"Can Muslim In India...": Shashi Tharoor Finds Lesson As UK Gets Hindu PM
NDTV
As Rishi Sunak becomes the Prime Minister of the UK, Shashi Tharoor stirs up a debate about diversity and representation in India
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor today said Indian-origin Hindu Rishi Sunak's becoming the Prime Minister of Britain has lessons for India. Can someone who is not Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist or Jain become PM of India, he asked, building on — and refining — his argument about need to empower “visible minorities”.
He was earlier trolled over the “visible minority” argument on Twitter as people cited his fellow Congress leader Manmohan Singh, a Sikh, having been PM for 10 years. He was also told that Muslims and Sikhs have been President, the Constitutional Head of State, though that's a largely ceremonial role in India.
“Dr Manmohan Singh absolutely does belong to a visible minority. But most Hindus don't see Sikhs as different from themselves,” the former international diplomat argued, speaking to NDTV.
“Can we still imagine a day — in our increasingly majoritarian polity that the BJP is very much behind — when someone who is not a Hindu, Jain or Sikh or Buddhist can head our national government (as PM)?” he added, stressing that the Hindutva ideology sees all religions born in the Indian subcontinent as similar, "Indic" religions. “But they (Hindutva followers) don't see others the same way.”
