We don’t know if Subramanian Swamy, economist, statistician and Bharatiya Janata Party leader, who serves as a Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha, has a compulsive foot-in-the-mouth syndrome or he really thinks about what he says. It is difficult to say, but one thing is for sure…he is some sort of a specialist when it comes to courting controversies. Everything he writes or says becomes news—not always good, at least for him.
If you can take his banter with a pinch of salt, they can seem rather humorous and induce some mirth while others will make any moderate person’s blood boil. Like, his recent comments on homosexuality. Just when Indian courts are talking about decriminalising gay sex, Swami called in unnatural, claiming that it was a ‘genetic flaw in the person and should not be allowed to be celebrated.’ He felt that allowing it and setting up of gay bars in India was the agenda of American investors. He even said that it needed a cure. Not to mention, he received enough backlash for this.
Here are some more of his careless and blasé remarks that created a flutter and made Subramanian Swamy a subject for trolls, while also causing national uproars.
- A known Congress basher, his vitriolic tirades against Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi have been legendary, often out of taste. One of them was when Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal urged all those who had accused 70 per cent of the Punjabis of being drug addicts to take a dope test themselves. To this, Swamy, with his characteristic smirk, said, ‘Rahul Gandhi certainly takes narcotics, especially cocaine. He will surely fail a dope test.”
- He has also, time and again, raised questions about Rahul Gandhi’s educational qualification. Subramanian Swamy believes that Rahul’s Oxford and Harvard University degrees are fake. Nothing deters Swamy from calling the Congress President ‘Buddhu’ (foolish) when he refers to him.
- Swamy’s diatribe doesn’t end with Rahul. Sonia and Priyanka get an equal share of it. When Priyanka Gandhi spoke about the possibility of contesting elections from Varanasi, the motormouth commented,“She would have got a thrashing. She is very unpopular, she drinks too much alcohol and she has a bad name, her husband has a bad name.” He even named her an ungrateful daughter when she paid a visit to the prison to meet the people responsible for her father Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination.
- His hatred for Sonia Gandhi, meanwhile, is cringe worthy. He uses his social media handles to spew venom on her, using the different names he has given her. The ones he uses often are Vishkanya (poisonous girl), and even abbreviates it to VK. He has called her Tadka too (the mythological demoness) and uses the short form TDK to refer to Sonia Gandhi.
- A self-proclaimed Hindutva man, Subramanian Swamy’s article, ‘How to Wipe Our Islamic Terror’, became a hot topic for debates a few years ago. In it, he blatantly wrote, ‘Implement the uniform civil code, make learning of Sanskrit and singing of Vande Mataram mandatory, and declare India a Hindu Rashtra in which non-Hindus can vote only if they proudly acknowledge that their ancestors were Hindus. Rename India Hindustan as a nation of Hindus and those whose ancestors were Hindus.’ Not surprisingly, he was faced with a barrage of opposition for his stand and idea of India. But, the biggest loss that this led to was a personal one for Swamy. A visiting faculty at Harvard University, they decided to remove the summer courses on economics taught by him.
- Subramanian Swamy has an opinion on everything. When actor Sridevi tragically died in Dubai and there was speculation about her death, he said he was sure it was murder. He corroborated his theory with this, ‘It doesn’t appear to me the facts that have come out in the media are consistent. She never drank hard liquor, so how did it enter her system? Was she forcibly fed? What happened to the CCTV, we have not heard a word about that. It suddenly appears in the media that she died of heart failure as if it’s planned.’ He also raised questions on allegedly shoddy investigation by the Dubai police.
- While the majority of the nation hailed RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan for his charisma, global experience and some even for his good looks, Swamy, as is his penchant, didn’t toe the line. He wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about terminating his appointment. In his letter, he wrote how Raghuram Rajan was ‘deliberately attempting to wreck the Indian economy’, adding that the RBI governor was ‘mentally not fully Indian since he continued to renew the Green Card issued to him by the US government.’
- Normally, people of the same political party stick to each other and stand up for each other, unless you are Subramanian Swamy, of course. The firebrand politician doesn’t care about such fine details. Sarcastic and forthright as ever, he expressed his unhappiness with none other than senior leader and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley because he felt that the officers working closely with Jaitley were helping troubled Congress leader P Chidambaram in his legal battle. He had said, even going to the extent of demanding Jaitley’s resignation, ‘Jaitley worked with officials who were really helping Chidambaram escape the law. But he has removed most of them and now the prosecutions are going on well in the National Herald case. I think Chidambaram will be in jail very soon.’
