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‘As a proud Hindu…’: Shashi Tharoor reacts to Assam minister's ‘gobi farming’ post
Shashi Tharoor said that he is not a community organiser, so joint statements are not his job, however, he ‘condemned’ the post by the Assam minister.
Amid the controversy over Assam minister Ashok Singhal’s “Bihar approves Gobi farming” post, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor weighed in after he was tagged by a user in a reply to the original post. Notably, social media users were shocked to see the “gobi farming” post by the Assam minister, who also received some backlash online.
One of the users, @isaifpatel on X, replied to Singhal’s post, saying that a cabinet minister, no less, is “glorifying the massacre of 116 Muslims to celebrate an election victory”. He tagged Tharoor and asked if the senior Congress leader could get a few influential Hindu leaders to condemn this “normalisation of one of the worst pogroms perpetuated against Bihari Muslims”.
The Congress MP then responded to this post, indirectly replying to the Assam leader’s “gobi farming” post. Tharoor said that he is not a community organiser, so joint statements are not his job.
“But as a passionate advocate of #InclusiveIndia and a proud Hindu, I can speak for myself, and for most Hindus I know, in saying that neither our faith nor our nationalism requires, justifies or condones such massacres, let alone applauds them,” he added.
What does the “gobi farming” post mean?
The photo, many users on social media said, is linked to the "cauliflower burial case" or the Logain massacre, an incident that took place during the Bhagalpur communal riots in 1989 in Bihar.
Reports said more than 110 Muslims were killed in Logain, a village in the Goradih block of Bhagalpur district, and cauliflower saplings were placed on the ground where the bodies had been buried.
Did Shashi Tharoor condemn the post?
While the Congress leader said that his faith does not require, justify or condone such massacres, one user replied to him asking if he condemned the “gobi farming” post.
The X user said, “But you didn't say you condemn it.” Responding to him, Tharoor said, “That’s exactly what I did! I condemned it.”
