Published On:Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Posted by Unknown
Women's group wants Shashi Tharoor to apologise for lines on Nair women in his 1989 novel
Women's wing of the Communist Party of India in Kerala has sought an apology from Union minister Shashi Tharoor over some lines he wrote on women of the Nair community in his 1989 book, The Great Indian Novel.
Kerala Mahila Sangham said the Congress MP, seeking a reelection from Thiruvananthapuram, "defamed Nair women by depicting them as immoral.
Tharoor himself is from the Nair community which has dominance in his constituency.
These are the controversial lines from the novel: "In Kerala, the men of Nair community realise that their wives are free to receive them by seeing if another man's slippers aren't outside her door."
The lines appear on page 71 of the book. Tharoor attributes these lines to King Pandu, a character in the Mahabharata, who is speaking to his wife Kunthi.
Indira Raveendran, working president of Kerala Mahila Sangam, claimed Tharoor deliberately tried to defame Nair women by putting the statement into Pandu's mouth.
The Great Indian Novel is a satirical work of fiction written that makes fun of the political class in India. Tharoor mingles politics, mythology, culture and tradition in the novel.
Tharoor's major opponent in Thiruvananthapuram is CPI's Bennet P. Abraham, who is from the Nadar community, another prominent caste in the constituency.
The women's group's attack on Tharoor comes after the minister complained to the election commissioner against CPI leader V.S. Sunil Kumar, accusing him of defamation.
"V.S. Sunil Kumar directly accused me of murdering my wife (in a channel show). Such outrageous falsehood is both defamatory and a violation of section 1(2) of the model code of conduct. In this case, the individual and the channel are both culpable since the remark was made as a part of organised discussion that the channel made no effort to stop, criticise or edit out," Tharoor said in his complaint.
