Indian people

In India I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it. Inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything but possessed by nothing. ~ Apollonius of Tyana

The inhabitants of this land are religious, affectionate, hospitable, genial and frank. They are fond of scientific pursuits, inclined to austerity of life, seekers after justice, contented, industrious, capable in affairs, loyal, truthful and constant… ~ Abul Fazl

The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no king like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs. ~ al-Biruni

The ordinary people … are upright and honourable... They are faithful to their oaths and promises... In their behavior there is much gentleness and sweetness. ~ Xuanzang

Indian people or Indians are the citizens and nationals of the Republic of India. In 2022, the population of India stood at 1.4 billion people. According to UN forecasts, India overtook China as the world's most populous country by the end of April 2023, containing 17.50 percent of the global population.

See also India

Quotes

A

• The Indians, as known to all nations for many centuries, are the metal [essence] of wisdom, the source of fairness and objectivity. They are peoples of sublime pensiveness, universal apologues, and useful and rare inventions. In spite of the fact that their color is in the first stage of blackness, which puts them in the same category as the blacks, Allah, in His glory, did not give them the low characters, the poor manners, or the inferior principles associated with this group and ranked them above a large number of white and brown peoples.
  • Said ibn Ahmad Andalusi, Science in the medieval world (1068). (1068:11) Science in the medieval world: aBook of the categories of nations" (Tabaqàt al-'umam). Trans. Semacan I. Salem and Alok Kumar. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991. quoted from Trautmann, Thomas R. (2008). Aryans and British India.

• In India I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it. Inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything but possessed by nothing.
  • Apollonius of Tyana, quoted in The Transition to a Global Society (1991) by Kishor Gandhi, p. 17, and in The Age of Elephants (2006) by Peter Moss, p. v

• This also is remarkable in India, that all Indians are free, and no Indian at all is a slave. In this the Indians agree with the Lacedaemonians. Yet the Lacedaemonians have Helots for slaves, who perform the duties of slaves; but the Indians have no slaves at all, much less is any Indian a slave.
  • Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, Book VII : Indica, as translated by Edgar Iliff Robson (1929), p. 335

• No Indian ever went outside his own country on a warlike expedition, so righteous were they.
  • Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, Book VII : Indica, as translated by Edgar Iliff Robson (1929), p. 18

B

• The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no king like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs.
  • Al-Biruni, Alberuni's India, quoted from K.S. Lal, Indian Muslims who are they, 1990

• The ancient civilisation of India differs from those of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, in that its traditions have been preserved without a break down to the present day. Until the advent of the archaeologist, the peasant of Egypt or Iraq had no knowledge of the culture of his forefathers, and it is doubtful whether his Greek counterpart had any but the vaguest ideas about the glory of Periclean Athens. In each case there had been an almost complete break with the past. On the other hand…to this day legends known to the humblest Indian recall the names of shadowy chieftains who lived nearly a thousand years before Christ, and the orthodox Brahman in his daily worship repeats hymns composed even earlier. India and China have, in fact, the oldest continuous cultural traditions in the world.
  • A. L. Basham in his “The Wonder That Was India” [1] quoted in [2] [This article is a major extract from the article "Sita Ram Goel, memories and ideas" by S. Talageri, written for the Sita Ram Goel Commemoration Volume, entitled "India's Only Communalist", edited by Koenraad Elst, published in 2005.

• This multitude of men does not consist of an abject and barbarous people...but a people for ages civilized and cultivated; cultivated by all the arts of polished life, whilst we were yet in the woods... There is to be found an ancient and venerable priesthood, the depository of their laws, learning, and history, the guides of the people whilst living, and their consolation in death; a nobility of great antiquity and renown; a multitude of cities, not exceeded in population and trade by those of the first class in Europe; merchants and bankers, individual houses of whom have once vied in capital with the Bank of England; whose credit had often supported a tottering State, and preserved their governments in the midst of war and desolation; millions of ingenious manufacturers and mechanics; millions of the most diligent, and not the least intelligent, tillers of the earth.
  • Edmund Burke, speech in the House of Commons on India (1 December 1783), quoted in The Parliamentary Register: Or, History of the Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons, Volume XII (1782), p. 216

