Union Minister for Education Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday said that the BJP government had not stated anywhere that Hindi is the national language.
Pradhan said this even as Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai hailed regional languages as supreme in every state.
"We are not trying to impose Hindi," Pradhan told reporters. "Even in the National Education Policy, we have given importance to regional languages. Nobody can impose any language on anyone," he said.
On Wednesday, a war of words ensued between actors Sudeep and Ajay Devgn after the Bollywood veteran said Hindi is the national language. This was Devgn's tweet in response to Sudeep saying Hindi is not the national language.
"What Sudeep said is correct," Bommai said. "After the reorganisation of states on linguistic basis, mother tongue or regional language is important and supreme in states. All should understand and respect that," he added.
Sudeep also got support from other senior leaders in the state who flayed Devgn.
"Hindi was never and will never be our national language," Congress Legislature Party leader Siddaramaiah said. "It is the duty of every Indian to respect the linguistic diversity of our country. Each language has its own rich history for its people to be proud of."
JD(S) Legislature Party leader HD Kumaraswamy was harsher. "Ajay Devgn has blabbered as the mouthpiece of BJP’s Hindi nationalism of one nation, one tax, one language and one government. Just because a large population speaks Hindi, it doesn’t become a national language," he said.
However, some BJP ministers chose a different approach. Higher Education minister CN Ashwath Narayan said while Kannada is the "topmost priority" in the state, it is necessary to treat Hindi as the language for communication at the national level. "There is no need to hate any language in order to strengthen our own language," he said.
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