Bengaluru : Bollywood star Ajay Devgan’s comment on Hindi being India’s national language snowballed into a major debate on Thursday with leaders across the political spectrum, including BJP’s Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and NC’s Omar Abdullah, among those backing linguistic diversity.
What started off as a Twitter exchange between Devgan and Kannada actor Kichcha Sudeep on Wednesday took a political turn as Bommai joined his predecessors and political rivals, Congress’ Siddaramaiah and JD-S’ H D Kumaraswamy in stressing that Hindi is like any other language in India and not the national language.
Whatever Sudeep has said is correct. After the formation of states on linguistic basis, languages got importance there (in those regions). That is supreme. The same has been said by Sudeep, which is right. Everyone should accept and respect it,” Bommai told reporters in Hubballi.
As the hashtag HindiIsNotNationalLanguage’ trended on Twitter and several film personalities spoke up too on the volatile issue, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Abdullah said in Srinagar that India is too diverse a country to have one national language and everybody must get their space.
The currency note gives space to all the languages and if the Indian currency note gives space to all the languages, then obviously it is understood that we are more than just one language, more than just one culture, more than just one religion,” he told reporters in response to a question.
Sudeep had said last week that Hindi is no more our national language . To this, Devgn responded with a tweet in Hindi on Wednesday: “My brother, according to you if Hindi is not our national language then why do you release your mother tongue movies by dubbing them in Hindi? Hindi was, is and always will be our mother tongue and national language. Jan Gan Man.”
Taking objection to the post by Devgn, who usually stays away from controversy and too many social media posts, Siddaramaiah said “Hindi was never and will never be our National Language .
It is the duty of every Indian to respect linguistic diversity of our country. Each language has its own rich history for its people to be proud of. I am proud to be a Kannadiga!!”
