Amitabh Bachchan has responded to by Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and the Shiv Sena about his alleged lack of contribution towards Mumbai and Maharashtra.Breaking his silence Bachchan spoke to Mumbai Mirror:
“I am not leaving this city and going anywhere. Let them chuck a thousand bottles. Let them burn my effigies and conduct morchas in front of my house. Let them blacken my film posters and stop screening of my films. Let them attack me with stones and laathis or whatever else is there in their arsenal. Let them abuse me in the print and electronic media. Let them implicate me in false cases. I am not budging!”
“I am not an outsider by any stretch of imagination. This land is my land as much as it is of every other citizen of our beloved country. I came to Mumbai in 1968 to pursue a vocation. I did not need a visa to come here. I have made this city my home for the last 40 years. I bought my first car here, and my own house. I met and married my wife in this city and both my children were born here. Both my children were married in this city from that same house. My two grandchildren were born in this city. My father and my mother spent their last years in Mumbai and died here. They were put to flames here and their ashes have mingled with the earth of this city. This city gave me name and fame beyond anything that I may have deserved or hoped for.”
“I shall do what I want to do and what I feel needs to be done; whether it is in Maharashtra or UP or Bihar or Punjab or Bengal or Tamil Nadu or any part of the country. The people of this country have loved and given unbounded affection to my family and me. I am equal in the eyes of the entire nation and no one should stipulate what I must do or not. My sense of fairness and fortitude is not up for scrutiny. Every individual in a free society has the freedom of expression and speech. And I honour and respect that. But those that question me and my deeds or non-deeds need to know a simple fact: I am a public figure, not a public official. I am not a democratically elected representative of the people, neither do I hold any public office. I am answerable ONLY to three C’s... courts, constitution and conscience. Nothing and no one shall find a place, even remotely, into these honourable portals.”
“People have the right to question me, as they do and must. But they do not have the right to demand proof for any activity of mine, particularly when they themselves are not eligible for such a misguided, heedless and a totally inappropriate task.”
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