Joining the growing chorus of protests against social activist Kancha Ilaiah over his book, TRS MLA Ganesh Bigala demanded that the writer withdraw the book, and apologise.
Bigala is an MLA from the Nizamabad Urban constituency.
Speaking to Sushil Rao from the Times of India, Bigala said, “I have asked the people of my community who approached me not to make a hero out of Kancha Ilaiah. He does not deserve the attention that he is seeking by writing ill about Vysyas. The book does not serve any purpose and is not in national interest. Why should it have been printed at all?"
Arya Vysya organisations have been holding protests in parts of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh seeking a ban on his book, "Samajika Smugglurlu Komatollu (Vysyas are social smugglers)".
“My demand is that he should withdraw his remarks against the community....(and) apologise for all that he has said against the community," Bigala told TOI.
After receiving several threatening phone calls for days, Kancha, a Dalit rights thinker, sought police protection last week, saying that he was facing a threat to his life.
He also addressed media persons on Tuesday, on the controversy over his book. Kancha said:
No matter how much I am threatened or intimidated, my brain will not be scared by bullets and violence. I will continue to write on Ambedkarite and Dalit issues as long as I live.
Stating that it was a research book on various communities, Ilaiah denied that he used any derogatory word.
"Social Smuggling is a phrase. It is the economic process of exploitation, which means earning in business but not investing back into society," he told reporters.
Kancha is presently the Director, Center for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy at Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) in Hyderabad.
Meanwhile, protestors continued to burn his effigies and lodged police complaints against him, demanding a ban on the book.
(With inputs from IANS )
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