Hindi is a Little Child in Diapers: Kamal Haasan

Kamal Haasan on Thursday said that Hindi is a ''little child in diapers”, meaning that the language is the youngest one among many oldest languages in India. “Hindi is a little child in diapers. Compared to Tamil, Sanskrit and Telugu, Hindi is still a young language. It is not with derision that I say this. I say with compassion that we have to take care of the language but it should not be imposed or stuffed down our necks," Haasan said.

Haasan also said that the imposition of Hindi will lead to a bigger war than “Jallikattu”. The comment came after Union Home Minister's call for "unifying India" with India's most widely-spoken language, Hindi. "We have said it before and we will say it again, the Tamil language is our (people of Tamil Nadu) pride and we will fight for it. The unity in diversity is the promise we made when we made India into a republic. We cannot change that now," Mr. Haasan said. “Now, no Shah, Sultan or Samrat should go back on their promise. We respect all languages but our mother language will always be Tamil," he added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi who wants to reduce the controversy has extended his support to linguistic diversity during his visit to the US. He visited Tamil Nadu, after completing his trip. “When I was staying in America, I spoke in the Tamil language once and told everyone that this is one of the ancient languages. Even today, the Tamil language echoes in entire America," Modi said.