Notwithstanding heckles from a section of the audience, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who was the chief guest at Thuglak magazine’s 54th annual meet at the Music Academy in Chennai on Sunday, defended the idea of a ‘plural’ India and explained how the divide between North India and South India had grown over the past 10 years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tenure, affecting federalism.
He also highlighted the importance of creating a more equitable society, and the BJP’s alleged attempt to turn the Ram temple’s consecration into a political campaign for electoral gains. He pointed to the Union government’s decision to invoke an obscure provision of the Disaster Management Act to impose lockdowns in States; and the alleged use of the Enforcement Directorate primarily to target the Opposition parties as examples of the erosion of federalism.
“Why should the government’s reward for extraordinary economic success sustain the growth and population control below tax revenues from the Centre? The government’s answer would be that these are the rules in a democracy — one person one vote means the more people you have, the more political clout. In India, whose diversity is held together by a sense of common belonging, civic nationalism must accommodate a range of States with divergent levels of development. It is essential that all people feel that common nationhood is a winning proposition. I am a very proud Indian, but in a country where regional, religious, linguistic tensions are never far from the surface, the answer that we have more people and so we will have more money and more power risks rupturing the fragile bonds that hold us all together,” Mr. Tharoor said.
