Digital Desk: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor said today that
Indian-origin Hindu Rishi Sunak's election as Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom holds lessons for India. Can someone who is not Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist,
or Jain become the Prime Minister of India? he questioned, expanding on – and
refining – his case about the importance of empowering "visible minorities."
He was previously criticized on Twitter for the "visible
minority" claim, with people citing his fellow Congress colleague Manmohan
Singh, a Sikh who served as Prime Minister for ten years. He was also reminded
that Muslims and Sikhs have served as President, India's Constitutional Head of
State, though this is mostly a ceremonial role.
"Can we still imagine a day — in our increasingly
majoritarian polity, which the BJP is very much behind — when someone who is
not a Hindu, Jain, Sikh, or Buddhist can lead our national government (as
PM)?" he asked, emphasizing that Hindutva ideology considers all religions
born in the Indian subcontinent to be similar, "Indic" religions.
"However, they (Hindutva adherents) do not perceive others in the same
light."
Mr Tharoor emphasized Rishi Sunak's open Hinduism, recalling
former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's description of Hindus as
"a terrible people with a beastly faith."
"Can you envisage the BJP embracing an overt Christian or
an overt Muslim who is open about their faith as a fit Prime Minister for
India?" he said.
The ruling BJP in India, which promotes Hindutva or "Hindu
nationalism" as its philosophy, does not have a single Muslim MP.
He recalls "public fulminations" regarding Sonia
Gandhi's Italian and Christian origins when she led a Congress alliance to
victory and was widely expected to become Prime Minister. She made way for
Manmohan Singh. "One famous politician threatened to shave her head if she
became Prime Minister," he said of the BJP's Sushma Swaraj, who later
became India's foreign minister.
"I feel we need to realize — and I've been a critic of
British racism — that they've picked a brown-skinned Hindu as their leader
after a history of overt prejudice... "They've outgrown their worst
characteristics," he says.
Mr. Tharoor went on to say that Rishi Sunak is "from an
ethnicity that Brits in the past would have regarded inferior," on the day
Mr. Sunak was selected as a successor to Liz Truss, who had to resign after only six
weeks due to the UK's price-rise crisis.
"I am delighted we are celebrating this because I hope it
will force us to reflect on our own country," Mr. Tharoor said. "What
we can learn from Rishi Sunak's victory is that race is certainly an issue, but
it is not the only one."
"The BJP is lying when it claims we've already arrived
where the British have arrived." "He continued.
"Rishi Sunak's age is also something the BJP would not
discuss." "I blame all parties, not just the BJP," he stated.
Rishi Sunak, 42, is the youngest Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom in two centuries.
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