Siding with actor Aamir Khan, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Tuesday said that the former's statement was taken out of context and added that it was in no way hostile to the government.
"Sometimes, statements can be taken out of context. If you look at the overall context of what he was saying, it was in no way hostile to the government, it was simply hostile to the kind of climate that we have seen rising in this country," he said.
Tharoor said the actor, who commands a great national audience because of his stature and great work, has voiced his opinion in a very responsible way.
"You cannot reduce Aamir Khan and like that before Shahrukh Khan to one community. They are speaking as individuals who have shown over the years the tremendous concern and patriotism for the country," he added.
Tharoor also reached out to political parties and leaders, asking them not to use polarisation as a political tactic.
"The Bihar elections were clearly one more opportunity for the ruling party to promote gender polarisation. And that polarisation really absolutely has to stop as a political tactic because one cannot demonise a particular community without having repercussions throughout the country," he said.
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"It is extremely important that the political parties and responsible leaders should drop this idea, should abjure this idea as a political tactic. They should make everybody feel secure," he added.
Speaking at the eighth edition of the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards, Aamir had yesterday expressed alarm and despondency over the rise in cases displaying intolerance in the last six to eight months.
He had said that a sense a sense of 'insecurity' and 'fear' had seeped deep within society.
"When I go home and talk to Kiran (Aamir's wife), for the first time she says, 'Should we move out of India?'" Khan said.
