This refers to the article, “India according to Shashi Tharoor” by Sudip Bhattacharyya (July 16). For the Congress, India is only a country inhabited by two sets of people, one being the majority and the other being the minority. In their concept of secularism, the latter is to be protected from the former or else it may be inhaled by the majority.
Unfortunately, in their wisdom, they have continued with the same thinking after Partition, thus not helping in the formation of India as a nation.
History would reveal that this was not the original thinking of the Congress. It started permeating in the minds of its leaders from the early 1990s with disasterous consequences.
As far as Tharror’s claim that India will become a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ if the BJP comes to power in 2019, it needs no reiteration that from time immemorial, India has been wedded to secular values and has been famous for its spirit of accommodation of various faiths.
Every country has its distinct ethos that emerges from the culture, practices, rituals and ceremonies as also on the ideas and attitudes of the majority of its people. Naturally, therefore, one would find Hindu ethos in India and Christian ethos in England. Why should, therefore, eyebrows be raised on India being seen as a country with Hindu ethosIJ