Shudras ‘Feel Bad’ About Being Called Shudras Because They Are ‘Ignorant’: BJP’s Pragya Thakur

Thakur also propagated a discriminatory population control policy for the country, saying it should apply only to “anti-nationals” and not those who “live for the country”.

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party MP Pragya Singh Thakur said recently that Shudras “feel bad” when they are called Shudras because they are “ignorant” about the caste system.

“Kshatriya ko kshatriya keh do, bura nahin lagta. Brahmin ko brahmin keh do, bura nahin lagta. Vaishya ko Vaishya keh do, bura nahin lagta. Shudra ko shudra keh do, bura lag jata hai. Kaaran kya hai? Kyunki na-samjhi, samajh nahi paate (If you call a kshatriya a kshatriya, they don’t feel bad; call a brahmin a brahmin, they don’t feel bad; call a vaishya a vaishya, they don’t feel bad. But if you call a shudra a shudra, they feel bad. Why is this so? Because of ignorance, they are unable to understand),” she said.

Addressing the Kshatriya Mahasabha, Thakur further insisted that people should work in professions based on their caste when she said, “Today’s kshatriya  need to understand their duties and produce more and more children to induct them into the Armed Forces so that they can fight for the nation and strengthen its security.”

The BJP MP also said caste-based affirmative action as laid out in the constitution should be cancelled, and “reservation should be on the basis of economic background to benefit the poor, enabling them to live a better life not on caste lines”.

Thakur also propagated a discriminatory population control policy for the country, saying it should apply only to “anti-nationals” and not those who “live for the country”. She branded the farmers currently protesting the Centre’s new farm laws as “anti-nationals”.

“Those who have been protesting in the name of farmers are anti-nationals. They are not farmers, but Congressmen and Leftists in the garb of farmers and raising their voices against the country and spreading misinformation, the way they did during the Shaheen Bagh protest [in Delhi against the Citizenship Amendment Act],” Thakur said.

Also read: Pragya Thakur: BJP’s Original Sin Was to Make Her an MP

While Thakur’s office told the Indian Express that Akhil Bharatiya Kshatriya Mahasabha had organised the event Thakur was speaking at, members of the organisation said Thakur’s “own people” had organised it. “The establishment day will be commemorated on December 27 and a gathering will be held in Gwalior,” national president Surendra Singh Tomar told the newspaper.

The BJP MP makes headlines on a regular basis for her controversial remarks, and has had to apologise after backlash on more than one occasion. Before the 2019 general elections, she said decorated Mumbai ATS chief Hemant Karkare, killed during the 26/11 attacks, died because of her “curse”. Karkare had investigated charges levied against Thakur in the 2008 blasts in Malegaon. She later had to apologise for this remark.

Soon after, she called Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin, Nathuram Godse, a “patriot”. The BJP removed her from the consultative committee on defence after this, and Thakur had to apologise twice in parliament after the opposition rejected her first apology.

She also previously claimed that drinking gau mutra (cow urine) cured her cancer, despite actually having undergone a mastectomy.