One Nation, Many Languages: Kamal Haasan Destroys BJP's Hindi Push With Powerful Post

Kamal Haasan, noted National Award-winning actor and chief of Makkal Needhi Maiam, on Monday hit out at the ruling BJP government at the Centre for its mega Hindi push. On Saturday, on occasion of Hindi Diwas, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said that, ‘Hindi language has been a unifying force in India and emphasised that the country needs a language which can represent India in the world.’ Slamming this ‘Hindi imposition’, Haasan took to Twitter to post a powerful speech. In his speech titled ‘One Nation, Many Languages,’ Haasan said that, “The Unity in diversity is a promise that we made when we made India into a Republic. Now, no Shah, Sultan or Samrat must relent on that promise. We respect all languages, but our mother language will always be Tamil.”   

Now you are constrained to prove to us that India will continue to be a free country.

You must consult the people before you make a new law or a new scheme. pic.twitter.com/u0De38bzk0

— Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) September 16, 2019

“Jallikattu was just a protest, the battle for our language will be exponentially bigger than that. India or Tamil Nadu does not need or deserve such a battle. Most of the Nation happily sings their National Anthem in Bengali with pride, and will continue to do so. The reason is the poet who wrote the National Anthem gave due respect to all languages and culture within the Anthem. And hence, it became our Anthem.

“Do not make an inclusive India into an exclusive one. All will suffer because of such short-sighted folly,” Haasan concluded.

Apart from Haasan, earlier Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Sunday said it was a "planned attempt" to stir up a controversy and divert attention from pressing problems in the country. He termed it as a ‘war cry’ against the mother tongue of non-Hindi speaking people.

The Chief Minister, in a Facebook post, said that despite protests erupting in many places on the issue, Shah was not prepared to withdraw from the “hindi agenda”, which are signs to show that the sangh parivar was getting ready to open a new “agitational platform”. However, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan welcomed the move, saying language inspires and unites the people and the country’s unity can be strengthened through Hindi.

“A language inspires and unites people. Let us strengthen our unity through Hindi, our national language.Along with our mother tongue, let us use Hindi in our work”, he said in a tweet on the occasion of Hindi Divas on Saturday.