'Congress is like Hindu religion that embrace acceptances and differences'
Hindutva doctrine is a political doctrine whereas the Hindu face is a religious face. There is a huge difference between the two. The doctrine, unfortunately, of privilege to one particular community over others as political objective.
Shashi Tharoor
CHENNAI: Senior Congress leader and former union minister Shashi Tharoor on Friday said the Congress party is firmly against Hindutva, which is a political doctrine. He drew parallel to Congress and Hindu religion and said that they embrace acceptance and differences.
"Hindutva doctrine is a political doctrine whereas the Hindu face is a religious face. There is a huge difference between the two. The doctrine, unfortunately, of privilege to one particular community over others as political objective, while Hinduism preaches acceptance of difference. Congress is firmly against Hindutva and it is a party for everyone, including non-Hindus" said Tharoor while responding to a question during the interaction with entrepreneurs on the 'Role of entrepreneurs in building progressive India' organised by the All India Professionals' Congress.
Disagreeing with the observation from one of the participants that the Congress has been perceived as the B team of the BJP for not denouncing Hindutva, the former minister said that he had authored a couple of books to differentiate Hindutva and Hindu religion.
On the three-language policy of the Union government, Tharoor said Hindi language was placed in primary position.
"When Mr Shukla, and Mr Sharma are able to function professionally, governmentally, and judicially in the language they picked up in their mother's womb whereas Mr Subramani, Mr Reddy and Mr Menon will have to learn an extra language in order to be able to compete with those who already have an advantage. That is not good for national unity and creates a lot of unnecessary problems, " he said.
Recounting a proceeding in the Parliament, Tharoor said a union minister, who knows English, responded in Hindi in the Parliament to a question asked in English by a MP from Tamil Nadu. It was unprecedented.
"Though the minister who can socially and cheerfully converse in English, they (BJP) are making a point by demonstrating that they speak in Hindi in Parliament. It is worrying and depressing, " he continued.
During the interaction with the entrepreneurs, Tharoor and Praveen Chakravarthy, who were part of the Congress party's manifesto committee, invited suggestions and ideas from the entrepreneurs that would reflect in their manifesto and turned into actional policies once the party voted to power.
