Maharashtra BJP MLA demands apology from Javed Akhtar for comparing RSS to Taliban

Tribune Web Desk
Chandigarh, September 5

A Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Maharashtra has demanded an apology from celebrated poet Javed Akhtar for having compared the Rashtriya Swayemsevak Sangh to the Taliban.

Ram Kadam, a member of Maharashtra legislative assembly from Ghatkopar West, took objection to a byte that the poet-lyricist gave to NDTV. Akhtar had said in the interview that all right-wing groups across the world wanted the same things.

"Like the Taliban want an Islamic State, there are those who want a Hindu Rashtra. These people are of the same mindset —be it Muslim, Christian, Jews or Hindus," Akhtar, a former Member of Parliament, had said.

Kadam said in a video that unless he apologised for his remarks, he and his supporters would not allow any of his movies to get a release in this “Ma Bharti” (motherland) until he apologised with “folded hands to crores of supporters and workers of the Sangh”.

“The fact that he was able to say such things without fear of reprisal shows how false they truly are. Could he have made such statements had the RSS been like the Taliban,” Kadam said in videos he made in Marathi and Hindi.

"This statement by Javed Akhtar is not just shameful, but also painful and humiliating to crores of functionaries of the Sangh and the Vishva Hindu Parishad and also crores of people across the world that follow their ideology," Kadam said in a video message that he also shared on Twitter.