Shashi Tharoor, a serving Member of Parliament (Indian National Congress) of the Lok Sabha from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala and the former under-secretary general of the United Nations, forms the subject of Divya Reddy’s article in the book 'Ten Heads of Ravana'. In popular media and for most aspirational urban Indians, Tharoor is seen as a slick and eloquent interpreter of Hinduism for the twenty-first century. Reddy shows that Tharoor’s work on Hinduism consists of an assortment of theories drawn from colonial Indologists and historians. These historians have been rejected because they used the colonized lens to conjure a history of India. They denied the indigenous origin of the country’s mainstream culture, instead giving credit to foreign ‘invaders’ while devaluing India’s cultural heritage by portraying it as less ancient than its true accounts. Considering Tharoor’s work on Hinduism and religious conversions, Reddy shows how he has distorted and misinterpreted the notion of ‘liberalism’ and ‘pluralism’ inherent in Hinduism to convince an average ‘Macaulaiyzed’ English speaking Hindu youth, who has no deep moorings in Hindu thinking. Tharoor’s eloquence, public persona and good use of English have catapulted him as a world spokesman on Indian cuture, but Reddy exposes his inauthenticity.
Timestamps
00:00:00 Highlights
00:00:27 Introduction
00:02:34 The Influence of Sashi Tharoor
00:03:43 Hinduism is everything and nothing
00:05:40 Religious conversion
00:06:26 Aryan invasion theory
00:07:23 Misinterpreting the Vedas
00:08:46 Against Hindutva
00:10:05 Unanswered questions
00:11:05 Deconstructing Tharoor
00:13:24 How elastic is Hinduism?
00:14:53 S.T. facilitates cultural appropriation?
Snakes in the Ganga - http://www.snakesintheganga.com
Varna Jati Caste - http://www.varnajaticaste.com
The Battle For IIT's - http://www.battleforiits.com
Power of future Machines - http://www.poweroffuturemachines.com
10 heads of Ravana - http://www.tenheadsofravana.com
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