First things first. I don’t support Richa Chadha’s ‘Galwan’ tweet. I feel if she had to criticize the government for its working, for which we all have a right, she could have done that without using a comment from a senior Indian Army personnel.

But it is blatant hypocrisy on the part of a few Hindi film celebrities to jump in and target Richa for her tweet and portray her as an anti-national or a big criminal of sorts. These are the same people who turn a blind eye when a fellow celeb who is a supporter of the current ruling party makes even worse comments.

The biggest example of this is Kangana Ranaut. Last year, she famously said, “The independence that India got in 1947 was bheek. We attained actual independence in 2014 (thereby indicating the rule of the current government).

I don’t need to spell out how problematic this comment is. In a single sentence, she has rubbished off our entire freedom struggle and thousands of freedom fighters who sacrificed their everything, including their lives, for the sunrise of freedom. And here is one public figure openly belittling the whole movement as some joke.

Some Hindi film stars openly lambasted Richa for her ‘Galwan’ tweet. But did they ever speak up against Kangana for the aforementioned comments? How can you be up in arms against one person for a three-word tweet but at the same time have no problems at all when someone else makes a comment of a much larger magnitude that rubbishes off the very movement that got India independence?  On top of that, Richa has deleted the tweet and also apologized for the same. Don’t even imagine Kangana doing the same.

The reason why Kangana’s comments faces no outrage from few of the same celebrities is because they all are the supporters of the same party. This also points out that for them it is always the party first, nation later. If it was otherwise, they would have slammed Kangana’s statements too. And she has made a big bunch of them. The one mentioned here is just one example.

The same goes for the general supporters of this party. They call themselves nationalists but they completely ignored Pragya Thakur’s comments when she hailed the death of Shaheed Vijay Salaskar at the hands of terrorists Ajmal Kasab and associates. Can you imagine what would have happened if someone from the opposition would have made the same statement?

Hence, only the party matters, nation doesn’t.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the writer in this article are independent and are not endorsed by the publication he works for