Bollywood Actor  Aamir Khan: Proud to be Indian, don’t need anyone’s endorsement

#Mumbai :  #Bollywood Super star  #AamirKhan, who is under fire for his comments over growing intolerance in India, said on Wednesdayneither he or his wife have any intention of leaving the country.

“We never did, and nor would we like to in the future. Anyone implying the opposite has either not seen my interview or is deliberately trying to distort what I have said. India is my country, I love it, I feel fortunate for being born here, and this is where I am staying,” #AamirKhan said in a statement released to the media.

The 50-year-old actor is facing ire of the BJP and other Hindu groups for revealing his wife, Kiran Rao, had suggested moving abroad following a spate of communal incidents in the country.

Hindu activists staged protests outside his house in Mumbai as well as Patna by painting his posters with black ink before setting them on fire.

“To all those people who are calling me anti-national, I would like to say that I am proud to be Indian, and I do not need anyone’s permission nor endorsement for that. To all the people shouting obscenities at me for speaking my heart out, it saddens me to say you are only proving my point,” he added.

Khan thanked everyone who stood by him saying, “We have to protect what this beautiful and unique country of ours really stands for. We have to protect its integrity, diversity, inclusiveness, its many languages, its culture, its history, its tolerance, it’s concept of ekantavada, it’s love, sensitivity and its emotional strength.”

A complaint has also been registered at a police station in New Delhi against Khan who made his comments over intolerance at a media awards event in the city on Monday.

Here is the actor’s statement in its entirety:

“First let me state categorically that neither I, nor my wife Kiran, have any intention of leaving the country. We never did, and nor would we like to in the future. Anyone implying the opposite has either not seen my interview or is deliberately trying to distort what I have said. India is my country, I love it, I feel fortunate for being born here, and this is where I am staying.

Secondly, I stand by everything that I have said in my interview.

To all those people who are calling me anti-national, I would like to say that I am proud to be Indian, and I do not need anyone’s permission nor endorsement for that.by ht

I would like to end my statement with a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, it’s a prayer really :

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high,
Where knowledge is free,
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments,
by narrow domestic walls,
Where words come out from the depth of truth,
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection,
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way,
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit,
Where the mind is led forward by thee,
Into ever-widening thought and action,
Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.
Jai Hind.
Aamir Khan.”