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Ajay Devgn woke up on Wednesday and chose chaos. Unprompted, the actor shot a tweet at fellow actor Kiccha Sudeep, and erroneously declared that Hindi is the national language. Sudeep had recently commented on the box office success of the Kannada film KGF: Chapter 2, and said that the Hindi film industry is struggling.
While the North-South debate isn’t new, it has re-emerged in recent weeks after the success of a trio of South Indian hits, Pushpa: The Rise, RRR and KGF 2. To add to Bollywood’s woes, big-ticket titles such as Bachchan Paandey and more recently, Jersey, have flopped.
Amid ongoing concerns within the industry about whether or not Hindi films will be able to bounce back, here’s a rundown of who said what on the topic.
What Sudeep said: ‘If my response was typed in Kannada…’
Sudeep said at a recent event when addressing KGF 2’s success: “You said that a pan India film was made in Kannada. I’d like to make a small correction. Hindi is no more a national language. They (Bollywood) are doing pan-India films today. They are struggling (to find success) by dubbing in Telugu and Tamil, but it’s not happening. Today, we are making films that are going everywhere.”
Ajay Devgn, who has a movie to promote, tweeted in Hindi, “My brother, if according to you Hindi is not our national language then why do you release your movies in your mother tongue by dubbing them in Hindi? Hindi was, is and always will be our mother tongue and national language. Jan Gan Man.”
Sudeep replied that his words had been misconstrued, and cheekily asked, “And sir, I did understand the text you sent in Hindi. That’s only because we all have respected, loved and learnt Hindi. No offense sir, but was wondering what’d the situation be if my response was typed in Kannada!! Don’t we too belong to India, sir.”
What Siddaramaiah said: ‘Hindi will never be our National Language’
Ajay accepted that there had been a misunderstanding, but former Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah tweeted in reply to him, “Hindi was never & 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!!”
HD Kumaraswamy asks ‘what do you mean by not dub’
Another former Karnataka CM, HD Kumaraswamy, posted a Twitter thread on the matter. He wrote, “Actor @KicchaSudeep saying that Hindi is not a National Language is correct. There is nothing to find fault in his statement. Actor @ajaydevgn is not only hyper in nature but also shows his ludicrous behaviour.” He added, “Like Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam & Marathi, Hindi is also one of languages. India is a garden of several languages. Land of multi cultures. Let there be no attempts to disrupt this. Just because a large population speaks Hindi, it doesn’t become a National Language. Less than 9 States, Kashmir-Kanyakumari, have Hindi as 2nd, 3rd language or not even that. This being situation what is the truth in Ajay Devgan’s statement? What do you mean by not to dub?”
‘North stars are insecure…’: RGV
Not one to be left out of any discussion, filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma tweeted, “The base undeniable ground truth @KicchaSudeep sir, is that the north stars are insecure and jealous of the south stars because a Kannada dubbing film #KGF2 had a 50 crore opening day and we all are going to see the coming opening days of Hindi films.”
‘India has one language… entertainment’
Sonu Sood, who appears in films across languages and regions in India, told Indian Express, “I don’t think Hindi can be called just the national language. India has one language, which is entertainment. It doesn’t really matter which industry you belong to. If you entertain people, they will love you, honour you and accept you.”
When Chiranjeevi felt humiliated
At a recent press event for his upcoming film Acharya, Chiranjeevi recalled a humiliating incident from 1989, when he noted on trip to Delhi that the South Indian film industries had been ignored in a government mural on Indian films. He said, “I kept walking in expectation to see something on south films. However, there was only a still of MGR with Jayalalithaa and a photo of Prem Nazir. They titled it as south Films. Just that. They did not recognise stalwarts like Raj Kumar or Vishnuvardhan or NT Ramarao or Nageshwara Rao or Sivaji Ganesan or even the legendary filmmakers of our industries. I felt very humiliated at that moment. It was like an insult. They portrayed Hindi cinema as Indian cinema. While other films were categorised as ‘regional films’ and were not given respect.”
Earlier this year, Nagarjuna said in an interview with Bollywood Bubble that he still feels discriminated against in his own country, but is unbothered because he is proud of his roots. He said, “Even now, whenever I walk in a restaurant somewhere in Delhi or Mumbai, they say, ‘South ka actor hai’. They say that, at the airports, CISF guys. I keep hearing that.”
Manoj Bajpayee weighs in
Manoj Bajpayee spoke to Delhi Times about the success of South Indian films in a recent interview. He said that hits like Pushpa and KGF have ‘sent a shiver down the spine of all the mainstream filmmakers from the Mumbai film industry’. The actor said that South Indian filmmakers don’t talk down to the audience and that their work is ‘immaculate’. He concluded, “This is a lesson for Mumbai industry mainstream filmmakers on how to make mainstream cinema.”
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