Kolkata, Nov 16 (PTI) Hitting out at the BJP, West Bengal minister Shashi Panja on Sunday said the statement made by MP minister Inder Singh Parmar on Raja Ram Mohan Roy showed that the party was trying to demean Bengal's intelligentsia.
Parmar, a BJP leader, triggered a row by calling social reformer Roy, an "agent of the British" who started a "vicious cycle of religious conversion". After facing outrage, he issued an apology, claiming it was a "slip of the tongue".
Panja said the women of the country know it is because of Roy that the 'Sati' system, in which women were immolated in the pyres of their deceased husbands, was abolished.
The senior TMC leader accused the BJP of trying to "demean" Bengal's people and intelligentsia in a bid to subdue the pride and the soul of the state.
"If the BJP wants to axe its own foot, it is free to do so; but it cannot insult Bengal," she said, claiming that the people of the state are watching the "attack on the pride of Bengal." Parmar, the higher education minister of MP, made the controversial comment during an event held in Agar Malwa district on the 150th birth anniversary of tribal icon Birsa Munda.
"Raja Ram Mohan Roy was a British agent. He worked in the country as their 'dalal', and started a vicious cycle of religious conversion," he said.
The British had projected several people as "fake social reformers" and promoted those who encouraged conversions, he claimed.
"If anyone had the courage to stop this and protect the tribal community, it was Birsa Munda," he said, adding that missionary schools were the only educational institutions during the British rule and education was used as a cover for religious conversion.
Following criticism, Parmar said, "Raja Ram Mohan Roy was a social reformer, and he should be respected. The sentence slipped out of my mouth by mistake, and I am very sad about it. I apologise for it." PTI AMR SOM
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BJP trying to demean Bengal's intelligentsia: TMC on MP minister's comments about Ram Mohan Roy
Kolkata, Nov 16 (PTI) Hitting out at the BJP, West Bengal minister Shashi Panja on Sunday said the statement made by MP minister Inder Singh Parmar on Raja Ram Mohan Roy showed that the party was trying to demean Bengal's intelligentsia.
Parmar, a BJP leader, triggered a row by calling social reformer Roy, an "agent of the British" who started a "vicious cycle of religious conversion". After facing outrage, he issued an apology, claiming it was a "slip of the tongue".
Panja said the women of the country know it is because of Roy that the 'Sati' system, in which women were immolated in the pyres of their deceased husbands, was abolished.
The senior TMC leader accused the BJP of trying to "demean" Bengal's people and intelligentsia in a bid to subdue the pride and the soul of the state.
"If the BJP wants to axe its own foot, it is free to do so; but it cannot insult Bengal," she said, claiming that the people of the state are watching the "attack on the pride of Bengal." Parmar, the higher education minister of MP, made the controversial comment during an event held in Agar Malwa district on the 150th birth anniversary of tribal icon Birsa Munda.
"Raja Ram Mohan Roy was a British agent. He worked in the country as their 'dalal', and started a vicious cycle of religious conversion," he said.
The British had projected several people as "fake social reformers" and promoted those who encouraged conversions, he claimed.
"If anyone had the courage to stop this and protect the tribal community, it was Birsa Munda," he said, adding that missionary schools were the only educational institutions during the British rule and education was used as a cover for religious conversion.
Following criticism, Parmar said, "Raja Ram Mohan Roy was a social reformer, and he should be respected. The sentence slipped out of my mouth by mistake, and I am very sad about it. I apologise for it." PTI AMR SOM