Congress is not the BJP in any form, Shashi Tharoor said. (FILE)
New Delhi:
Secularism as a principle and practice in India is in “danger” and the dispensation of power may even try to remove the word from the Constitution, said top Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, but asserted that “the forces of the hatred ”cannot change the secular character of the country.
Secularism is just a word and even if the government takes it out of the constitution, it would still be a secular constitution because of its basic structure, Mr Tharoor told PTI in an interview about his new book ” The Battle of Belonging ”.
He also claimed that the Congress party couldn’t risk trying to become “ BJP Lite ” as it could end up becoming “ Congress Zero ” and said his party was not offering a watered-down version of the The political message of the BJP and the spirit of Indian secularism was very “alive and well” in the big old party.
Asked about his party’s accusation of peddling in soft Hindutva, Mr Tharoor said he recognized that there was a very real and tangible concern for some liberal Indians on the matter, but asserted that “we, in Congress, make it very clear that we cannot allow ourselves to become a BJP-lite. “
“I have long argued that any attempt to emulate ‘Pepsi Lite’ by ‘BJP Lite’ will result in us becoming ‘Coke Zero’ – that is, ‘Congress Zero’,” the former Union Minister.
“Congress is not the BJP in any form or form, and we shouldn’t be trying to be a lite version of who we are not. We’re not trying either, in my opinion,” a- he declared.
Emphasizing that Congress makes a distinction between Hinduism and Hindutva, Mr. Tharoor said that Hinduism “we respect is inclusive and non-judgmental”, while Hindutva is a political doctrine based on exclusion.
“So we are not offering a watered-down version of the BJP’s political message: Rahul Gandhi has made it clear that despite all his confessions of his personal Hinduism by going to temples, he does not support any form of Hindutva, neither soft nor difficult Said the member for Thiruvananthapuram.
Asked whether Congress needs to talk about secularism more often than it has in recent times, Mr. Tharoor said he disagreed with the claim that Congress had not enough talk about secularism and that the party had stressed on every occasion its unwavering commitment to secularism.
Regarding the recent search by Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackrey’s house over secularism, the congressional leader said he had suggested that Koshyari should be given a different heading to express such ideas, rather than the official “Raj Bhavan Stationery”.
As to whether the word “secularism” in the Constitution was in imminent danger, he said: “The word is just a word; but even if the government removes the word “secularism” from the constitution, it is a secular constitution. “
After all, the freedom of worship, the freedom to profess and propagate your religion, the freedom of speech, the rights of minorities and the equality of all citizens are all part of the basic structure of the Constitution, and they cannot disappear by deleting a word, he affirmed.
“The ruling dispensation may well try to do this: there is certainly a concerted effort to erode secularism and replace it with a way of being sectarian that offers no place for religious minorities in Indian society,” a- he declared.
“Secularism as a principle and practice is in danger, but I don’t see it falling anytime soon: India embodies tolerance and pluralism in its very essence, and I don’t think the forces of hatred can definitively overcome our fundamental secularism, ”he declared.
However, Mr Tharoor warned that people must not let their guards down and must continue to oppose these regressive ideas wherever they arise.
Speaking about the controversy over a Tanishq ad that showed interfaith marriage and which had to be taken down after a backlash on social media, Mr Tharoor said it offered another illustration of how “some right-wing fringe reactionaries and sectarians ”have become, even as the dispensation from power quickly distanced itself from the episode.
“But let’s not forget that it’s a Frankenstein monster they created, backed by organized and vicious social media trolls, and it’s just one more reminder of the appalling power of the community hatred so often unleashed in today’s world, India, ”he said.
“As I said, if such people are so mad at Hindu-Muslim ‘ekatvam’, why not boycott the world‘s oldest Hindu-Muslim symbol of unity: India she -even?” He asked.
On whether the Hindutva has gained mass popularity, Mr Tharoor said the BJP has a dominant parliamentary majority, but has worked overtime to suppress dissenting votes and, in that sense, it is difficult to get an accurate measure of Hindutva support among ordinary Indians.
Asked about recent remarks by Congress leader P Chidambaram calling for the restoration of Article 370 and his criticism by the BJP, Mr. Tharoor said he clearly expressed his position in parliament.
“It’s not just a matter of repealing 370 – even (Jawaharlal) Nehru ji said the provision was temporary. But the constitution specifies how it is to be done,” he said.
“So even if it doesn’t matter which side of the Article 370 debate you are on – after all, different voices are the lifeline of any democracy – the way it was implemented, the way our Their own fellow citizens have been repressed overnight. repressed by their own government, consciously and willfully ignoring the democratically enshrined rights guaranteed to all Indians, does not bode well for the future of the country ”, he declared. .
No political objective can justify the large-scale abuse of the rights of Indian citizens in this way, Mr. Tharoor said.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
