Narendra Modi has met his match in JNU leader Kanhaiya Kumar: Nayantara Sahgal

New Delhi: Writer Nayantara Sahgal on Monday heaped praise on Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Kanhaiya Kumar for his speech at JNU after his release from prison.

"Kanhaiya Kumar has electrified India with not only his speech in which much passion prevailed, but also in the interviews that he has given to the media where much rationality, much common sense, much quiet measured talk and a command of facts prevailed," she said here.

She added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has met his match in Kanhaiya Kumar.

"We owe him a huge debt of gratitude for taking us out of that molasses of depression which many of us had fallen into for a while. Mr Modi has met his match in Kanhaiya Kumar," Sahgal, the niece of Jawaharlal Nehru, said at the launch of Rajmohan Gandhi's latest book "Understanding the Founding Fathers".

Sahgal further accused the BJP government of trying to "appropriate" Ambedkar and wondered if it actually believes in his radical views on caste.

"The present government is trying to make an icon of him. I don't know if the government has read what Ambedkar writes in his book 'Annihilation of Caste' and I quote him, 'If you wish to bring about a breach in the system, you have to apply dynamites to the vedas and the shastras. You must destroy religion of the shrutis and the smritis'," she said.

(With PTI inputs)