Shashi Tharoor’s ‘Why I Am A Hindu’ is a timely reminder of why Hinduism must retain its pluralism
Reading this book is a handy way to reacquaint oneself in 2018 with what Hinduism was and is, and what it wasn’t meant to be.
As one of India’s most adored intellectuals and public figures, Shashi Tharoor is subject to much scrutiny by the media and the junta alike. His erudition, coupled with his attractive public persona, makes him an easy and constant talking point. Indeed, people have even coined the term “Tharoorism” to refer to the words that emerge when his supercalifragilisticexpialidocious vocabulary gets too much for normal language skills. So when his latest book turns out to be called Why I Am A Hindu, the choice of title appears a little, well, un-Tharoorian.
But what’s in a name?
Of course, “Why I Am…” is a title format that has been used by many an author. Why I Am Not A Communist, by Karel Čapek (1924), Why I Am Not A Christian, an essay by Bertrand Russell (1927), Why I Am Still A Christian, by Hans Küng (1987), Why I Am Not A Muslim, by Ibn Warraq (1995) are well known globally. Closer home, we have Bhagat Singh’sWhy I Am An Atheist (1930), and the explosive Why I Am Not A Hindu by Kancha Illiah (1995). In fact, the title of Tharoor’s book seems like a purposeful inversion of the last one, and consequently perhaps, even of the subject.
That said, the choice of such a title is important in our current context, given how we’ve acquired a penchant for the literal. It is too much to expect any appreciation of subtlety or metaphor at a time when our leaders defiantly offer instances from Indian mythology as proof of concept in conferences of science. A book like Tharoor’s, with an affirmative title, is what is required to state what most liberal Hindus like him think this religion truly represents, and in no uncertain terms.
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