Chennai – Congress Member of Parliament – Shashi Tharoor – called a spade a spade on Sunday in Chennai that no ‘good’ Hindu would agree to demolish Babri mosque to build Ram temple. He also predicted communal riots before the 2019 elections.
During a conversation with Gopalkrishna Gandhi – former Governor of West Bengal – at The Hindu Lit For Life Dialogue 2018 on the topic ‘India: Issues and Opportunities’, Mr. Tharoor said, “I think we have to brace ourselves for some more unpleasantness in the months to come because there has been a correlation, in the not so distant past, between the advent of elections and the stoking of religious passions, communal rioting. That’s indeed my worry.”
Though a vast majority of Hindus believes that a place in Ayodhya was the birthplace of deity Ram, but no good Hindu would want to see a Ram temple built specially – “by demolishing somebody else’s place of worship,” he said.
He also added that as a Hindu, he was also very conscious that a vast majority of Hindus wanted a Ram temple to be built at the disputed site.
Mr. Gandhi said, one of the key issues in India was the role of independent, autonomous institutions, which are facing great danger of subversion and co-option.
Mr. Tharoor said he had no problem with any of the appointments (in central institutions) provided the appointees are qualified.
He enthused that appointments are not merit based rather based on loyalty towards RSS.
Mr. Tharoor said, “But it appears in many of these cases, the only qualification that these appointees possess is loyalty to a particular cause, in particular the RSS, and their lack of any other academic pedigree casts doubt on the fitness to the office they have been appointed.”
