Amid growing tensions over his comment about Tamil movies being ‘dubbed’ in Hindi, Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan issued a clarification on Saturday, stating that he "never opposed the Hindi language."
The JSP leader said neither forcibly imposing a language nor blindly opposing one helps achieve national and cultural integration.
He asserted that he had "never opposed Hindi as a language" but only "opposed making it compulsory".
"Either imposing a language forcibly or opposing it blindly; both don't help achieve the objective of national and cultural integration in our Bharat (sic)," said Janasena chief in a post on 'X'.
He said that since the National Education Policy 2020 does not mandate Hindi, spreading "false narratives about its imposition is merely an attempt to mislead the public."
"When the NEP-2020 itself does not make Hindi compulsory, then making false statements about its implementation is nothing but misleading the public," he wrote in Hindi in his X post.
He further explained that under the NEP, students have an option to learn any two Indian languages (including their mother tongue) along with a foreign language.
"If they don't want to study Hindi, they can choose Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Sanskrit, Gujarati, Assamese, Kashmiri, Odia, Bengali, Punjabi, Sindhi, Bodo, Dogri, Konkani, Maithili, Meitei, Nepali, Santhali, Urdu or any other Indian language," he added.
Kalyan said that the purpose of the three-language policy is to provide a wider range of choice to students, promoting national integration and preserving the country's rich linguistic diversity. "Misinterpreting this policy for a political agenda and claiming that I have changed my stand on it only shows a lack of mutual understanding."
Additionally, he reiterated that Janasena firmly upholds the principle of "linguistic freedom and educational choice for every Indian.
On Friday, Pawan Kalyan's comments on the Hindi language have sparked widespread criticism from both the opposition and social media users.
Speaking at the Jana Sena formation day, Pawan Kalyan raised concerns about what he perceived as a contradiction in Tamil Nadu's stance on Hindi.
"Tamil Nadu continuously rejects Hindi, stating that they do not want it. However, a thought crossed my mind—if that is the case, why do they dub Tamil films in Hindi? They seek revenue from Hindi-speaking states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Chhattisgarh and rely on workers from Bihar. Yet, they claim to despise Hindi. How is this fair?" he questioned.
He further stated, "Is India a piece of cake to be divided whenever someone is displeased? If anyone attempts to undermine the integrity of India, there are crores of people like me who will rise to protect it."