CHENNAI, Sep 16: On the Sanatan Dharma row, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today said DMK leader Udhayanidhi Stalin should speak realising his responsibility as a state Minister.
Despite witnessing insult to Lord Rama in Tamil Nadu in 1971, Sanatan Dharma did not respond with violence, she said.
Speaking to reporters here, the Finance Minister said: “No one has the right to say that he will eradicate a religion and in particular a minister has no such right at all.” The oath a person takes before assuming the office of a minister makes that very clear.
To make such a statement in public is most wrong and Udhayanidhi claiming now that he did not give a call for Sanatan Dharma’s eradication is not appropriate. “The media has record (footage of the event). What did he say? He said he was happy that the meet is about eradication of Sanatan and not opposition,” Sitharaman said. Everyone has a right and they may express their views. However, after becoming a minister a person should speak keeping in mind his responsibilities, she underscored.
The debate on Sanatan was started by Minister Udhayanidhi, belonging to the DMK, an INDIA bloc constituent and did he initiate that debate eyeing the election (2024 Lok Sabha election)? She wondered.
She was answering a question related to criticism by Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi leader Thol Thirumavalavan that the BJP was indulging in Sanatan debate considering polls. “We did not start the debate, it is you who began it.”
She strongly criticised Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Minister P K Sekar Babu for being on the dais of the September 2 conference that sought eradication of Sanatan Dharma.
The Finance Minister said it is wrong to use words that may incite violence or words that have connotations of violence.
Ever since the nation adopted the Constitution following independence, the onus is on avoiding use of language that may instigate violence.
The Constitution was adopted by the Constituent Assembly in 1949 and it came into force on January 26, 1950.
Sitharaman said only whatever is needed to prevent hatred should be done. Referring to Udhayanidhi’s comment that his party would talk on Sanatan Dharma for a 100 years, she said, “you may talk and only talk.” No one may, however, indulge in violent acts and nobody should speak anything that could stoke violence, she asserted.
The Union Minister said she grew up in a Tamil Nadu where a garland of sandals was flung on Lord Rama’s portrait and a procession was taken out. Even now, she said she had great anguish about it and recalled that event now with pain. “I saw that procession in front of my eyes.”
Still, it was Sanatan Dharma that did not respond with violence to even that. “That is Sanatan Dharma. We did not do anything like an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth despite insult and provocation.”
She wondered whether there are not any unacceptable practices in any other religion like those against women and asked if anyone has the “courage and spine” to question them.
In case, some other religion had been targeted in such a manner, “you know what would have happened.” Sanatan Dharma has “described” atheists, she said, apparently hinting at space for them within the broader framework of the religion and the way of life it stood for.
Hence, non-believers within the Sanatan Dharma is nothing new. To a question on a Uttar Pradesh seer announcing a Rs 10 crore cash reward for “Udhayanidhi’s head,” she shot back, “when I say that there must not be violence at all, how will I say that it is correct?
Referring to the brutal murder of a tailor in Rajasthan last year, she asked whether the media would pose questions related to that. “Will you ask? you should, violence is not the answer to violence; I firmly believe that.” (PTI)
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