Sonu Nigam clarifies his ‘Azaan’ remarks, says he is against any form of religious enforcement

Two days after his remarks on ‘Azaan’ landed him amid controversies, Sonu Nigam has now spoken up. Today afternoon, he called for a press conference at his Versova residence and clarified what he had tweeted earlier. While he sticks to his opinion, Sonu clearly states that he is against any religion being enforced on another.

His tweets were after an early morning Azaan (the call for prayer at the Mosque for Muslims) woke him up. He not only questioned why he being a non-Muslim had to wake up with Azaan, but also asked how valid is it to use loudspeakers in religious institutions. But a specific tweet that invited burning reactions was where he wrote, “Gundagardi hai bas”.

“Tweets have a limitation of characters. You can’t write an entire essay on Tweet. I wrote it part by part. I wrote quite a few things before writing “Gundagardi Hai”. But you people chose to overlook it comfortably.  I also wrote that I am equally against temples and gurudwaras who use electricity and gurudwaras to wake the people up from their sleep who don’t follow the religion,” the singer said, while interacting with the press. (Also Read: Mika Singh tweets to Sonu Nigam, says the latter should change his house)

“I can never go outside a Muslim’s house and sing ‘Hare Ram’ because I know he won’t enjoy. What means prayer to me, doesn’t mean prayer to him. I simply asked, can’t we be little considerate to each other? This doesn’t happen in world’s biggest countries. You want to become America? It doesn’t happen there. You want to become Australia? It doesn’t happen there,” he added.

Looks like his remarks were widely misinterpreted, and undoubtedly attracted a lot of flak as well.

We all have the freedom to express ourselves, without being imposing on an individual with different ideologies. Agreed!

Ranjini Maitra

Journalist. Writer. Reader. Enthu cutlet. Mood-swing machine. Day dreamer. Sandwiched between ‘live life fully’ and ‘lose some weight’. Mantra of life: Love and love more.