NEW DELHI: Former Vice-President Hamid Ansari has said that many were of the view that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks at his farewell function last year were unusual for the occasion.
Ansari retired as the Vice-President (2007-2017) and Rajya Sabha Chairman on August 10, 2017, and the leaders of political parties and members had devoted the forenoon session to thank the chair.
“The Prime Minister participated in this and while being fulsome in his compliments also hinted at what he perceived to be a certain inclination in my approach on account of my having spent, as he put it, both a good part of my professional tenure as a diplomat in Muslim lands and in post-retirement period on minority-related questions,”
Ansari mentions in his new book Dare I Question: Reflections on Contemporary Challenges.
The book is a collection of his speeches and writings in last year in office.
“The context, presumably, was my reference in the Bengaluru speech to what I perceived as ‘enhanced apprehension of insecurity’ and in the TV interview to ‘a sense of unease creeping in’ among Muslims and some other religious minorities,” Ansari says further.
The former Vice-President has also said that the widely accepted pluralist view of nationalism and Indianness was now being challenged by a viewpoint depicting ‘purifying exclusivism’.