RSS-Taliban comment: Security beefed up outside Javed Akhtar's house over the controversy

Mumbai, Sep 6: Following the controversy around Javed Akhtar's remarks on the RSS, security has been beefed up around his house in Mumbai on Monday, 6 September.

The Mumbai police have deployed adequate personnel, including a few women constables outside Javed Akhtar's residence near the ISKON temple in Juhu, the officials said.

The noted writer and lyricist had compared the RSS with the Taliban without taking its name in a recent interview with a TV channel. "The Taliban want an Islamic country. These people want to make a Hindu Rashtra," Akhtar said without naming the right-wing organisation. Thus creating a controversy.

The BJP was quick to slam Javed Akhtar's remarks. Local BJP leader Ram Kadam threatened that his films would not be allowed to release till he apologises with folded hands for his comments to the Sangh Parivar.

"Before making these remarks, he should have thought that people with the same ideology [as RSS] are running the [Union] government now and are fulfilling raj dharma [duty of governance]," Kadam, MLA from Ghatkopar West constituency in the Maharashtra assembly, is quoted as saying.

A few other leaders from the BJP condemned the writer's comment and stated that Akhtar should be sent to Afghanistan.

Even the ruling Shiv Sena took objections to Javed Akhtar's remark. "Even though Javed Akhtar is a secular man and speaks against fundamentalism, he is completely wrong in comparing the RSS with the Taliban," the Sena said in the party's editorial 'Saamana'.

"The partition which led to the creation of Pakistan was based on religion. Those who support a Hindu nation only want that the majority Hindus shouldn't be sidelined. Hindutva is a culture and people of the community demand the right to stop those who attack this culture," the Sena edit claimed.

The Shiv Sena's mouthpiece further claimed that comparing Hindutva with the Taliban is an insult to the Hindu culture. "Despite being a Hindu majority country, we have raised the flag of secularism. The proponents of Hindutva only want that Hindus shouldn't be sidelined," it said. "You can have differences with the RSS, but to call their philosophy Talibani is completely wrong," it added.