CHARGE: The veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah has charged Narendra Modi with being a hate-mongor.

By Karan Thapar

Veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah has openly charged that Narendra Modi and the IT cell of the BJP party are deliberately engaging in hate speeches to spread fear and terror.

One of India’s most accomplished and thoughtful actors, Naseeruddin Shah, says of the hate speech proliferating right across the country that Prime Minister Modi “is complicit by his silence”.
Shah says of the Prime Minister: “It is his duty to speak up, it is his job to protect all of us”. He adds: “The government’s silence is puzzling…it signifies silent assent”.
In a 34-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Naseeruddin Shah spoke about a range of issues that have been in the news recently. They include the information and broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur’s boast that “India has everything that any developed nation in the world has”, external affairs minister Jaishankar’s criticism that the West “has a bad habit of commenting on others … if (they) keep doing this other people will also start commenting and they will not like it when it happens” as well as the Prime Minister’s claim, made most recently at President Biden’s Summit of Democracies, that India is “the mother of democracy”.
Speaking about hate speech, Shah said this is not new and Indians have been prone to such irresponsible loose talk for decades if not generations. He said, “It was always there, always embryonic, always waiting to burst into bloom”. Shah added, “The present regime has legitimised it”.
In a 34-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Naseeruddin Shah spoke about a range of issues that have been in the news recently. They include the information and broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur’s boast that “India has everything that any developed nation in the world has”, external affairs minister Jaishankar’s criticism that the West “has a bad habit of commenting on others … if (they) keep doing this other people will also start commenting and they will not like it when it happens” as well as the Prime Minister’s claim, made most recently at President Biden’s Summit of Democracies, that India is “the mother of democracy”.
Speaking about hate speech, Shah said this is not new and Indians have been prone to such irresponsible loose talk for decades if not generations. He said, “It was always there, always embryonic, always waiting to burst into bloom”. Shah added, “The present regime has legitimised it”.
Speaking about Modi’s boast that India is the mother of democracy, Shah calls the situation in India “an undeclared emergency”. He says, “We cannot boast about being a democracy unless all of us as citizens realise our responsibility and stop spreading poison and encouraging hatred and violence”.
Very rarely do film stars speak so candidly but so readily about the political situation in the country, the government, the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers as well as about ourselves i.e. the Indian people.
Courtesy: The Wire