Rijiju all wrong about North Indians? Minister gets flak and support

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has slammed Union minister Kiren Rijiju’s statement that North Indians enjoy breaking rules, saying he should not divide Indians and it is politics that needs to improve. But more than 60% of HT readers agree with the minister’s view.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has slammed Union minister Kiren Rijiju’s statement that North Indians enjoy breaking rules, saying he should not divide Indians and it is politics that needs to improve. But more than 60% of HT readers agree with the minister’s view.

Kiren Rijiju had agreed with the statement of a former Lt Governor of Delhi who had once remarked that north Indians “take pride in and enjoy” breaking rules (Reuters Photo)

Rijiju’s comment on Wednesday came at the inauguration event of two police think tanks in New Delhi, where he defended the men in uniform for being rude because people aren’t disciplined.

“I was witness to a statement made by one of the Lt Governor’s of Delhi some years back. He had stated that people of north India enjoy breaking the rules and by evening he was forced to apologise. But I believe what he said was right,” said the minister of state for home.

Read | North Indians enjoy breaking rules, boast about it: Kiren Rijiju

The comment created a storm on social media with the response being divided. While some agreed with the minister, stating they had experienced this themselves, while other decried the statement for negatively stereotyping all North Indians.

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was one of the people who took to Twitter to respond. He slammed Rijiju’s comments, saying he should not divide Indians and it is politics that needs to improve.

“Rijiju ji, pl don’t divide Indians into North n south Indians, Hindus n muslims. All Indians r good. It is politics that we need to improve,” Kejriwal wrote on Twitter.

Various other people on Twitter took opposing stands on the issue, with some users even criticising Arvind Kejriwal’s statement.

HT readers’ response

On the other hand, almost 70% of HT readers agreed with Rijiju’s comment.

HT had asked its readers in a poll, “Is Kiren Rijiju completely wrong in saying ‘North Indians enjoy breaking rules’?”

Of the 1,033 votes polled till 12 noon on Thursday, 68.25% respondents said the minister is totally correct while 20.52% people said that he is somewhat correct.

Only 10.07% of respondents said that Rijiju is totally wrong and 1.16% opted for ‘Don’t know / can’t say’ option.