South thrives with vibrant film industries; North has only Hindi while Marathi, Bhojpuri, Bihari, Haryanvi, and Gujarati fade, says Udhayanidhi

His speech was one of his first political appearances in Kerala after entering politics.

• Written by Arun Janardhanan
• Chennai | Updated: November 3, 2024 04:06 PM IST
3 min read

TN Deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin in Kozhikode. (@Udhaystalin/X)

“Look at the state of regional cinema across India,” Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin told an eager crowd at Kerala’s Hortus Literary Festival on Saturday. “Does any other language in any North Indian state have a vibrant film industry like in South India? The answer is a very big no. Almost all the languages spoken in the North have given way to Hindi,” he said, elaborating on cinema’s role in defending linguistic identity, how Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, and Kannada cinema thrived independently and survived as vibrant film industries, while in the North, “only Hindi films — Bollywood — receive extensive attention”.

Standing before a packed crowd at the Manorama Hortus, an art and literary festival in Kozhikode, Udhayanidhi stressed on the power of cinema as more than mere entertainment. In southern India, he argued, it is a means of cultural preservation and resistance — a striking contrast to the dominance of Hindi in northern states. His speech was one of his first political appearances in Kerala after entering politics.

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Tamil Nadu Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin at Kerala’s Hortus Literary Festival. (X)

Extensively explaining the origin of the Dravidian movement and the struggles for linguistic and cultural identity, he spoke about how the Dravidian movement had resisted Hindi dominance, and how Hindi has subsumed local languages in northern states.

Udhayanidhi said it was (late DMK leader) M Karunanidhi’s famous movie, Parasakthi, that reshaped the screen language of the Tamil cinema world. “Similarly, we have a thriving industry in Kerala. In fact, I like most of the Malayalam movies made in recent times. Likewise, the Telugu and Kannada film industries are also performing very well,” he said.

Udhayanidhi then asked the crowd to think for a moment. “Does any other language in any North Indian state have a vibrant film industry like in South India? The answer is a very big no. Almost all the languages spoken in the North Indian states have given way to Hindi. As a result, they have only Hindi films — Bollywood — and Mumbai is extensively producing only Hindi films now. Not Marathi films, not Bhojpuri; Bihari, Haryanvi, and Gujarati film industries receive far less attention as compared to Bollywood…” Udhayanidhi said.

“If we failed to protect our language, Hindi would take over our culture and erode our identities. That is why we led the anti-Hindi movement, not because we had any hatred towards the Hindi language,” the DMK leader added.