For those who are unaware, three days ago, 49 eminent personalities including historian Ramachandra Guha and actress Aparna Sen had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the alleged weaponisation of the slogan “Jai Shri Ram” and expressed concern over the reports of lynching taking place across the country.

Now, 61 others have clapped back, so to speak, and have written their own letter accusing the 49 celebs of “selective outrage, false narratives and a clear political bias”.

CBFC chief Prasoon Joshi, actress Kangana Ranaut, filmmakers Madhur Bhandarkar and Vivek Agnihotri, and classical dancer and Rajya Sabha member Sonal Mansingh are co-authors of this new letter.

“An open letter which has been published on July 23 2019, and addressed to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has astonished us. Forty-nine self-styled ‘guardians’ and conscience keepers’ of the nation… have expressed selective concern and demonstrated clear political bias and motive,” the letter read, reports NDTV.

It continued in a similar vein: “To us, the undersigned, this document of selective outrage comes across as an attempt to foist a false narrative … to negatively portray Prime Minister Modi’s untiring efforts. The signatories of the ‘open letter’ have, in the past, kept silent when tribals and the marginalised have become victims of Naxal terror, they have kept silent when separatists have issued dictates to burn schools in Kashmir, they have kept silent when the demand for dismembering India were made.”

Actor Kaushik Sen, who was one of those who’d written the previous letter to the PM has stated that he’s received death threats after it was published.

(Header credits: Getty Images/ Instagram)