SYDNEY: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said incidents like JNU were not the kind of issues that would dent India’s image overseas and asserted that no country can allow an agenda which openly speaks in terms of breaking it.
“I don’t think it’s an issue of creating any dent to the image for simple reason that no country how liberal can allow an agenda which openly speaks in terms of breaking the country,” Jaitley said while talking to Indian journalists here.
“India is a liberal society. It’s a democratic society and it allows freedom of speech…but even under our constitutional order, sovereignty of India is an exception to the principle of free speech,” he said.
JNU is caught in a row over an event against hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.
JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar has been charged with sedition in the case.–PTI