Former BJP MP and editor of RSS weekly Panchajanya, Tarun Vijay, has apologized for a racist statement he made at a panel discussion on whether India’s attack on Africans in Delhi were racist and xenophobic.
Vijay, the president of the India-Africa Parliamentary Friendship Group, was on a panel-discussion on Al Jazeera English, connected via Skype. The debate was nuanced and orderly until Vijay tried to respond to a panelist who was waving a passport to assert he was Indian.
The 56-year old said: “If we were racist, why would (we) have the entire south (India)which is completely… you know Tamil(s), you (know people from) Kerala, you know Karnataka and people from Andhra. Why do we live with them? We have black people around us. You are denying your own nation, your own history, your ancestory. You are denying your culture…”
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Tarun Vijay later tweeted an apology.
The former MP’s statement comes at a time when African students are speaking about the need to dismantle the existing stereotypes associated with them.
Here is the video:
Vijay's statement could probably be a case of him not being able to articulate his thoughts on the issue accurately. He probably has done more to popularise the work of Thiruvallur than any other North-Indian.
In March, Vijay was felicitated by students of the Sri Sivasubramaniya Nadar Engineering College with a Thiruvallavur award. He is the first North-Indian and Hindi-speaking member of the RSS to be given the honour.
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"It's not just enough to project Asoka and Vikramaditya and the Mughals while completely ignoring the mightiest empires of Cholas, Chera, Pandyas and Krshnadev Rayas," he said while receiving the award.
Over the past two weeks, there have been multiple instances of attacks of a racist nature on students from Africa in the Delhi-NCR region, generating a lot of angst within the community who have since come out and condemned the ‘stereotyping’.
