Naseeruddin Shah is coming under fire for making comments on “civil war in India” and labelling Mughal emperors “refugees”.
The actor made these comments in an interview with The Wire’s Karan Thapar.
The interview comes days after calls for genocide and the “ethnic cleansing” of Muslims were made at a Dharma Sansad event in Haridwar in India’s Uttarakhand. A shocked Naseeruddin Shah wondered if these people knew what they were talking about.
“What they are calling for is a full-scale civil war,” he said. “Two hundred million of us [Muslims] are not going to be wiped out so easily. Two hundred million of us are going to fight back. I am certain if any such movement begins, it will be met with massive resistance.”
He said that there has been a concerted attempt to make Muslims feel insecure, and this agenda starts from the top.
His labelling of Mughal emperors “refugees” didn’t sit well with the Indian right wing either.
“The Mughals came here to make this their homeland,” he said. “You can call them well-off refugees. The Mughals are being blamed unnecessarily.”
He gave the example of a minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet whose son ran over protesting farmers in Uttar Pradesh crushing them under his car. “The minister was not sacked. He was not even chastised.”
“At least you can’t accuse him of being a hypocrite in that sense that he expresses remorse for something he does not feel any remorse about.”
Naseeruddin Shah said that PM Modi doesn’t care about what is happening with Muslims in India. To him it was amazing that the so-called atrocities of the Mughals are being highlighted all the time by those who forget how the Mughals contributed to Indian culture.
“The Mughals are people who left lasting monuments, history and tradition of culture, dance, music, painting, poetry and literature.”
When asked how it feels to be a Muslim living in Modi’s India, Shah said that he feels “very angry and very resentful.”
“I don’t feel insecure because I know this is my home and nobody can drag me out of it.”
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