Actor Kamal Haasan, who received backlash for his comment that the Kannada language was born out of Tamil, reacted to the row on Wednesday, saying he spoke “out of love” and that politicians such as him should leave such discussions to language experts.
Haasan, who is the president of the Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) party, during the audio launch of his upcoming film ‘Thug Life’ in Chennai, claimed that ‘Tamil gave birth to Kannada”.
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The actor received flak from several political parties and pro-Kannada outfits who demanded that he apologise for hurting the sentiments of the linguistic community.
“What I said was said out of love and a lot of historians have taught me language history. I didn’t mean anything. Tamil Nadu is a state where a Menon has been our chief minister, where a Reddy has been our chief minister, a Tamil has been our CM, and a Kannadiga Iyengar has been our CM,” he was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
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“Politicians are not qualified to talk about language. They don’t have the qualifications to talk about it, including me. Let us leave all these very in-depth discussions to historians, archaeologists and language experts,” he added.
Pro-Kannada outfits demand apology from Kamal Haasan
Kamal Haasan’s comments sparked outrage among several pro-Kannada outfits. These groups staged protests against Haasan in various parts of the state, like Belagavi, Mysuru, Hubballi, Bengaluru, among others.
The Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) threatened to boycott Haasan’s films across Karnataka unless he issued an unconditional apology.
Karnataka’s chief minister Siddaramaiah, also took a dig at Haasan and said, “Kannada has a long-standing history. Poor Kamal Haasan, he is unaware of it.”
Congress MLA from Karnataka, Rizwan Arshad, expressed his disappointment over the remark and said, “What kind of a debate is this? The Kannada language has a history of thousands of years… Kannada and Tamil are ancient languages and part of our country’s foundation… Is this debate necessary at a time when all of us have to be united? … I did not expect Kamal Haasan to make such a statement. It is unfortunate.”