CHENNAI: Adding more fuel to his election campaign, MNM founder Kamal Haasan on Friday questioned the practice of calling people ‘Hindus’ “since the name was given by foreigners like Mughals and it was better to use the term ‘Indian’ than ‘Hindus’.”
“Neither the 12 Alwars (Vaishnavite saints) nor the 63 Nayanmars (Saivite saints) have called people Hindus. It was given by foreigners and the British rulers had seconded that name. It is highly ignorant to call ourselves Hindus or using it to denote our religion. Though the description ‘Indian’ is the recent one, it will last forever. It is commercially, politically and spiritually wrong to contract our vast country within a religion,” Kamal Haasan said in his tweet.
“For those who could not get my point, there is a saying in Tamil - ‘Koodi Vaazhnthal kodi nanmai’ (living unitedly will bear many a fruit).”
Charging that the Central and State governments have barred him from holding his concluding day campaign, Hassan said, ”By these acts, one cannot prevent the people from implementing this decision but only can delay a bit.”
Meanwhile, in another tweet, the MNM chief also released a video to conclude his campaign for the by-elections to the four Assembly constituencies.
Meanwhile, on Thursday night, Haasan said he had expressed similar views on the Godse issue 15 days ago on Marina. But then, there was no reaction to his remarks “but now those who had lost hope, had been reacting to this.”
Asked whether he had filed for anticipatory bail with the fear of getting arrested, the MNM founder said “I am not afraid of arrest. I want to do my concluding campaign which is important. My advice is - don’t arrest me because it will escalate the tension further.”
On the silence being maintained by his colleagues in the cinema industry, Haasan said, “Perhaps they might be having different views...it is a democratic country, you know?”