Makkal Needhi Maiam chief Kamal Haasan has said that he stands by his comment on Nathuram Godse and that he only reiterated what was there in history. He said he was "not intimidated" by the backlash over his comment that Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse, "independent India's first extremist", was a Hindu.
"Terrorists abound in all religions. Around history, you can list many people from many religions. I was talking in that term. I said every religion has their own terrorist. You cannot claim that we are sanctimonious," Kamal Haasan added. He said it was ignorance that made Mughals give the name ‘Hindu’ to the nation. In a tweet, Haasan said the 12 Alwars (Vaishnavite poet-saints) or the 63 Nayanmars (Saivaite poet-saints) did not mention the word Hindu.
“When we have various identities, it is ignorance to have a title given by a foreigner as a religion,” he added.
