Yuvika on casteist slur stir: Learnt my lesson, why drag it?

Yuvika Chaudhary found herself in a sticky situation after she unintentionally used a casteist slur in a recent vlog. The actor, however, readily admitted her fault and apologised. But, the way her “mistake” was turned into a “mudda” has irked her.

Chaudhary tells us, “I learnt my lesson and said sorry. But people keep dragging this rather than talking about other bigger topics — from women’s safety to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.”

Especially during these challenging times, as Chaudhary, 37, asserts, “We’re losing our loved ones and people are talking about, ‘Arey usne yeh keh dia’. I feel really bad… Agar mudda banana hai toh bade issue ka banao. If I made a mistake, bol do ke aapko knowledge nahin hai ya correct me.”

It all started when a video of her using a casteist slur to describe how bad she looked went viral, with #ArrestYuvikaChoudhary trending on Twitter soon after. This comes days after actor Munmun Dutta found herself in a similar controversy. “I didn’t know the meaning of the word. Why would I hurt someone? I got to know about it after people started trolling me. I never intended to hurt anyone,” she clarifies.

While she’s being labelled as ignorant, the actor asserts, “I didn’t know that it was an offensive term. I’m not ashamed to admit it, and can say sorry a hundred times for it.”

Her husband, actor Prince Narula also issued an apology on her behalf, but what has vexed Chaudhary is that some people imply celebrities do such things intentionally. “I don’t think I’d do this stupidity to be famous. Anjane mein hui mujhse yeh galti. Later, I read about more castes and religions and found out about other offensive words,” she confesses, adding that for her, humanity comes first, “and not any caste or religion; it makes me sad that people do so much politics on issues like caste and religion and forget humanity”.