New Delhi, April 7: A prolonged effort by the BJP to live down its image as a supremacist, upper caste and Hindi-belt party was staring at a meltdown after an old Sangh hand committed what is being passed off as a momentary lapse.

Tarun Vijay, who is also a former BJP parliamentarian, cited north Indians co-existing with south Indians as proof that Indians are not racist. He sought to make his case foolproof by throwing in illuminating sentences like "we have blacks... black people around us".

The remarks triggered a backlash and drew a quick apology. They also served to underscore that the colour bias in India, which has turned fairness products into a nearly Rs 3,000-crore business, has many manifestations and goes very deep.

"To say Indians can be racist is the most vicious thing," Vijay had said, participating in an Al Jazeera discussion via Skype on the recent attacks on Africans in Greater Noida.

"If we were racist, why would have... all the entire south which is completely - you know Tamil, you know Kerala, you know Karnataka and Andhra - why do we live with them? We have blacks... black people around us."

As the word spread, the BJP, which is eyeing electoral success in south India in the near future, ducked for cover and Vijay posted a series of tweets by way of an apology and an explanation.

"In many parts of the nation we have different people, in colour and never ever we had any discrimination against them. My words perhaps were not enough to convey this. Feel bad, really feel sorry, my apologies to those who feel I said different than what I meant," he tweeted.

"Yes, it sounds ridiculous and very bad. I meant, we worship Krishna, which literally means black. We were the first to oppose any racism and were in fact victims of racist British."

Laying stress on the composition of his quotes, Vijay pointed out: "I never, never, even in a slip, termed south India as black. I can die but how can I ridicule my own culture, my own people and my own nation? Think before you misinterpret my badly framed sentence."

The former Rajya Sabha member drew attention to his relationship with south India, first saying he had "Bengali, Tamil, Telugu in my family" and then citing his work championing Tamil culture.

Vijay's efforts to promote Tamil culture are part of parliamentary record. He was instrumental in getting a statue of Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar installed in Haridwar, Uttarakhand, and has advocated the cause of Tamil culture at various forums.

All this was forgotten in what television channels billed as the "BJP leader's racist shocker". Even some of the BJP's fellow travellers joined the race to throw darts at Vijay.

Many in south India, already bristling at the fresh push for Hindi since the Narendra Modi government came to power, saw Vijay's comment as reflecting the "Sangh-BJP mindset" that "considers the Dravidian people (south Indians) as monsters represented by Ravana who was vanquished by Ram".

Others more clued up on the Sangh ideology saw in Vijay's statement a manifestation of the group's ideas of racial purity and its "Hindi Hindu Hindustan" agenda. Some averred that this was not just an off-the-cuff remark but an effort to turn south Indians into "the other".

Cottoning on to the anger, the Congress tweeted: "First, the BJP divided us in the name of caste and creed; now they are doing it on the basis of colour."

Sensing an opportunity to project the BJP as insensitive towards south India, Karnataka Congress working president Dinesh Gundu Rao posted: "It's a reflection of the Brahminical mindset of @RSSorg. Hindu Nation, Hindi language & Aryan supremacy."

Assembly polls are due next year in Karnataka, seen as the Sangh parivar's laboratory in the south, and the state's Congress government is already feeling the heat.

Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen asked BJP parliamentarians from the south to "introspect" and told Vijay that "India belongs to everyone YOU r not a master & South Indians are not tenants".

A similar controversy had erupted in Kerala on the eve of Onam last year after an article in Sangh weekly Kesari said the festival should celebrate not Asura king Mahabali but Vaman, the incarnation of Vishnu who had banished him to the netherworld.

This was followed by BJP president Amit Shah issuing a Vaman Jayanti greeting during the Onam celebrations.

The misadventure earned the party accusations of disrespecting the southern state's culture and trying to change the basis of a festival celebrated by people of all faiths.