Don't make inclusive India into exclusive one: Kamal Haasan warns Amit Shah over Hindi push
Chennai: Warning Union Home Minister Amit Shah for his push to make Hindi as the language of the nation, actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan on Monday asked the Centre not to make an "inclusive India" into an "exclusive one".
Sharing a video on Twitter, Haasan, the chief of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM), said, "The unity in diversity is a promise we made when we made India into a Republic. Now no Shah or Sultan should regret on that promise. We respect all languages but our mother language will always be Tamil. 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.
Do not make an inclusive India into an exclusive one. All will suffer because of such shortsighted folly."
Now you are constrained to prove to us that India will continue to be a free country.
— Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) September 16, 2019
You must consult the people before you make a new law or a new scheme. pic.twitter.com/u0De38bzk0
On the occasion of Hindi Diwas, Shah, who is also the president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Saturday said Hindi must be made the language of the country.
The BJP president had said, "India is a country of multiple languages and each of them has significance. But there must be one language for the whole nation which will give India an identity at the world stage. It is only widely-spoken Hindi language can bind the whole nation."
Apart from Haasan, another political leader of Tamil Nadu, DMK's MK Stalin, has asked the saffron leader to withdraw the statement.
Countering Shah, Stalin has also threatened to fight against the "Hindi imposition" democratically.
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