Kangana Ranaut argued that India’s “bheekh” in 1947 was only a semblance of freedom.
Kangana Ranaut, India’s most vocal supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was chastised on Thursday by BJP MP Varun Gandhi for claiming that India gained independence in 2014, when Modi took office, and that what it received in 1947, after decades of struggle by freedom fighters, was a “bheekh,” or handout.
“That was bheekh, not freedom,” Ms Ranaut can be heard saying in Hindi in a short video clip posted by Mr Gandhi, who has recently been voicing discordant notes that have earned him a censure or two from the party.
“Sometimes insulting Mahatma Gandhi’s sacrifice, sometimes praising his killer, and now disdain for the sacrifices of Mangal Pandey, Rani Laxmibai, Bhagat Singh,” Varun Gandhi tweeted in Hindi, referring to Gandhi’s assassination by the British. What are your thoughts? Is this treason or madness?
Varun Gandhi was expelled from his party’s National Executive a few weeks ago for his outspoken support for farmers protesting new federal laws in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
While Varun Gandhi, a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family, and his mother joined the BJP just months before the party lost power in 2004, they are thought to have fallen out of favour with the party’s leadership over time.
