Congress’ Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram, Shashi Tharoor, said that ‘acceptance is a two-way street’ with regards to attack on person, home or place of worship, but underlined that it is problematic to retaliate for attacks that happened many centuries ago, at a event organised by the Chennai International Centre on Saturday.
Book launch
He was speaking at the launch of Life Lesson series books edited by Nanditha Krishna, historian, writer and environmentalist and president, C.P. Ramaswami Aiyer Foundation. Tharoor underlined ‘acceptance’ of people who hold different ideas. When asked whether he would prescribe ‘acceptance’ when places of worship are attacked, Mr. Tharoor said, “When attacks that took place centuries ago are being retaliated to today against people who weren’t complicit in the attacks or have no intention of mounting any. I think...there has got to be a time limit on revenge.”
“The problem also is that North Indian view of history is sought to be imposed on all of us,” he added.
‘Cultural multiplicity’
Speaking at an earlier event organised by C.P.R. Institute of Indological Research, on his book The Great Indian Novel inspired by the Mahabharatha, he said, “Indian culture is by definition a culture of multiplicity and differences.”
“Whenever a particular social or political message had to be imparted to Indians at large, it was simply done through a retelling of the Mahabharatha,” Mr. Tharoor added.
