Karnataka leaders slam Ajay Devgn for calling Hindi national language

Hindi was, is, and will always be our mother tongue and national language, Bollywood actor Ajay Devgn said on Wednesday in response to a Kannada actor who pointed out at a recent event that Hindi is not the national language.

Highlighting the fact that India has no national language but several official languages, Siddaramaiah, a Congress leader, tweeted, "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!!"

Slamming "Hindi imposition", Kumaraswamy said Devgn must "realise" that the "Kannada cinema is outgrowing Hindi film industry".

He tweeted, "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."

"Devgan must realise that Kannada cinema is outgrowing Hindi film industry. Because of encouragement by Kannadigas Hindi cinema has grown. Devgan shouldn’t forget that his first movie ‘Phool aur Kaante’ ran for a year in Bengaluru," he said in a separate tweet.

Actor Sudeep Sanjeev, known as Kichcha Sudeep, while speaking to the media at the trailer launch of the film "R: The Deadliest Gangster Ever" corrected someone on the use of the term "pan-India" regarding the reach of movies.

Responding to a comment on the recently released blockbuster "K.G.F: Chapter 2", which has done tremendously well even in North India, Sudeep reportedly said, "everyone says that a Kannada film was made on a pan-India level but a small correction is that Hindi is not a national language anymore."

Taking a dig at the Bollywood industry, he added that many pan-India Hindi movies are released in Telugu and Tamil but they struggle to find success on the same scale.

"Today we are making films that are going everywhere," he said.

In response to the comment, Ajay Devgn, who often makes films on nationalism and patriotism, tagged the Kannada actor on Twitter and asked him why he releases Hindi dubbed versions of movies made in his mother tongue.

"@KicchaSudeep 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," he tweeted in Hindi.