Actor Kamal Haasan, who recently laid bare his political ambitions, spoke of Hindu terror, stirring the hornets’ nest once again. He had said that Hindus cannot claim that extremism doesn’t exist amongst them anymore.
Responding to a question from Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who asked the actor to reflect about efforts by Hindu right-wing groups to dilute Tamil/Dravidian culture in a column in Tamil magazine Ananda Vikatan , actor Kamal Haasan said, “Hindus cannot challenge others to show extremists among them since extremism has spread to that extent even among the Hindus.” Hindus are losing faith in the principle of satyameva jayate and instead, they were subscribing to ‘might is right’.”
He further said, “In the past, Hindu right-wing groups would not indulge in violence. They would hold a dialogue with opponents. But now they resort to violence,” Haasan said. These comments are latest in a series of political criticisms that he has been making against the political establishment for a while now.
The comments received severe criticisms from BJP and RSS members on social media. In particular, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy said that “Kamal Haasan is an actor and he is simply reading out the script written by Communists’ in an interview to Republic TV .” He further said, “He will be used by the Communists and will be dumped once his purpose his serves. The people of Tamil Nadu will laugh him off.”
