Chennai: Actor-politician Kamal Haasan on Monday hit out at Home Minister Amit Shah for seeking to propogate Hindi as a unifying common language in India and warned that the battle for language in Tamil Nadu would be bigger than the 2017 jallikattu protests.
"Unity in diversity is a promise that we made when India became a Republic. Now, no Shah, Sultan or Samrat must renege on that promise. We respect all languages, but our mother language will always be Tamil,” he said in a short video message hosted on his Twitter handle in Tamil and English. The 'Shah' in his speech was an obvious reference to the Home Minister's surname.
The Makkal Needhi Maiam party founder said any effort to impose Hindi on the Dravidian state as against Tamil Nadu's two-language policy would result in a massive protest. “Tamil Nadu and the country do not need or deserve such a battle,” he said adding: “Do not make an inclusive India into an exclusive one. All will suffer because of such short-sighted folly." Dravida Thambi
