Popular South actress Sai Pallavi has joined the debate around communal violence in the country and compared the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits with that of Muslim men being beaten up by cow vigilantes.
During a recent interview, speaking on violence in the name of religion, she sparked a row on the internet with several Hindutva supporters accusing her of trivialising the Kashmiri Pandit exodus. However, many others came out in her support as well.
During the promotions of her upcoming movie Virata Parvam on a YouTube channel, Pallavi drew comparison between the Kashmiri Pandit exodus and beating Muslims for transporting cows.
In one comment, she said, “Some days ago, this movie The Kashmir Files was released. In that, they showed how Kashmiri Pandits living there at that time were killed. More recently, during Covid time....if you're taking it like a religious conflict, recently, a Muslim man who was transporting cows was stopped and beaten up and was forced to chant slogans of Jai Shri Ram. So what happened then, and what happened now, we can't see any difference.”
When quizzed about her political inclination, Pallavi said, “To answer your question, justice won’t be there either on the side of the right or the left, if you are not a good human being. I’m very neutral. So what I believe is if you are stronger than me, and you are oppressing me, then you are in the wrong. A large number of people oppressing a small group of people is wrong. A battle has to be fought between two equals.”
Published 15 June 2022, 16:06 IST