Intolerance debate: 15 most talked about comments
From a 50-year-old man being allegedly beaten to death by Hindu villagers on suspicion of eating beef to veteran Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali forced to cancel his concert due to protests by Shiv Sena in Mumbai, the intolerance debate shook Indian democracy from its core in 2015.
From a 50-year-old man being allegedly beaten to death by Hindu villagers on suspicion of eating beef to veteran Pakistani singer Ghulam Ali forced to cancel his concert due to protests by Shiv Sena in Mumbai, the intolerance debate shook Indian democracy from its core in 2015.
Here are the 15 most talked about comments
Bollywood actor Aamir Khan:
“Kiran (Rao, wife) and I have lived all our lives in India. For the first time, she said, should we move out of India? That’s a disastrous and big statement for Kiran to make to me. She fears for her child. She fears about what the atmosphere around us will be. She feels scared to open the newspapers every day.
That does indicate that there is a sense of growing disquiet.” [ at Ramnath Goenka Awards function of The Indian Express Group]
Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan:
“There is intolerance, there is extreme intolerance… there is, I think… there is growing intolerance. It is stupid to be intolerant and this is our biggest issue, not just an issue… Religious intolerance and not being secular in this country is the worst kind of crime that you can do as a patriot.” [as told to India Today TV]
(Both Khans later clarified. Aamir Khan said his statements on ‘intolerance’ may have been taken out of context. He clarified that he never thought about leaving the country neither his wife. “In fact when I stay away from the country for two weeks I get homesick,” The Indian Express has quoted him as saying. Similarly Shah Rukh Khan has stated his comments were “misconstrued”.
Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray:
“They are speaking about laws banning beef in the country. They should first announce that this country is a Hindu Rashtra and impose the uniform civil code.” [at the party’s rally at Mumbai Shivaji Park]
Shiv Sena:
“India is facing the problem of population explosion. The population of Muslims in India is going to be more than Pakistan or Indonesia. This will hurt the culture and social fabric of a Hindu nation.” [in an editorial in party mouthpiece ‘Saamna’]
Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut:
“If Muslims are only being used this way to play politics, then they can never develop. Muslims will have no future till they are used to play vote bank politics and thus Balasaheb had demanded that the voting rights of Muslims should be taken away.
What he said is right…Balasaheb had said 15 years ago that if the voting rights of Muslims are taken away for a few years, then the vote bank politics will stop.”
British-Indian sculptor Sir Anish Kapoor:
“Art can only have a home where there is tolerance. All good-thinking Indians will recognise the atmosphere of intolerance and intimidation that prevails in our Indian society today. How then can we find creativity or the possibility of expression in this atmosphere of fear?
Our government encourages the hate that lies dormant in our great Indian psyche. Can our leaders not see that our tradition has always thrived on our openness and tolerance?” [The Daily Telegraph]
Pakistani ghazal maestro Ghulam Ali:
“Intolerance in any form is not good. It’s a misfortune for both India and Pakistan if they are facing this problem. Both the countries should live in peace.” [in an interview to a news agency]
Filmmaker Karan Johar:
“The talk about freedom of expression is the biggest joke I believe in the world. Democracy is the second biggest joke I think. I really wonder how are we really democratic? How is there freedom of expression? As a filmmaker, I feel bound at every level be it what I put out on celluloid or what I say in print.” [at Jaipur Literature Festival]
Congress leader Manish Tewari:
“This government of Modi is against intellectuals. They are against liberal voices. The tension is increasing from everywhere. Other than Anupam Kher, who is a pawn for the government, all other artists, painters, filmmakers are saying that this government is against intellectuals.” [at Jaipur Literature Festival]
BJP patriarch LK Advani:
“I do not know who are the people saying that there is no freedom of expression in India. This right has always been there. Such a question does not arise today.” [told the media at his residence in New Delhi]
RSS leader J. Nand Kumar:
“People are being instigated for aggressive opposition in the name of intolerance to stall development of the country. It is a conspiracy against the country and it should be stopped.” [as reported by PTI]
President Pranab Mukherjee:
“The real dirt of India lies not on our streets but in our minds and in our unwillingness to let go of views that divide society into them and us, pure and impure.” [at a function at Sabarmati Ashram]
Author Chetan Bhagat:
“If Modi and Amit Shah had attended Doon school, spoke impeccable English and were spotted with their English girlfriends, they would not have been attacked so much.” [at aliterature festival]
Writer-activist Arundhati Roy:
“If we do not have the right to speak freely, we will turn into a society that suffers from intellectual malnutrition, a nation of fools. Across the subcontinent it has become a race to the bottom – one that the New India has enthusiastically joined. Here too now, censorship has been outsourced to the mob”. [after returning her National Award; in an article published in The Indian Express]
Actor Kamal Haasan:
“Tolerance is about giving and taking. And it is not about any particular government being in power. I am not a religious man, but I will never say no to another man’s religion or his practices.” [as quoted by TNN]
Big Wire
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