Kolkata court summons Tharoor over 'Hindu-Pakistan' remark

Kolkata: A Kolkata court has summoned Congress leader and former Union minister Shashi Tharoor for his remark that the BJP will pave the way for creation of a "Hindu-Pakistan" if voted to power again, lawyer-petitioner Sumeet Chowdhury said here on Saturday.

Chowdhury moved a petition before a metropolitan magistrate's court on Friday, alleging that Tharoor's comment created disharmony and was "a deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings".

Tharoor was also sued under Section 2 of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971.

Additional chief metropolitan magistrate (1) M Dasgupta directed issuance of the summons to the Congress leader through post and on his Twitter handle.

The court directed him to appear before it on August 14, the next date of hearing.

In his plea, Chowdhury submitted that Tharoor made a public statement that if the BJP is voted to power in the 2019 general election, the party would turn India into a "Hindu-Pakistan".

In the petition, he said Tharoor has refused to apologise for his remark.

Chowdhury alleged that Tharoor's statement has hurt the religious sentiments of Indians and was intended to create conflict and disharmony, besides insulting a secular country.

In Thiruvananthapuram, the Lok Sabha member had said at a public gathering that if the BJP returns to power, it would rewrite the Constitution and turn India into a 'Hindu-Pakistan'.

What Tharoor said

"The only thing that had stood in its way is a two-third majority in the Rajya Sabha," Shashi Tharoor said while delivering a lecture on the 'Threats Faced by Indian Democracy and Secularism' here on Wednesday.

“They already have more than 20 states under their belt, so a Rajya Sabha majority looks near,” he said and added: “Now if they could muster what they managed during the last Lok Sabha polls, India is done for.”

Tharoor said that the stalwarts of the Sangh Parivar – V D Savarkar, the man who coined the term 'Hindutva'; M S Golwalkar, the longest-serving RSS chief; and Deendayal Upadhyay whom prime minister Narendra Modi looks up to – wanted the Indian Constitution discarded. Their argument was that it was full of Western ideas written by anglophone lawyers in the wrong language. “This was in a way true, but we also know that both the English and Hindi drafts of the Constitution are considered authentic,” Tharoor said.

Their second objection, now in hindsight, will have far-reaching consequences. “The Constitution assumed the nation of India as a territory. Wrong, they said. The nation is a people, they argued. And the people are Hindus. The rest are essentially guests or interlopers. Christians and Muslims they considered bandits and dacoits,” Tharoor said.

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