Better to be a cow than a Muslim at some places in India: Shashi Tharoor

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said it was safer "to be a cow than a Muslim" at many places in India, in an interview he gave to theprint.com.

"Modi government seems to believe it can issue statements with utter disregard for the truth and people will believe them." He commented. "… BJP Ministers' claims about reduction in communal violence don't stand up to the facts: It seems safer in many places to be a cow than a Muslim," Tharoor wrote on Twitter. He also pointed out that 86% of the victims of mob lynchings were Muslims.

" Since the ascent of the BJP to power, the forces unleashed by the dominance of Hindutva have resulted in many incidents of violence. In one grim reckoning, more than 389 individuals have been killed in anti-minority acts of violence since mid-2014, and hundreds of others injured, stripped, beaten and humiliated. Particularly haunting is the story of 15-year-old Junaid Khan, returning home on a crowded train after buying new clothes for Eid, who was stabbed repeatedly because he was Muslim and thrown off the train to bleed to death on the tracks. Headlines have spoken continually of riots and killing, Hindu against Muslim, of men being slaughtered because of the mark on a forehead or the absence of a foreskin" ran the text of Tharoor's article in Theprint.

The text also had other facts and figures he cited to support his charge: "The home ministry’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) collects and maintains nationwide crime records, which naturally includes riots. NCRB data confirm that over 2,885 communal riots were reported between 2014 and 2016. Many others may not have been recorded as communal; as many as 61,974 riots were reported in 2016 under Sections 147 to 151 and 153A of the IPC (the latter records cases relating to “promoting enmity on ground of religion, race and place of birth”). In 2016, 869 communal riots were reported, the largest number in Haryana (250). The figures for 2017 haven’t been released yet. More than halfway into 2018, I dread what they are likely to reveal."

No sooner did the interview and tweets came out than the BJP came out criticizing him. BJP's spokesman Dr Sambit Patra said Tharoor was trying to disturb the religious peace of India.