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Indian MP Tharoor: Hinduism ‘an inclusive faith’

Leading opposition politician Shashi Tharoor says Indians don’t want to be ‘bigoted or intolerant’

Indian opposition politician Shashi Tharoor has told the Â鶹Éç that despite rising Hindu nationalism in India, Indians don’t ‘particularly want to be bigoted or intolerant’.

Speaking to HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur, Mr Tharoor said Hinduism was ‘essentially an inclusive faith that celebrates diversity and pluralism within it and outside it’. However, the inclusive message ‘has been mixed up with other factors’, including national security concerns.

Shashi Tharoor is a Member of Parliament for the opposition Indian National Congress and the author of several books on Indian history and culture. The Congress party’s dominance of Indian politics was overturned by the election of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014.

Critics accuse India’s government of pursuing policies discriminatory to religious minorities, particularly Muslims. Asked if the opposition Congress party was likely to repeal laws at national or local level seen by some as anti-Muslim, Tharoor said: ‘the kind of vigilantism that has been encouraged by the present government would certainly get no official support, in fact, that would probably be cracked down upon’. But some laws, for example banning the slaughter of cows, ‘people will have to respect’.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is currently on a state visit to the United States.

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