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Union minister Venkaiah Naidu said that tolerance is ingrained genetically in the blood of Indians and intellectual class of Indians should avoid generalizing any stray incidents that could damage the image of the country, referring to protesting writers.

The minister even opined that few unfortunate incidents can be condemned by the intellectuals, while keeping the country’s image in mind.

"Some people try to generalize some of the stray incidents (of violence) occurred in the country. They try to magnify it. They try to proclaim that the tolerance levels have come down in the country. It will bring disgrace to the country. We may condemn the act but not the country per se," Naidu said.

"We see a new trend in the country nowadays. They say tolerance in this country is coming down. India is the only country in this world where tolerance is observed, if not 100 per cent at least 99 per cent," he added, while speaking after the release of the book 'Nayaka Trayam' (http://www.ylp.news/) penned by Lakshmi Prasad, former Rajya Sabha member.

"If you go back to history, India was invaded by many foreign countries but there was not a single instance where India invaded any country. Indians do not have that kind of attitude also. We respect all religions. That is the greatness of India. Tolerance is genetically ingrained in Indians' blood," he added.

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His advice to some writers is to take a constructive way of criticizing government besides alleging that malicious campaign was undertaken by few against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"(MM) Kalburgi incident is condemnable. (Narendra) Dabholkar is incident is condemnable. We should not politicize the issues. Writers should not combine these issues with politics," he said.

-Sumana