In bizarre comments on how to keep Hindu girls ‘safe’, Union Minister Ananth Kumar Hegde on Sunday said in Karnataka’s Kodagu that if a hand had touched a Hindu girl, that hand should not exist.
Hindustan Times reported that the minister made the comments while speaking at a function in Madapura in the Somwarpet taluk of Kodaugu district.
Hegde said, “We have to rethink about priorities of our society. We shouldn’t think of caste. If a Hindu girl is touched by a hand, then that hand should not exist.”
The Indian Express quoted Hegde as saying, “We must observe the happenings in the society around us in its entirety. We must observe who is running away with whom and which community is involved.”
The minister also made bizarre remarks on the Taj Mahal and the Qutub Minar. He claimed that the Taj Mahal was actually a Shiva temple and the Qutub Minar, located in Delhi, was a Jain temple.
NDTV quoted Hegde as saying, “Taj Mahal was not built by Muslims. It’s definitely not built by Muslims, the history speaks for it. Shah Jahan in his autobiography has said he bought this palace from King Jayasimha. It’s a Shiv mandir built by King Paramatheertha, Tejo Mahalaya. Tejo Mahalaya became Taj Mahal. If we keep sleeping, most of our houses also will be named manzil. In future, Lord Ram will be called jahanpana and Sita will become bibi.”
Hedge claimed that for the past 70 years the governments had lied to us that the Qutub Minar was built by Qutub-ud-din Aibak. According to the report in Hindustan Times, Hegde said, “If you go to that compound, you will see a board by the Archaeological Survey of India, not the Hindu Jagarana Vedike, Vishwa Hindu Parishad or RSS. It is clearly written on that board that it was a complex of temples dedicated to 24 stars, of Jain temples, and this was destroyed by Muslim invaders.”
Hegde is known for his absurd take on several issues including women’s entry into Sabarimala. “The Kerala government has entirely failed. I would like to say that it’s totally daylight rape on Hindu people,” Hegde had said earlier this month.
In 2017 he had said that the BJP would change change the Constitution of India to remove the word ‘secular’.