Aamir stands by every word - 'Shouting brigade, you're only proving my point'

TT, The following is a statement issued by actor Aamir Khan on Wednesday:

First let me state categorically that neither I, nor my wife Kiran, have any intention of leaving the country. We never did, and nor would we like to in the future. Anyone implying the opposite has either not seen my interview or is deliberately trying to distort what I have said. India is my country, I love it, I feel fortunate for being born here, and this is where I am staying.

Secondly, I stand by everything that I have said in my interview. (On Monday at an event hosted by The Indian Express, Aamir had spoken on intolerance. The statement that drew the maximum attention was: "When I sit at home and talk to Kiran, she says, 'Should we move out of India?' That's a disastrous and big statement for Kiran to make. She fears for her child. She fears about what the atmosphere around us will be. She feels scared to open the newspapers every day.")

To all those people who are calling me anti-national, I would like to say that I am proud to be Indian, and I do not need anyone's permission nor endorsement for that. To all the people shouting obscenities at me for speaking my heart out, it saddens me to say you are only proving my point.

To all the people who have stood by me, thank you. We have to protect what this beautiful and unique country of ours really stands for. We have to protect its integrity, diversity, inclusiveness, its many languages, its culture, its history, its tolerance, its concept of ekantavada, its love, sensitivity and its emotional strength.

I would like to end my statement with a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, it's a prayer really:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high,

Where knowledge is free,

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments, by narrow domestic walls,

Where words come out from the depth of truth,

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection,

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way,

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit,

Where the mind is led forward by thee,

Into ever-widening thought and action,

Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.

Jai Hind.

Correction

In The Telegraph report published on Tuesday on Aamir Khan’s statement, it was mentioned that Union minister Arun Jaitley had walked out while the actor was in full flow and it was unclear whether the finance minister had a prior appointment. The phrase “walked out” was misleading and the appropriate word would have been “left”. We apologise for the mistake.