'Hindi Imposition Will Be Opposed': Kamal Haasan Reiterates Stand On Language Row

Actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan has once again raised his protest against Hindi imposition. The Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) president, who participated in Congress’ Bharat Jodo Yatra on Saturday, used the platform to assert that any move to move to impose Hindi on south Indian states will be opposed.

Haasan said speaking the mother tongue is everyone’s birthright and learning and using other languages is done by personal choice. He added that the development of Hindi should not happen at the expense of other regional languages of the country.

“It has been the right of south India for 75 years. The northeast will also reflect the same…To develop Hindi, it is unwise to impose it on others. The imposition will be opposed,” Kamal Haasan said, according to a report by Times Now.

Haasan reiterated his stance on the matter on Sunday by retweeting a video of a recent statement made in the Rajya Sabha by CPM member John Britta on the language debate, and described it as the position of “half of India”.

In the video, Brittas can be heard questioning the government’s decision to introduce Hindi medium teaching in higher education institutions. He cited the difficulties that students from the northern states would face if south Indian colleges decided to switch the medium of instruction to their own state languages.

“Kerala reflects the same and it is the feeling of half of India,” Haasan wrote in Tamil while retweeting the video.

This is not the first time Haasan has raised his protest against the alleged move to impose Hindi on the whole of India. In 2019, reacting to Home Minister Amit Shah’s pitch to make Hindi India’s common and unifying language, Haasan said the battle for the Tamil language will be “exponentially bigger” than the Jallikattu protest and no “Shah, Sultan or Samrat” can break the promise made to “protect our culture and identity.”

Haasan joined Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in Delhi on Saturday. He walked alongside Rahul Gandhi to the Red Fort.

Haasan said as he joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra after he heard his inner voice say “Bharat jodne ki koshish karo, todne ki nahi,” (try to unite India instead of dividing).

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