Pakistan Has Nuclear Bombs, India Should Respect Them: Mani Shankar Aiyar Triggers Controversy

Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar has triggered a controversy after warning India should respect Pakistan as it has a "nuclear bomb".

In an interview, Aiyar urged India to respect Pakistan as they have an atom bomb. He said, "Pakistan is also a sovereign country and it is also respected. While maintaining that respect, talk as harshly as you want, but at least talk. But if you are roaming around with a gun in your hand, it will not provide any solution... it will just increase the tension. What will happen to the country if a mad person comes there? They have atom bombs."

He goes on to claim that Pakistan has "izzat" (respect) honour, saying it has nuclear weapons. He further argues that the Modi government's stance of avoiding dialogue with Pakistan is highly perilous, as it may provoke a 'mad leader' to retaliate by detonating their own nuclear arsenal within Lahore. He warns that if such an event were to occur, with an atom bomb exploding in Lahore due to the actions of a reckless leader, the radioactivity would swiftly reach Amritsar within minutes.

Aiyar stated, "Yes we also have a nuclear bomb. But some madman exploded a bomb in Lahore station. Its radioactive rays will reach Amritsar in 8 seconds. By placing such bombs you prevent them from using them. If you talk to Pakistan and start respecting it... our neighbour will not think about the bomb. But if you reject them then if some madman comes there he will take out a bomb."

Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Aiyar stated, "In order to become the vishwaguru, no matter how serious our issues with Pakistan are, we have to show that we are working hard to resolve them. But in the last 10 years, there has been no hard work [to this end]."

However, he had made these claims in the three-week-old interview and the clip went viral only now.

It comes at a time when the BJP has attacked the Congress over Sam Pitroda's racial comments.

On a podcast, he cited ethnic and racial identities like Chinese, Africans, Arabs and Whites to describe the physical appearance of Indians from different parts of the country.

"We could hold a country as diverse as India together. Where people in the east look like the Chinese, people in the west look like the Arabs, people in the north look like, maybe, white and people in the south look like Africans." "It does not matter. All of us are brothers and sisters. We respect different languages, different religions, different customs, different food," he said.

However, the Congress distanced itself from the remarks.