Aamir Khan has finally spoken on the controversy that followed after his remark on "rising intolerance" in India.
Aamir was vehemently criticised when he said his wife Kiran Rao fears for her child in the current situation in India, which has prompted her to consider moving out of the nation.
The comments received strong reaction from all corners, and the actor was called ungrateful for calling "intolerant" a nation that made him the star that he is today.
However, Aamir has now said neither he nor his wife have any intention of leaving India, and he still stands by everything he said in the interaction.
Aamir opened up about the entire controversy and said people who making obscene comments on him are themselves proving his point. The actor took to Facebook and posted a statement on the entire controversy.
First let me state categorically that neither I, nor my wife Kiran, have any intention of leaving the country. We never did, and nor would we like to in the future. Anyone implying the opposite has either not seen my interview or is deliberately trying to distort what I have said. India is my country, I love it, I feel fortunate for being born here, and this is where I am staying.
Secondly, I stand by everything that I have said in my interview.
To all those people who are calling me anti-national, I would like to say that I am proud to be Indian, and I do not need anyone's permission nor endorsement for that.
To all the people shouting obscenities at me for speaking my heart out, it saddens me to say you are only proving my point.
To all the people who have stood by me, thank you. We have to protect what this beautiful and unique country of ours really stands for. We have to protect its integrity, diversity, inclusiveness, its many languages, its culture, its history, its tolerance, it's concept of anekantavada, it's love, sensitivity and its emotional strength.
I would like to end my statement with a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, it's a prayer really :
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high,
Where knowledge is free,
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments,
by narrow domestic walls,
Where words come out from the depth of truth,
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection,
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way,
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit,
Where the mind is led forward by thee,
Into ever-widening thought and action,
Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.Jai Hind.
Aamir Khan.
