Politics now is really only about self-interest, which means it has violence built into it because your self-interest is going to collide with the self-interest of the rest of the world. That's inevitable.

Dickens didn't have access to any other epistemologies other than those prevailing in Britain. But a novelist today cannot plausibly claim ignorance of his society's manifold connections with the wider world, the fact that prosperity and security at home, for instance, often depend on extensive violence and exploitation abroad.

The act of writing should not be accompanied by the sense of an audience, someone peering over your shoulder, but in nonfiction I think it’s almost imperative that you identify an audience so you can confirm or challenge or undermine whatever ideas or prejudices they might have about your subject.

Western conception of history has had great consequences over the last two hundred years. You see it in the invasion of Iraq. You see it in almost everything that is said and done.

The asymmetries of power that have shaped relations between the West and the rest of the world also exist in the realm of literary criticism.

There was great political uncertainty in South Asia at the time of the Buddha. The older small tribal societies were cracking up and gave way to bigger states. There was much more trade and travel going on than before. To people in the cities the experience of living in a small place where you knew everyone and governed your affairs by consensual democracy had been lost.

There have been many instances of people combining the political life with the spiritual life, a life of constant self-examination. Gandhi was a great example of that.