Sonu Nigam On Ajay Devgn-Kiccha Sudeep's Language Row: Let's Not Divide People Further In This Country

Superstar Ajay Devgn recently reacted strongly to Kiccha Sudeep's statement about Hindi no longer being the national language. In a tweet, the Runway 34 actor questioned why Sudeep releases his movies dubbed in Hindi if it isn't the national language.

He wrote in Hindi, "@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."

What followed next was a war of words between the two actors on Twitter. Their Twitter exchange sparked off a debate on social media with many netizens schooling Ajay over claiming that Hindi is the national language.

Recently, National Award-winning singer Sonu Nigam also shared his opinion on this controversy during an interaction with Sushant Mehta, the founder and CEO of BEAST Studios.

Sonu 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."

He continued, "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."

"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," Nigam told Mehta during the interaction, adding that even the court judgements are written in English. He also recalled an incident during a flight where the cabin crew member kept speaking to him in English despite his reply in Hindi.

Emphasizing that English has become a part of our culture, he signed off by saying, "Let's not divide people further in our country, already there is so much going on."