Tathagata cites Tiananmen Square to ‘handle’ Delhi violence, later deletes tweet

A mediaperson called me up to ask why I had tweeted about Tienanmen Square and why I had deleted that tweet? I replied that my tweet about Communists’ fatherland had apparently caused them a lot of pain. I am a kind person by nature and didn’t want the poor guys to suffer.

— Tathagata Roy (@tathagata2) February 28, 2020

Roy was referring to the bloody crackdown on thousands of student protestors by the Chinese government on June 4-5, 1989 at Bejing’s Tiananmen Square, which led to the death of hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians.

However, on Friday, he deleted the tweet, and put up another post, saying, “Comrades of different hues,from card-holding communists to fellow-travellers, are making strange hurt noises after my tweet on Tienanmen Square in the capital of their fatherland. So,out of tender concern for them I have deleted my tweet-after all they are Indian, aren’t they!”

Asked if he stood by the tweet, Roy told The Indian Express, “I have deleted it from Twitter and from my memory. Apparently my tweet about Communists’ fatherland had caused them a lot of pain. So I better not give these poor fellows a reasons to cry- since they already have enough reasons to cry.”

Roy is no stranger to controversy. After the 2019 Pulwama terror attack, Roy had taken to Twitter to endorse a retired Army officer’s suggestion to boycott Kashmir and Kashmiris economically.

In December that year, during the Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests, Roy tweeted that those who do not want “divisive democracy” could go to North Korea.