Politically timely book: Why I am a Hindu

Why I am a Hindu, Shashi Tharoor, Aleph Book Company; Rs.699, Pages 320 I must say I thoroughly enjoyed Shashi Tharoor’s timely book: Why I am a Hindu. Not scholarly work, but eminently readable. Tharoor demolishes the facile right-wing hindutva assumption that the only criterion for ‘hinduness’, is subscribing to their Talibanised ideology. He delves into the many centuries of Hinduism in India and talks about its tolerance, ‘healthy skepticism’, its welcoming inclusiveness and the profound metaphysics of Hindu traditions, all the way from the sublime non-dualism of Adi Shankara to the atheism of the Charvaka. He also writes about the many syncretistic Hindu fusions with Sufism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Judaism. India was a land that welcomed religious and ethnic groups fleeing persecution in Europe, Iran and elsewhere, vestiges of which are seen in the Parsi, Bahai and Jewish communities which settled in this country. Many of his sources come from Dr. S. Radhakrishnan (the former philosopher-President of India), as well as from Gandhi and Nehru. Yet, Tharoor does not shrink from citing more contemporary and controversial commentators like Wendy Doniger. But he also somewhat airbrushes the oppression of the caste system and the systematic marginalisation of women through centuries of Indian history. In this politically timely book, Tharoor particularly emphasises the very open attitudes of ancient Hinduism toward sex and sexuality, including same-sex love, polygyny, and polygamy, to highlight the depredations of the ‘Romeo squads’ of triumphalist hindutva of contemporary India, and the anti-‘love jihad’ opposition to Hindu-Muslim fraternisation and marriages. Why I am a Hindu also exposes the sex-phobia of hindutva advocates, all the way from the violent opposition to M.F. Hussain’s portrayal of Hindu goddesses in the nude to the attempted mob censorship of the movie Padmavat. Nor does he fail to highlight the bashing and often killing of innocent Dalits and Muslims on suspicion of eating beef. In fact, Rig Veda and several other ancient Hindu sources suggest that while the cow was respected, beef eating Hindus were not uncommon. Tharoor quotes the venerable Upanishadic sage Yajnavalkya as saying that he too eats beef, provided it’s tender (sic). This book’s chapters on hindutva are worth a thorough reading. In the first place, these chapters enable Tharoor to define his version of Hinduism and draw clear lines in the sand between his liberal views and the extremism of hindutva and its brand of politicised fundamentalist Hinduism. I specially appreciate his nuanced reading of the gurus of hindutva — Savarkar, Golwalkar, and Deen Dayal Upadhyay. He points out, for instance, that Upadhyay’s thinking is the most humanistic and inclusive version of the three. He challenges the cheap hindutva co-option of Vivekananda, pointing out Swami Vivekananda’s expansive inclusiveness, comparing those who clung to a religious worldview to frogs in different wells that need to expand their perspective to include the perspectives of the other frogs. The bottom line for Tharoor is that hindutva rests on a real sense of inferiority and weakness. Thus, the hindutvavadi wants to become ‘strong’ (read ‘ruthless’), as…