E

• Scant justice is done to her position in the world by those histories which recount the exploits of her invaders and leave the impression that her own people were a feeble, dreamy folk, sundered from the rest of mankind by their sea and mountain frontiers. Such a picture takes no account of the intellectual conquests of the Hindus. Even their political conquests were not contemptible and were remarkable for the distance if not for the extent of the territory occupied. ... But such military or commercial invasions are insignificant compared with the spread of Indian thought.
  • Sir Charles Elliot, HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM, [3] quoted in A Look at India From the Views of Other Scholars, by Stephen Knapp [4]

F

• The inhabitants of this land are religious, affectionate, hospitable, genial and frank. They are fond of scientific pursuits, inclined to austerity of life, seekers after justice, contented, industrious, capable in affairs, loyal, truthful and constant… They one and all believe in the unity of God, and as to the reverence they pay to the images of stone and wood and the like, which simpletons regard as idolatry, it is not so.
  • Ain-i-Akbari by Abul Fazl. Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 2

G

• If there are, as some tenets imply, a distinction of heavenly situations, will not this good-minded people occupy the first in rank; for nearest to the divine attributes of any thing you can have a conception of, is their kind-heartedness and probity.
  In a word, their manners are highly interesting, from their simplicity and liberal-mindedness; and I blush to feel how superior to all that Christianity can boast, of peace and goodwill towards men... I felt myself in danger of becoming a Braminate, though all the wealth of Indostan could not bribe me to become a Mahometan.
  • Phebe Gibbes,Hartly House, Calcutta (1789) Marshall, P.J. The British Discovery of Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, 1970. quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books. Volume IV Chapter2

H

• Their honesty is proverbial. They borrow and lend on word of mouth, and the repudiation of a debt is almost unknown.
  • Keir Hardie about Indians. Quoted from Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage.

I

• The Indians are naturally inclined to justice, and never depart from it in their actions. Their good faith, honesty and fidelity to their engagements are well known, and they are so famous for these qualities that people flock to their country from every side; hence the country is flourishing and their condition prosperous. Among other characteristic marks of their love of truth and horror of vice, the following is related: -When a man has a right to demand anything of another, and he happens to meet him, he has only to draw a circular line upon the ground and to make his debtor enter it, which the latter never fails to do, and the debtor cannot leave this circle without satisfying his creditor, or obtaining the remission of the debt.
  • Nuzhatu-l Mushtak of Al-Idrisi (b. in Ceuta, Morocco at the end of the 11th century) In The History of India as Told by its own Historians. The Posthumous Papers of the Late Sir H. M. Elliot. John Dowson, ed. 1st ed. 1867. 2nd ed., Calcutta: Susil Gupta, 1956, vol. 10, pp.104-129. also in [5] [6] [7] . Al-Idrisi, middle of 12th century CE. Elliot and Dowson, I.88. Quoted in Misra, R. G. (2005). Indian resistance to early Muslim invaders up to 1206 A.D. p.15

K

• When you write `native, 'who do you mean? The Mahommedan who hates the Hindu; the Hindu who hates the Mahommedan; the Sikh who loathes both; or the semi-anglicised product of our Indian colleges who is hated and despised by Sikh, Hindu and Mahommedan.
  • R. Kipling on Indians, quoted from Ibn Warraq (2009). Defending the West: A critique of Edward Said's Orientalism. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus Books.

• India is like a bride which has got two beautiful and lustrous eyes—Hindus and Mussulmans. If they quarrel against each other that beautiful bride will become ugly and if one destroys the other, she will lose one eye.
  • Syed Ahmed Khan, in a speech at Patna on January 1883, Writings and Speeches of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Nachiketa Publications (1972), p. 160.
  • Variant: "India is a beautiful bride and Hindus and Muslims are her two eyes. If one of them is lost, this beautiful bride will become ugly." Quoted in Shirali, Aresh (10 August 2017). "The Enigma of Aligarh". Open Magazine.

