New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Tarun Vijay stoked a controversy when he said that Indians cannot be considered racist because they live with south Indians.
“If we (Indians) were racist, why would we live with south Indians. We live with black people around us,” Vijay told a foreign news network during an interview.
Realising what he has suggested, Vijay then tweeted to say that his choice of words “sounds ridiculous and was very bad”.
News agency ANI said the BJP leader was asked about why India was being called racist by practically everybody around in the wake of attacks on people from African countries in India.
Responding to this, Vijay asserted that had India been racist, it wouldn`t have had a place for the south Indians.
“I don`t know who you are, whether you`re an Indian or you belong to some other nation. But you know the entire south India – there is Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra. There are black people all around. So if we were racists, why would we be living with these black people. You are denying us of our ancestory. You are denying us of our history. This is not good. We can be as good or as bad as any other human community,” Vijay said during a debate on Al Jazeera.
As soon as the video surfaced online, Vijay started trending on the social media.
Bureau Report
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