Shashi Tharoor said he is convinced that if Swami Vivekananda was alive today, he would be attacked by right-wing goons for putting humanity above anything else.

Congress Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor has asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi why he categorically refuses to wear Muslim skull caps and the colour green.

Speaking at an event in Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday, Tharoor said, "Why does the PM, who wears all sorts of headgears from across the world, refuse to wear a Muslim skull cap? Why does he refuse to wear the colour green, which in his view is a colour of Muslims and wearing the colour amounts to Muslim appeasement?"

Tharoor was speaking during a seminar titled 'Standing up to hatred: Intolerance and violence in contemporary India'.

In his speech, Tharoor blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and right-wing organisations for the rising cases of cow vigilantism and attacks on minorities.

Blaming the Prime Minister for his silence after such incidents, he said not once has the PM spoken about the acts of cow vigilante groups.

"Not once has the PM spoken immediately after these incidents (attacks on minorities in the name of protecting cows) to assure people that he disapproves of this violence. The perception that then goes out is that if the PM does not speak, he does not mind these things. This emboldens the perpetrators," Tharoor said.

VIVEKANANDA WOULD BE ATTACKED IF HE WAS ALIVE TODAY

In his address, Tharoor said he is convinced that if Swami Vivekananda was alive today, he would be attacked by right-wing goondas (thugs).

"I am convinced that if Swami Vivekanda were to come to today's India, he would be the target of these goondas. They will bring engine oil to throw at his face and will also try to knock him down on the streets because Vivekanda would be saying, respect people. He would say humanity is more important. We are Hindus in the Vivekananda tradition, not in the Savarkar or Golwarker tradition," he said.

This was said in reference to the attacks on social activist Swami Agnivesh by right-wing activist in Jharkhand last month.

Tharoor also criticised the BJP-led central government for its inability to stop the increasing cases of cow vigilantism and attacks on minorities in the country.

Quoting a data from the Union Home Ministry, he said that the country has seen 2,920 incidents of communal violence in the last four years alone.

"After the BJP came to power, we have seen a widespread rise in the number of incidents of communal violence," Tharoor said.

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