Mumbai: Actor and BJP MP Kangana Ranaut has hit back at critics over her controversial remarks about Gen Z protesters.
Addressing the backlash, she claimed that more than half of those gathered at Jantar Mantar were around veteran actress Shabana Azmi’s age and questioned how the demonstration could be described as a “Gen Z protest.”
On Thursday, Kangana took to her Instagram Stories to share a video defending her statement.
She said, “Poore desh ke yuva? Agar aap sirf Gen Z ki baat karte hai, toh almost 30-35 crore ke paas inki population hone waali hai. Jo Jantar Mantar hai waha par 10,000 log ekhatta hue the jinme toh aadhey se jyada log toh Shabana Azmi-type log the, aapne dekha ki har type ke age group ghum rahe the. Agar hum yuvaon ki baat karte hain, Gen Z ki hum specifically baat karte hain toh lag bhag waha par 2000 Gen Z the, toh kaise ye log isko Gen Z protest keh rahe hai? Ki poore desh ki Gen Z protest kar rahe (The youth of this country? If you speak specifically about Gen Z, their population is expected to be around 30-35 crore. Around 10,000 people had gathered at Jantar Mantar, more than half of whom were people around Shabana Azmi’s age. You could see people from different age groups there. If we specifically talk about Gen Z, there were around 2,000 Gen Z people there. So how can this be called a Gen Z protest? As if the entire Gen Z of the country was protesting).”
She further added, “Ye jo yaha par nasal ikkathha hui thi, usi ke baare mein jo he maine specifically kaha tha. Main aapko open challenge deti hu, mera koi aisa specific quote bataiye jaha maine poori generation ko include kiya ho? Ye faltu ka agenda aap mere saath mat chalaiye! Main yuva-virodhi nahi ho sakti kyuki main khud yuva hoon (I was specifically referring to the group that had gathered there. I openly challenge you to show me a specific quote where I included the entire generation. Don’t push this useless agenda against me. I cannot be anti-youth because I am young myself).”
Veteran actor Shabana Azmi, 75, was among the thousands who took part in the march towards Parliament at Jantar Mantar on July 20.
She shared pictures and videos from the protest on Instagram, where she was seen travelling in a truck and crossing barricades alongside other protesters. She also shared a picture of herself with actor Prakash Raj during the march.
Meanwhile, Kangana had earlier criticised the Gen Z protests, saying, “Never in my life have I seen so much ugliness in one place. These reels from Gen Z protests are puke-inducing. The way they speak and the kind of language they are using… never in my life have I seen everything in each and every frame so jarring and so crass all at once…. I call them Generation Gutter. Some of them have nothing to offer to the system. They are not good at studies….”
Following the backlash, Kangana clarified that her remarks were not directed at everyone who took part in the Jantar Mantar protest over the NEET-UG paper leak, but were specifically aimed at “some people or some women.”
“Those who call themselves cockroaches, and we say that cockroaches emerge from gutters, what is wrong with that? My point is simply this: if people label themselves as cockroaches, and we say the gutter is their home, why should they be offended? I certainly don’t consider myself a cockroach. If someone were to say I live in a gutter, I would deny it. But if someone claims to be a cockroach, then naturally, they would live in a gutter. Where else? But to claim that I was referring to all youth is simply not the case,” she was quoted as saying by ANI.