On Ajay Devgn-Sudeep's 'Hindi is national language' row

Is this a joke? A Southern superstars seem to think Hindi is not the national language. I think my erstwhile friend Kamal Haasan started this debate decades ago. He used to have lengthy discussions with me on why Hindi should not be “imposed” on the South and how any such ‘bullying tactics will alienate the South. And now several South Indian superstars have jumped on the bandwagon. In a recent Tamil film Prakash Raj who by the way, speaks fluent Hindi, slaps a character for speaking in Hindi. “Speak in Tamil,” he growls. Okay, then. Apparently, such scenes where Hindi is ridiculed are much –appreciated by some in the South. So, what happened to good old pan-Indianism? Sudeep, one of the top draws in Kannada cinema feels Hindi is no more a national language. Since when? I wanted to ask Sudeep, what then is the national language?  Before I could step in, Ajay Devgn a rare man of action in this movie industry of spineless paper tigers, responded with sufficient force to Sudeep.

Devgn tweeted in Hindi, “@KicchaSudeep my brother, according to you if Hindi is not our national language, then why do you release your mother tongue movies by dubbing them in Hindi? Hindi was, is and always will be our mother tongue and national language. Jan Gan Man.” A standing ovation for Devgn for telling it like it is. Those of our friends in the South film industry who think Hindi has lost its shine merely because the Telugu Pushpa and Kannada KGF have done well, are truly mistaken. For, who in his right mind, would take these successes to mean that Hindi is no longer our national language?

I don’t mean to undermine the mega-blockbuster status of these two pan-India hits. But with due respects to Sudeep, KGF would have worked in any language, and, to stretch the argument even further, it would have worked even better with a pan-India hero, by which I refer to the A-listers from Bollywood cinema. Think of how much more effective the protagonist in KGF would been if he were played by Ranveer Singh, Ranbir Kapoor or Ajay Devgan. The mind boggles at the thought. With due respects to Yash, who is a wonderful human being and deserves all success, he is hardly a great actor. His USP was relatability. Audiences outside Karnataka didn’t know him. They found it easy to see him as the protagonist Rocky. The real test would be to see Yash play another character apart from the cocky Rocky, and win over the pan-India audience. After Baahubali, Prabhas tried. He failed.

There can never be a replacement to Hindi as the language of India. We love every language.  And we love cinema in every language. But to be a pan-India star you need to be have a pan-India image. Aur usske liye rashtra bhasha zaroori hai! This is why Sudeep made no headway in Hindi cinema in spite of Ram Gopal Varma’s Phoonk and Rakta Charitra in Hindi.Even the mighty Rajinikanth craved to be a star in Bollywood. All his attempts at wooing the Hindi belt, failed.  When Ajay responded to Sudeep’s strange sentiments on Hindi, he proved himself one of the few true nationalists in this film industry of opportunists. It is not as if he speaks out his mind all the time. This time he did. It shows how strongly he felt on the issue. And he is   right:  love your own native tongue, but let Hindi be the language you choose to communicate in. Jai Hindi!

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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