Sonu Nigam Hindi is not written as national language in Constitution, let's not divide: Sonu Nigam
New Delhi/IBNS: Singer Sonu Nigam is the latest celebrity to take part in the Hindi language debate where he said that although Hindi is the most spoken language in the country, it cannot be imposed on non-Hindi speaking people.
On being asked about his views at an event, the Padma Shri awarded singer said: "As per my knowledge, Hindi is not written as a national language in the Constitution of India. I have consulted experts regarding this also."
"Hindi is the most spoken language in the country, I understand that. Having said that are we aware that Tamil is world's oldest language? There is a debate between Sanskrit and Tamil. People say Tamil is the oldest language in the entire world," Nigam said in an interaction with Sushant Mehta, the Founder and CEO of BEAST Studios.
He also urged people to not fight over the language issue given there are already several internal problems in the country.
"Do we have fewer problems in the country that we need a new one? We are creating disharmony in the country by imposing a language on others, saying you are a Tamilian, you should speak Hindi. Why would they? People should have the right to decide the language they want to speak," he urged adding "Let's not divide people in our country."
Nigam, who has sung songs in over 32 languages, said: "Chodo yaar (Leave all this). Let them chill. A Punjabi should speak Punjabi, Tamil should speak Tamil. If they are comfortable in English, they will speak in that language. Airhostesses inflights are comfortable in English."
Perfect response to Ajay Devgn by Sonu Nigam: Let's not divide people further in this country, where is it written that Hindi is our national language? 👏 pic.twitter.com/hC9nHbXJHy
— Sushant Mehta (@SushantNMehta) May 2, 2022
The controversy started after Kannada 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.
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.
Hindi was, is, and will always be our mother tongue and national language, Bollywood actor Ajay Devgn had said in response to the Kannada actor who pointed out at a recent event that Hindi is not the national language.
However, Devgn's comment has been met with flak by several Karnataka politicians too.
Former Karnataka Chief Ministers Siddaramaiah and HD Kumaraswamy had slammed Devgn for calling Hindi a "national language" and also called him calling him a BJP mouthpiece.
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