TRIVANDRUM: Celebrated Indian painter MF Hussain, who died in London nearly seven years back in self-imposed exile aged 95, had refused to accept a Kerala presentation in 2009 for fear of attack.

Congress party lawmaker Dr Shashi Tharoor, who collaborated with Hussain for his 2002 illustrated work Kerala: God’s Own Country tried to persuade him to come and accept the award but failed.

“I went to him and said Kerala government is offering security from the moment you land to the moment you leave the country,” Dr Tharoor in conversation with Mihir Sen on his new book Why I am a Hindu here, said.

“He said he loves to do it but what would you do if these people go to a court and get an order to arrest me, and I would land in jail.” Later delivering a talk, at the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters on “how history is being rewritten and reinvented” under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he launched a scathing attack on Hindutva forces.

“Hinduism is a religion of acceptance, not bigotry, not a religion of destruction and violence,” he said referring to numerous vigilante attacks on Muslims in the name of Hindutva ideology that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) follows.

Rejecting the BJP’s accusation of minority appeasement against the Congress, he wondered, citing the Sachar Commission report, why the socioeconomic status of Muslims was still so pathetic.

The former UN under-secretary general who had 17 books to his credit, said his latest book was an attempt at “taking back Hinduism from those who have distorted it” in sync with the ideology of the Congress party.

“My book is the first salvo which will certainly get stronger when it gets translated into Indian languages, as it will be,” he said.

“Already, a Hindi translation is being worked on, besides Malayalam and Telugu. There’ll be a way of reaching out to ordinary people.”

Rejecting the criticism of the Communist parties of Kerala that Congress was practising a “soft Hindutva” to appease the majority community, he said the “atheist” parties had to make that compromise in West Bengal and Kerala long back.