Reeling under pressure from the statement made by the Eritrean Ambassador to India, who is also the Dean of the African Head of Missions, apparently issued on their behalf, calling the recent attacks on Nigerian students in Greater Noida “xenophobic and racial”, former BJP member of the Rajya Sabha further embarrassed his party and the government on Friday when he claimed in a debate on racism in India on an Al Jazeera panel that “if we were racist, why would we have the entire south (India)… which is you know, completely Tamil, you know Kerala, you know Karnataka and Andhra. Why do we live with them …We have blacks, black people around us. You are denying your own nation, you are denying your ancestry, you are denying your culture.” The comment has drawn widespread criticism from the Opposition parties, and has become the butt of ridicule on Twitter and social media. Congress leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge condemned Vijay’s remarks and demanded an FIR, saying the party will step up demonstrations both inside and outside the House.
Vijay has quickly apologised for his comments, tweeting that it now “sounds ridiculous and was very bad”, but the outrage does not seem to die as of now.
yes, it sounds ridiculous and very bad. I meant, we worship Krishna, which literally means black. and we have never had any racism. https://t.co/I7MddEJk5W
— Tarun Vijay (@Tarunvijay) April 7, 2017
In may parts of the nation we have different people, in colour and never ever we had any discrimination against them. https://t.co/I7MddEJk5W
— Tarun Vijay (@Tarunvijay) April 7, 2017
Mywords perhaps were not enough to convey this.Feel bad,really feel sorry, my apologies to those who feel i said different than what I meant https://t.co/I7MddEJk5W
— Tarun Vijay (@Tarunvijay) April 7, 2017
I feel the entire statement sas this- we have fought racism and we have people with different colour and culture still never had any racism.
— Tarun Vijay (@Tarunvijay) April 7, 2017
A community has emerged on Twitter asking people to consider Vijay’s comments in the context and not freak over the media propaganda.
At cost of being trolled-stick my head out for @Tarunvijay.Wrng 2 distort his comments,has rich track record of fighting class/caste divide
— Sid (@sidmtweets) April 7, 2017
Watch what I said- we have all people of all colour, and person condemning India was being addressed.Never said what is being interpreted https://t.co/bkmVQBgm0P
— Tarun Vijay (@Tarunvijay) April 7, 2017
I can die but how can I ridicule my own culture,my own people and my own nation?Think before you misinterpret my badly framed sentence. Yes https://t.co/fyxJQuP3mI
— Tarun Vijay (@Tarunvijay) April 7, 2017
No Sir,this hardly happens..In my office room apart from me sits 1 Bengali,1Tamil, 1 Sikh. We start our day with vanakkam or sat Sri akaal https://t.co/e3o7PoGl0Z
— Meenakshi Dikshit (@mymeenakshi) April 9, 2017
While on the other hand, Twitterati have taken digs at Vijay pronouncing the tweets “in a bad taste”. Many disappointed and enraged over the tweets have questioned their South Indian ancestry and the obsession with the fairer skin tone in India. A significant group has taken this opportunity to bring the attention to the deep set color bias in Indian mindset questioning the portrayal of beauty through fairness everywhere from advertisements to South Indian film industries.
New Supreme Court judgment vindicates BJP's Tarun Vijay: if you live within 500 meters of a South Indian, you can't be racist
— IndiaExplained (@IndiaExplained) April 10, 2017
https://twitter.com/MrMrRajneesh/status/850308808161116160
While Vijay has been very active on Twitter always, the last few days have been spent specially rebuffing claims of him being racist and dodging the attacks by opposition.
I m sure you know you are not RSS. Still you are us as an Indian.That's what RSS taught me,and you divide people on false assumptions? https://t.co/jieTY1osPa
— Tarun Vijay (@Tarunvijay) April 9, 2017
Tarun Vijay's Racist Comments #BJPPoliticsOfColour pic.twitter.com/aYjbqznywc
— Priyanka Gandhi (@WithPGV) April 7, 2017
All the attack by opposition has been termed ridiculous by Vijay’s NDA colleagues and eminent party leaders like Rajnath Singh given the fact that Vijay has already apologised publicly and profusely on the given matter.
All this has led to too much drama on the Indian Twitter scene for the past few days and has added fuel to the already burning fire of allegations against ruling NDA.
Leave a Comment