The Congress on Wednesday distanced itself from remarks made by its overseas unit chief Sam Pitroda on India’s diversity, labelling them as “unfortunate and unacceptable”.
In an interview with The Statesman on Thursday, Pitroda said that India had survived for 75 years in “a very happy environment where people could live together, leaving aside a few fights here and there”.
“We could hold a country together as diverse as India, where people on the east look like Chinese, people on the West look like Arab, people on the North look like white and maybe people on the South look like Africans,” the Indian Overseas Congress chairman remarked.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, responding to Pitroda’s remarks on social media, said that the Opposition party “rejects these analogies”.
Ramesh’s clarification came amid criticism from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that Pitroda’s comments were “completely racist and very disgusting”.
Modi, speaking at a rally in Telangana’s Warangal district, referred to Pitroda as Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s “philosopher”.
“Today, the shehzada’s philosopher has hurled such an abuse that it has filled me with anger,” Modi said. The prime minister has repeatedly referred to Gandhi as the shehzada, or the prince, of the Congress.
“Can we decide a person’s merit based on skin colour?” Modi asked. “Who permitted the shehzada to look down on my people like that? We will not accept this racist mentality.”
Earlier in the day, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that India was a diverse country. “Sam [Pitroda] bhai, I am from the North East and I look like an Indian,” he said. “We may look different but we are all one,” he said.
Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar alleged that Gandhi had been “taught to divide up and see India by his tutor and mentor Sam Pitroda”.
Finance minister Niramala Sitharaman also took to X to condemn Pitroda’s remarks.
Sitharaman wrote: “I am from South India. I look Indian! My team has enthusiastic members from north east India. They look Indian! My colleagues from west India look Indian! But, for [Pitroda] we all look African, Chinese, Arab and the White! Thanks for revealing your mindset and your attitude.”
Last month, Pitroda had triggered a controversy with his remarks on inheritance taxes in the United States. An inheritance tax is imposed on a person who inherits wealth or property from a person who has died.
“If one has 100 million USD [United States Dollar] worth of wealth and when he dies he can only transfer probably 45% to his children, 55% is grabbed by the government,” ANI quoted Pitroda as saying in an interview on April 24.
“That’s an interesting law. It says you in your generation, made wealth and you are leaving now, you must leave your wealth for the public, not all of it, half of it, which to me sounds fair.”
Hours later, Modi claimed that the Congress intends to snatch away the private assets and rights of people’s children and said that Pitroda’s comments had exposed the “dangerous” intentions of the party.
In response, Ramesh had clarified that the Congress did not have any plans to introduce an inheritance tax in India if it comes to power. Ramesh also cited news reports to claim that it was the ruling BJP that floated the idea of imposing an inheritance tax in India on a few occasions between 2014 and 2019.
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