New Delhi: After floating his ‘theory’ negating Darwin's theory of evolution, BJP leader Satya Pal Singh declared in the Lok Sabha on Friday that he believed Indians were descendants of rishis (sages), rather than monkeys.
The statement – no surprise – elicited jeers and boos from the opposition benches, with lawmakers like Mahua Moitra and Kanimozhi wondering about what happened to "scientific temperament".
Satya Pal Singh, a former Mumbai police chief, was participating in a discussion on a proposed bill to amend the human rights law when he shared his brilliant insight.
"The Indian culture does not give importance to human rights and does not contain the concept of human rights workers. Our culture says we are the children of rishis.
I don't want to offend people who believe that we are children of monkeys but according to our culture we are children of rishis," said Singh, who was education minister in the previous BJP dispensation.
Among those who sprang to their feet were Mahua Moitra of the Trinamool Congress. But Singh was unfazed. "Only people who do not know the worth of human rights workers will interrupt me," Singh said.
He continued in the same vein, "Our culture says there's no need for human rights workers as we need to focus on being honest good righteous people. We need to treat people the way we want to be treated. We need to treat all humans with respect. This is the ideals of our culture."
The government, he said, was committed to protecting the human rights of those who deserved it.
Reacting to Singh's statement, DMK MP Kanimozhi said, "Unfortunately, my ancestors are not rishis. My ancestors are homo sapiens, as science says, and my parents are Shudras."
"They were not even born of any god, or part of any god. They were born outside and I am here and many people from my state are here because of the social justice movement and the human rights for which we are fighting even now," she added.
Continuing the debate, Singh shared his world vision and said that those who killed thousands of people, looted people in the name of religion, captured lands and countries later started rambling about human rights.
He said the history of the US, New Zealand and Europe, where thousands of people were killed in the name of religion, reinforces this thinking.
