Despite claiming to be the ‘guardian angel of Hinduism’ and an ardent follower of it, Shashi Tharoor sure defames the religion a lot. A few weeks ago, he had sought to label everyone who is not on his side on the political spectrum as ‘Bad Hindus’. Very recently, he mocked the Kumbh Mela. Now, taking the hatred for the religion a notch up, Tharoor has declared that it is the ‘Hindi and Hindu’ that is dividing India.
This “Hindi, Hindu, Hindutva” ideology is dividing our country. We need unity, not uniformity. https://t.co/m6t2xE2sh7
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) January 31, 2019
How he arrived at this bizarre conclusion is probably rooted in the dichotomy he has created between ‘Good Hindus’ and ‘Bad Hindus’. In the Tharoorian world, Hindu has become a bad word unless it is preceded by some sort of secular disclaimer. And this very trait has led to him labeling the entire religion as a ‘dividing factor’.
Speaking of the Tharoorian view of Hinduism, it becomes pertinent to talk about the infamous dichotomy of ‘Good Hindus’ and ‘Bad Hindus’.
The paragon of liberal virtues, advocate of ‘inclusive’ Hinduism and the ‘custodian’ of ‘Hindu faith’, Shashi Tharoor, has now taken it upon himself to discern and differentiate ‘good Hindus’ from ‘bad Hindus.’ In his rather exclusionary rhetoric on Tharoorian brand of ‘inclusive Hinduism’, Tharoor casts aspersion on the faith of those Hindus who believe that a temple should be built on the disputed site i.e. the place where the temple used to be before an invader demolished it and erected a monument of his conquest in its wake. In Tharoor’s view, these Hindus are ‘bad Hindus.’
it is logical to assume that, by virtue of his being, Shashi Tharoor would never surround himself with ‘bad Hindus.’ Further extension of this logic dictates that Hindus in the circle of trust of Shashi Tharoor and in the organization that he is a part of, the Congress, must be the ‘good Hindus.’ This assumption warrants an analysis of the ‘goodness’ (Hinduness?) of Tharoor’s near and dear ones. Let us start with Tharoor’s leader and the newly minted ‘Janeudhari Brahmin’, Congress President Rahul Gandhi.
So, according to Tharoor, the person who complained to a foreign diplomat, in confidence, that India’s internal security is threatened by Hindus and not the global menace of Islamist terrorism, holds aloft the torch of ‘inclusive Hinduism.’ The person who stated that Jo Mandir jaate hain vo ladkiyan chhedte hain is the one upon whom the hallowed title of ‘good Hindu’ must be bestowed, according to Tharoor.
Or is it the person who, defying logic and evidence, continuously peddled a farcical (but no less dangerous) narrative that the Hindu organization RSS was responsible for 26/11? The ‘good Hindu’ must be the person who put the blame of many terrorist attacks on Hindu organizations despite clear evidences to the contrary.
It seems now, Tharoor has rise above the dichotomy and has termed the entire religion as the divisive. In doing so, Tharoor also dragged along the Hindi language and for good measures (in case the secular credentials needed more provenance) termed it as divisive as well.