KOCHI: Alleging Hindutva elements don’t have any respect for the cultural heritage of Hinduism, Congress MP and writer Shashi Tharoor wondered what such people will do if they visit Attukal temple. “I am coming from where Attukal pongala was held in the morning. Across the city at every public space, the classic picture of the goddess was displayed. The picture depicts the goddess as conventionally dressed, which is completely topless.
People walk past the posters without giving a second look. These people vandalised M F Husain’s paintings for drawing a topless picture. What will they do if they come to Attukal?” he asked.
Participating in a debate on his book ‘Why I am a Hindu’ at Krithi International Book Festival here on Friday, Tharoor said that Hindutva activists are narrow-minded. “They don’t understand the exquisite profanity of Gita Govindam and the erotic couplets and physical description of man-woman relationship in many Sanskrit poems. Even 1,500 years ago, poets wrote hundreds of verses about female breasts. It is very much part of Hindu culture. The kind of Bharatiya sanskriti these people are promoting is particularly begotten and narrow-minded,” he said.
He said the Hindutva being propagated by some people nowadays is not the Hinduism most of the Hindus know.“It is a belligerent, intolerant and violent political ideology masquerading as the religious faith, which it is not. That’s why I thought it is time to write about Hinduism that Hindus like me have grown up in India. I don’t think I am speaking only for the English-language knowing elite. I have seen Hinduism practised in the villages, and for most people, my version will relate with them,” he said.
Dismissing claims that the attacks are not made by Hindutva people and some fringe elements are behind it, Tharoor asked why the people in power are not dismissing and denouncing the perpetrators of these violence and arrest them.
“A minister said anybody disagreeing with the Prime Minister should go to Pakistan. Pakistan is a code word. It is a begotten communal message. Such leaders are there in the BJP ranks in Parliament and they are relied by the PM. The poison is spreading. It is emerging from the Centre,” he said. On his opinion about Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, who practises soft Hindutva, Tharoor said she has become the self-appointed voice of Bharatiya sanskriti in the government.