New Delhi: Three-time National award-winning actor Naseeruddin Shah on Friday took potshots at ‘A Wednesday’ co-star Anupam Kher over latter’s fight for the rights of Kashmiri Pandits.
"A person who has never lived in Kashmir has started a fight for Kashmiri Pandits. Suddenly, he became a displaced person," Shah said on Friday, referring to Kher’s ‘vocal fight’ about Kashmiri Pandits, especially their rehabilitation in the Valley.
Kher, a Kashmiri Pandit, was very quick to reply Shah. He tweeted: "Shah Saab ki Jai Ho. By that logic NRI's should not think about India at all."
Kher, who was recently honoured with Padma Bhushan by the Government of India, has been fighting for the repatriation of Kashmiri Pandits from last 2 decades. The issue was reignited after the BJP-PDP formed government in the border state.
The actor had also said that he would press for the passage of the Kashmiri Hindu Shrines and Religious Places (Management and Regulation) Bill, also known as the temple bill.
There are about 62,000 registered Kashmiri Pandit families in the country, who migrated from the Valley due to the onset of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir in the early 1990s. About 40,000 registered Kashmiri migrant families are living in Jammu, around 20,000 in Delhi-NCR and about 2,000 families are settled in other parts of the country.
Naseeruddin Shah, who was in the national capital yesterday, further said that citizens of the country should give more time to the government before making any perceptions about it.
The veteran actor also said that he feels a bit worried by the ‘changes made in few textbooks’. He, however, said that the government is not ‘stupid’ enough to turn the nation towards ‘dark ages’.
"People are taking decisions and making perceptions too fast. I think we should give the government more time. But, there are few things which make me concerned, like the kind of alterations in the text books those are the things to worry about," Shah said.
"I believe the people in the government are not stupid to understand the choices in front of them, either to build a modern India or to take us back into the dark ages. I think they are not stupid to take the second choice. Not for anything else but to at least be in power. I am not leaving the hope. If we will leave the hope it means we have lost the battle," Shah added.
Shah also supported lyricist Javed Akhtar's statements during his farewell speech in Rajya Sabha that ‘it is his right to say 'Vande Mataram' and 'Bharat Mata’ and that nobody has the right to question a person's love for their motherland’.
"I am sad that statements like these (referring to AIMIM MP Asaddudin Owaisi) are made and then they are not even condemned. Like Javed sahab said, 'It is his right to say 'Vande Mataram' and 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai'. I will say it with my choice not because somebody asks me to,' I support him. Nobody has a right to question my love for my country," he said.
AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi had stoked a controversy after he refused to chant ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ saying he is not obliged to do so by Constitution. Prior to Owaisi’s statement that stoked a debate, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat had said the youth should be taught patriotic slogans.