M

• Indians tend to be more relaxed in unpredictable situations than westerners. Indians indeed find it natural to engage in non-linear thinking, juxtaposing opposites and tackling complexities that cannot be reduced to simple concepts or terms. They may be said even to thrive on ambiguity, doubt, uncertainty, multitasking, and in the absence of centralized authority and normative codes. Westerners, by contrast, tend by and large to be fearful of unpredictable or decentralized situations. They regard these situations as 'problems' to be 'fixed'.
  • Malhotra, Rajiv (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• The Hindu, at any rate, from his tradition and his religion, regards India not only as a political unit naturally the subject of one sovereignty — but as the outward embodiment, as the temple-nay, even as the god- dess mother—of his spiritual culture. India and Hinduism are organically related as body and soul. Nationality is at best a difficult thing to define, to test and establish...But the Aryan settled it decisively so far as India and himself are concerned. He made India the symbol of his culture, he filled it with his soul. In his consciousness it was his greater self.
  • J. Ramsay Macdonald Introduction in: R.K. Mukherjee, Fundamental Unity of India, viii. [8] quoted from The Tragic Story of Partition (1982) H.V. Sheshadri 10.

N

• I don't like the Indians. [...] Let the Indians squeal. Let the liberals squeal. I want a public relations program developed to piss on the Indians. I want to piss on them for their responsibility. I want the Indians blamed for this, you know what I mean? We can’t let these goddamn, sanctimonious Indians get away with this. They’ve pissed on us on Vietnam for 5 years, Henry.
  • Richard Nixon to H. Kissinger during Bangladesh Liberation War, quoted in Bass, G. J. (2014). The Blood telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a forgotten genocide.

R

• 'American selves, operating largely within the categories of sexuality, race, and illness, projected onto Indian Others traits that seemed loathsome or illicit: Indians were, among other things, unsanitary, disorderly, promiscuous, and primitive.'
  • Andrew Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States and India , 1947-1964, 2000: 35) in Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• At the foundation of all other American perceptions was the view that India was a land of mystery, exotic and inscrutable. ... A veil seemed to hang over the country, preventing observers from seeing its features clearly … Even those who understood East Asia, however, confessed themselves baffled by India.
  • Andrew Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States and India , 1947-1964, 2000) 8, in Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• 'Westerners found in Indians the very opposite of their rational self-images, exemplars of the undesirable and forbidden … If order is the desideratum of the post-Enlightenment Westerner, the dirt and disorder of India was for the Westerner an object of loathing.'
  • Andrew Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States and India , 1947-1964, 2000) quoted in Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• The Western representation of India as female conferred effeminacy on most Indian men. Caught in the enervating web of Hinduism, the majority of Indian men had been deprived of their manliness and their virility. In the context of gender, it is possible to discern three features that Westerners historically assigned to most Indian men. The first of these was passivity and its more exaggerated forms; the second was emotionalism; the third was a lack of heterosexual energy … Hindu men were passive, servile, and cowardly …They could endure anything, evidently without suffering from a sense of shame because of their inaction. They did not resist oppressors but rather regarded them with stupefying indifference … The exaggerated form of passivity was servility. This, Westerners declared, Hindu men had in abundance. Many implicitly subscribed to John Stuart Mill's observation that 'in truth, the Hindu, like the eunuch, excels in the qualities of the slave'.
  • Andrew Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States and India , 1947-1964, 2000). quoted from Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

S

• “I have had before me,” says a British judge in India, “hundreds of cases in which a man’s property, liberty and life depended upon his telling a lie, and he has refused to tell it.
  • William Henry Sleeman, Colonel Sleeman, 1835-6. Quoted from Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage. (also quoted by Max Muller)

V

• What Indians don’t specialize in is grievance. There is no Indian lobby pushing for increased “representation” in this or that economic or political sector, no pressure group ululating for ethnic enclaves, or for information to be provided in a language other than English. You won’t be told, when you call your bank, to “press 2 for Telugu.” You won’t have Indian parents at American public schools clamoring for special dispensations for their children.
  • J.D. Vance and the Indian-American Dream This immigrant group has prospered without quotas or grievances. By Tunku Varadarajan [9] [10]

X

• The ordinary people … are upright and honourable... They are faithful to their oaths and promises... In their behavior there is much gentleness and sweetness.
  • Xuanzang (Yuan Chwang) in the 7th century commenting on the people of India. Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 2

• They do not practice deceit, and they keep their sworn obligations. ... They will not take anything wrongfully, and they yield more than fairness requires.”
  • Xuanzang (Yuan Chwang). Quoted from Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage.