Intolerance row: Indians ‘oversensitive’ on certain issues, says Kajol

On certain issues Indians are “over-sensitive”, actor Kajol said on Saturday at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2016. Speaking at a press conference to release best-seller author Ashwin Sanghi’s latest book The Sialkot Saga, Kajol responded to a question on what she thought about the “intolerance debate”. “There is a certain sensitivity in the country today,” she said.

“Yes, we are over-sensitive but at the same time I think that as public personality, it is credit to our intelligence, we speak well and speak correctly,” she added.

Kajol responded to questions on “intolerance” after reporters kept on asking for her comments repeatedly. At first, she evaded the questions saying that in a literary festival the focus should be on books and their authors.

The Jaipur Literature Festival 2016 has witnessed a range of comments on “intolerance in the country”, in the last two days. Film director Karan Johar had said on Thursday that “the talk about freedom of expression is the biggest joke I believe in the world”, adding that democracy was the “second biggest joke”.

Read: Freedom of expression is the biggest joke in the world: Karan Johar

“I really wonder how are we really democratic? How is there freedom of expression? As a filmmaker, I feel bound at every level be it what I put out on celluloid or what I say in print,” he added. In his conversation with Poonam Saxena who has penned his biography An Unsuitable Boy and author-columnist Shobhaa De, Johar said he felt he was living in a “tough country” where speaking about one’s personal life can land people behind the bars.

Recently Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan found themselves in a controversy for speaking up against the “growing intolerance” in the country. Johar who has made films on issues such as homosexuality (Dostana) and relationships outside wedlock (Kabhi Alvida Na Kehana), said, “I feel like there is always some kind of a legal notice awaiting me everywhere I go.”

Read: JLF 2016: If I want to eat beef I will, says Barkha Dutt

“I’ve become some kind of an FIR king,” Johar said referring to the controversy over the AIB roast, staged in Mumbai in 2015 which involved the western concept of insult comedy.

On Friday, senior journalist Barkha Dutt said that murder of Mohammad Ikhlaq and the suicide of a Dalit student in Hyderabad were “inflection points” in the contemporary history of India.

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