New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party leader Tarun Vijay sparked a row on Friday after he rubbished allegations of racism in India with a rather racist remark. While speaking to Al Jazeera on the issue of attacks on African students in Greater Noida, Vijay denied allegations of racism in India saying, “If we were racist, why would we live with South Indians? We have black people around us. We live with them.” He also added, “To say that Indians can be racist is a most vicious thing because we worship a black god, Krishna is black.”
Vijay received flak for his remark on South Indians and faced the ire of the Opposition as well as the Twitterati. Congress leader Khushboo called the remark ‘bizarre’ and lashed out at Vijay. DMK leader Kanimozhi called Vijay anti-national for singling out South Indians. Many on Twitter also lashed out at him over his remark.
Following the backlash, Vijay took to Twitter to clarify his statement and also apologised. “My words 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,” he tweeted. “I feel the entire statement says this – we have fought racism and we have people with different colour and culture still never had any racism,” he added.
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
This is not the first instance that a politician has made a racist remark against the people of South India. In 2015, JDU leader Sharad Yadav had also courted controversy by making a racist as well as sexist remark on South Indian women. “Your god is dark, but your matrimonial ads insist on white-skinned brides,” Yadav had said in Parliament in 2015.
