Kangana Ranaut opens up on the on-going language controversy

While this Friday witnessed a double release in the form of Runway 34 and Heropanti 2, it has been the happenings outside these films and on social media that has led to an unanticipated controversy. Actor Kiccha Sudeep went on to talk about how he thinks Hindi is not the national language anymore in connection to South Indian films taking over Bollywood and making huge numbers. This did not sit well with actor Ajay Devgn and hence, the man went on to mark the Kannada superstar asking him why do they dub their films in Hindi then.

This controversy was blown quite a lot and continues to be a talking point right now where even Sonu Sood joined the debate. Now actor, Kangana Ranaut went on to share her thoughts on the saga as she said, “We (system and society) are a country of a lot of diversities, languages, and cultures. And it is our birthright to feel proud of our respective culture and language. I am a Pahadi. However, when we consider our nation, in order to make it one unit, we need a thread to connect all of us together. When the constitution was made, Hindi became a national language,”

She adds, “And now when you say Tamil is actually older than Hindi, it should be noted that Sanskrit is older than that. In my opinion, Sanskrit should be our national language, because Kannada, Tamil, Gujarati, Hindi, all these languages originated from Sanskrit. I do not have the answer if you ask me if so, why Sanskrit wasn’t made our national language instead of Hindi. Those decisions would have been made during a certain time. There are a lot of layers to this issue. And when you are talking about language, you should be aware of all these layers. When you deny Hindi, you are denying the constitution and the government of Delhi.”

Kangana also spoke at length about how the English language connects people from all parts of the world, “When you go abroad, the German, Spanish, French - they are very proud of their language. But no matter how dark the colonial history is, fortunately, or unfortunately, English has become that link.”

Kangana Ranaut stressed that making a decisive call is crucial in the language row. “Today even within our country we are using English as the link to communicate. Should that be the link? Or should Hindi, Sanskrit, or Tamil be that link? We have to decide that. We have to make that call. So keeping all these in mind, a decisive call should be taken. As of now, Hindi is the national language. And when Ajay Devgn ji said, Hindi is our national language, he is not wrong. But I understand the sentiment of Sudeep and he is not wrong either. And if people saying that Kannada and Tamil are older than Hindi, then they aren’t wrong either. Also it is very unfortunate that there is a debate on South and North films. They have always received step motherly treatment and it shouldn't have been so in the first place. It is also very unfortunate that we have never had a South actor in Bollywood as a leading actor. If things were under my control, I would say Sanskrit is the legitimate language, from which German, English, and French have originated. Why don’t we have the Sanskrit language as the national language? Why is Sanskrit not mandatory in schools? I dont know that,” Kangana summed up.