MJ Akbar once told me BJP has worst communal instincts: Shashi Tharoor

Congress Leader Shashi Tharoor attended a seminar on 'Standing Up to Hatred: Intolerance and Violence in Contemporary India' on Sunday. Social and human rights activist Swami Agnivesh was also a speaker at the event. In his address, Tharoor said,"I still remember in the eighties when MJ Akbar started writing articles about the communal menace in the mid eighties. I remember a lunch with him in Kolkata, and I said Akbar why are you going on and on about communalism this issue is over, we have grown up in a secular India. He said you are wrong the single most important issue that is coming up is the rise of the BJP. They are a dangerous party, they stand for the worst communal instincts in this country. That is the story we have to write, because communal violence can damage this country unrecognisable." He further added, "It was confirmed by the violence that started in our country in the late eighties with the so-called Ramshila Pujan Movement. Villages in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh started baking bricks to take them to Ayodhya to build the temple. Number of riots took place over the Ramshila Pujan. Then we had the destruction of the Babri Masjid after which we knew the communal atmosphere in the country has never been the same."