Actor Ajay Devgn stirred a controversy after reacting to actor Kiccha Sudeep’s statement about Hindi no longer being ‘a national language’. Many actors and filmmakers including Manoj Bajpayee, Ram Gopal Varma, and Hansal Mehta joined the debate. Now, singer Sonu Nigam has reacted on the issue. At a recent event moderated by journalist Sushant Mehta, Sonu Nigam said, “Nowhere in the constitution it is written that Hindi is our national language. It might be the most spoken language, but not the national language. In fact, Tamil is the oldest language. There is a debate between Sanskrit and Tamil. But, people say Tamil is the oldest language in the entire world.”
Sonu pointed out that there are enough issues that need to be resolved with other nations and it is futile to initiate a new problem within the country. He asked, “‘Abhi tumhaare baaki deshon se pange kam hain jo tum apne desh mein kar rahe ho? (Aren’t we facing enough issues with other countries that we are starting one within our own?) Why is this discussion even happening?”The singer asserted that nobody should be told what language to speak in. “Punjabis can speak in Punjabi, Tamilians can talk in Tamil and if they are comfortable they can talk in English. All our court judgements are given in English, what is this ‘humein Hindi bolna chahiye'”.In Sonu Nigam‘s opinion, English has become a part of our culture. He concluded his statement by saying, “Let’s not divide further in our country, already there is so much going on.”
Ajay Devgn wrote a tweet in Hindi and asked that if Hindi is not our national language, why does Kiccha Sudeep release his films dubbed in Hindi. Translated in English, his tweet read, “@KicchaSudeep, brother, if Hindi is not our national language according to you, then why do you release films made in your mother tongue dubbed in Hindi? Hindi is our mother tongue, and our national language, and it will always be. Jana Gana Mana. ”Sudeep replied that his words had been misinterpreted, and asked, “And sir, I did understand the text you sent in Hindi. That’s only because we all have respected, loved and learnt Hindi. No offense sir, but was wondering what’d the situation be if my response was typed in Kannada!! Don’t we too belong to India, sir.” His initial comments had been made in reaction to a series of South Indian films outperforming Hindi films at the box office.