Instagram influencer backtracks after saying Bengaluru will be empty without north Indians
Sugandh Sharma, the influencer to caused fury with her comments on Bengaluru
An Instagram influencer felt the heat after posting a video saying the south Indian city of Bengaluru would be empty if north Indians were asked to leave.
After severe backlash, she posted another video to say she loves Bengaluru. The original video appears to have been deleted.
The backlash, including from some celebrities in the southern state of Karnataka, came after digital content creator Sugandh Sharma said in a video that Bengaluru will lose its charm if migrants left.
Watch:Gravitas: Would you trust an influencer over a journalist?
Kannadigas "must understand that before asking us to leave,” Sharma said in the video which she titled Bengaluru is of everyone, not just one person.
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Pretty girls who dance to Punjabi music won’t be seen in the city, paying guest accommodations (PGs) and clubs would be deserted and people would not enjoy rent income without North Indians, she claimed.
Sharma's video faced sharp reaction from ordinary citizens as well as celebrities including actors Chandan Shetty, Chaithra Achar and Anupama Gowda.
“If you can actually leave, just as an experiment, and see how Bangalore becomes empty, we are ready to live with that emptiness and dancers-less pubs. We can live with it. Really. Forget all other North Indians. You leave ma’am, enough for now!,” Achar commented.
Gowda wrote, “If you think this is cool, nope it isn’t. You need Bengaluru more than anything else and your leaving Bengaluru doesn’t make any difference to our OORU [land] and for a fact, we all know you can’t leave Bengaluru – if you know you know.”
Actress Varsha Bollamma wrote, “Please leave.”
An Instagram user wrote: "We are eagerly waiting to see our Bengaluru without people who are not even grateful for the lifestyle they have got because of Bengaluru..take your whole gang away... doesn’t make a difference to the actual Kannadigas!”
Asking her to leave, another wrote, "I can sponsor your one-way ticket. Please leave the city.”
After the backlash, the influencer wrote in a new post on Sunday (Sep 22): "I love Bengaluru so don't spread hate."
In the accompanying video, she said in Hindi that she's a traveller who tries to learn the culture of the places that she goes to.
People should not spread hate by commenting on her video, she said.
She ended the video by saying "all of us are Indians," and asked people to stay away from 'divide and rule'.
(With inputs from agencies)
