Tripura Governor Tathagata Roy courted controversy after tweeting a diary entry by Bharatiya Jana Sangh’s founder Syama Prasad Mookerjee that said “The Hindu-Muslim problem won’t be solved without a Civil War.”
On June 18, Roy tweeted, “Syama Prasad Mookerjee wrote in his diary on 10/1/1946: “The Hindu-Muslim problem won’t b solved without a Civil War”. So much like Lincoln!”
This soon invited sharp reactions on Twitter with some even accusing him of instigating communal violence calling for his sacking and arrest.
This is not the first time Roy, who identifies himself on the twitter profile as a “Hindu” and a “Swayamsevak” among his other professional qualifications, has courted controversy.
In August 2015, in one of his tweets, he had described people who had attended Mumbai blast convict Yakub Memon’s funeral as “potential terrorists” and said “they ought to be kept under surveillance.”
On March 23, he tweeted: “One exception (to Hindus running away) was Gujarat, 2002. I’m glad you appreciate what the Hindus did then,” says a report in The Indian Express.
The sharp reactions on Twitter on his ‘civil war’ tweet later forced Roy to put out another tweet saying that he was quoting Mookerjee and not advocating (what he said).
“Instantly couple of dozen dimwits” trolled him for “advocating a civil war”, and that “I was quoting, not advocating,” he tweeted.
In another tweet, he said, “I was quoting a diary of 70 years back, pre-partition India. And it was prophetic. Because Jinnah unleashed that civil war 7 months later. And Jinnah won that civil war and got his Pakistan. That is ALSO something Dr Mookerjee predicted.”
