I enjoyed recounting an old Indian story about Truth.

It seems that in ancient times a brash young warrior sought the hand of a beautiful princess. The king, her father, thought the warrior was a bit too cocksure and callow; he told him he could only marry the princess once he had found Truth. So the young warrior set out on a quest for Truth. He went to temples and to monasteries, to mountaintops where sages meditated and to forests where ascetics scourged themselves, but nowhere could he find Truth.

Despairing one day and seeking refuge from a thunderstorm, he found himself in a dank, musty cave. There, in the darkness, was an old hag, with warts on her face and matted hair, her skin hanging in folds from her bony limbs, her teeth broken, her breath malodorous. She greeted him; she seemed to know what he was looking for. They talked all night, and with each word she spoke, the warrior realised he had come to the end of his quest. She was Truth. In the morning, when the storm broke, the warrior prepared to return to claim his bride. "Now that I have found Truth," he said, "what shall I tell them at the palace about you?" The wizened old crone smiled. "Tell them," she said, "tell them that I am young and beautiful."

Other perspectives

So Truth may not always be true, which is why we need to acknowledge other perspectives. Human progress can only occur on a planet that makes a virtue of its pluralism, privileging tolerance and co-existence over bigotry and division. As the new century gets under way, we must rejoice in our multiple identities, united by a larger idea of humanity. We began the last century striving to make the world safe for democracy; perhaps in today's globalising world, we need to work to make the world safe for diversity.