The folks pressing each against other, outside the NCPA’s Godrej Dance Theatre on Wednesday could have been akin to a rock concert audience. Except that this was Mumbai’s liberal elite of various ages and shapes – all of whom had turned out in their Sunday best to hear politician and Member of Parliament, Shashi Tharoor hold forth on his latest book, Why I Am A Hindu. The theatre’s capacity of 177 seats was clearly woefully inadequate in accommodating the waiting audience which far exceeded that number.

In conversation with former journalist and director of Literature Live Anil Dharker, Mr. Tharoor enthusiastically plunged into what made him a Hindu. After a lengthy discussion on various aspects of the first part of the book (‘My Hinduism’), Mr. Dharker steered the conversation to the second part and the more pressing matter of the day, ‘Political Hindusim’. Recalling the rise of the Hindutva thought, as propagated by Veer Savarkar, M.S. Golwalkar and Deendayal Upadhyay — Mr. Tharoor didn’t hold back the punches. He stated the Ram Janambhoomi issue was more a political ‘project’ than a religious one — where the symbolism of a monument was used as a means to galvanise support. When asked by Mr. Dharker, why is secularism such a dirty word today, Mr. Tharoor said, “identity politics, because of which Indians have suffered,” while tracing the same back to colonial times and the British policy of ‘divide and rule’.

Responding to Mr. Dharker’s question on what becoming a Hindu Rashtra would mean for India, Mr. Tharoor elucidated, “Change will be in fundamental ways, the Constitution for one thing. It will essentially create a second-class citizenship for non-Hindus, which is very profoundly troubling as it rejects not just the word ‘secular’ introduced by Indira Gandhi into the Preamble of the Constitution in 1976. Even without the word ‘secular’ the Constitution was a secular document, owing to the right to freedom of religion, the right to conversion, the right to propagate your faith. All of which would go in the the case of a Hindu rashtra, where there will be just one official dominant religion.”