Stalin calls for agitation, Haasan hits out at Amit Shah

A statewide protest on the issue has been planned in all district headquarters in Tamil Nadu on September 20.

Stalin recalled that India comprises people who speak up to 1,600 regional languages, and alleged that Shah’s speech advocating Hindi as the national language was nothing but a challenge to the unity of the nation. He said the resistance against imposition of Hindi would not be limited to Tamil Nadu but spread across all non-Hindi-speaking regions in the country.

Read | Never asked for imposing Hindi over regional languages, says Amit Shah

Meanwhile, actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan came down heavily on Shah, saying in a video that “what has been written in the Constitution of the country cannot be rewritten by a Shah or Sultan or Samrat”.

“Our fight for our language would be much bigger than the Jallikkattu protest, which was a relatively smaller one. I think India or Tamil Nadu need not encounter such a move now,” he said.

He recalled that the national anthem was still respected by people across the country. “Even if the national anthem is written in Bengali, majority of Indians sing it in that language itself. We do not sing it in our mother tongue. Reason is that the man who penned the national anthem was someone who had given respect and space for the cultural and linguistic diversities of this country,” Haasan said.

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“India is a spectacular idea, it has to be protected. Unity in diversity is what we see in India. we will not allow anyone to destroy it,” he said.