By Bisheshwar Mishra / AMN /
New Delhi: Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu today said in Rajya Sabha that he had a different take from his party on the raging issue of intolerance and many other issues. He admitted that there was “some amount” of intolerance in the society, which he said had to be identified and dealt with firmly, instead of generalising the issue.
He however hastened to add that this was his personal view and without referring to any particular incident, Naidu said that “people are making out of turn statements, should be condemned, isolated and disowned.” Chairman of Rajya Sabha Mohammad Ansari had allowed the Parliamentary Affairs Minister Naidu to speak just before the discussion on commitment to India’s Constitution as part of 125th birth anniversary of B R Ambedkar, was to be taken up for the second day on Monday.
“There is some amount of intolerance in the society, in different areas/. That has to be identified, it has to be localised, it has to be dealt with firmly. Instead of that, were are making it generalised,” he said referring to instances of killing of dalits and writers in certain states.
He said incidents have not happened overnight after Narendra Modi became Prime Minister. `”These things have been happening. Some people making out of turn statements, we have to condemn, we have to isolated them…. They have to be condemned and disowned,” Naidu said.
He also welcomed senior Congress leader P Chidembaram’s statement that banning of Salman Rushdie’s controversial novel. “The banning of the Satanic Verses was wrong.”
“Sir there are two things, one people writing the books, they should not affect the sentiments of the people, they should not arouse social tension, but at the same time, freedom of speech, people have got right. But there has to be a broad consensus about how do we go about it,” Naidu said.
He further pointed out that while banning Salman Rushdie’s book draws cheers, the same on a book on Shivaji draws protests, and added that “there are different angles that are coming to seek the ban.. There is the Hindu angle, the Muslim angle,” Hence he stressed “let there be a policy for banning book, or films.”
He said: “let us all be tolerant to each other and then tolerant to verdict of the people…Respecting the mandate of the people was the biggest form of tolerance.” Giving example, he said `x’ has been mandated to rule Tamil Nadu, `y’ mandated to rule West Bengal. “We have to respect it.” Similarly he pointed out that mandate of people of Bihar to is to Nitish Kumar with support of Lalu Prasad which has to be respected “There is no choice.”