A few months ago, Kannada star Kiccha Sudeep made headlines as he and Ajay Devgan had quite a spat on social media over Hindi and its status as the ‘national language’. In April, after Sudeep said at an event that Hindi was ‘no longer India’s national language’, Ajay took to Twitter, tagging him and writing a long note in Hindi questioning his statement. This led to to-and-fro between the two actors on the platform. In a recent interaction with a media person Kiccha Sudeep indicated that the two actors have buried the chopper but also hinted that he believes it wasn’t Ajay’s idea to tweet to him in that manner.  

When asked if he and Ajay Devgn are ‘friends’ after their Twitter spat three months ago, Sudeep says, “Ajay Devgn is a gentleman. There is nothing there. I am telling you 100% there is a small misinterpretation there. He tweeted to me but he was very sweet enough to retweet back and say ‘I got my answer Sudeep, thanks for clearing it up’.”

Ajay’s first tweet to Sudeep was in Hindi, written in the Devanagari script, while Sudeep’s response was in English. He even pointed out that he could have chosen to respond in Kannada, implying that Ajay wouldn’t have understood his response then. Sudeep received a lot of support from fans and celebs on this, with many saying Ajay should have stuck to English--the common language--for the conversation. On this, Sudeep says, “I am very sure the man I know would never tweet in Hindi. It’s definitely a third person’s idea behind it. I do not want to know or conclude on that.”

Kiccha Sudeep’s response to Ajay Devgn after the latter took offence to Sudeep’s statement about Hindi.

Many criticized Sudeep as well, taking his statement as something that was ‘anti-Hindi’. The actor does not agree. In fact, he says he loves Hindi and it belongs to him just as much as it belongs to native Hindi speakers in the country. “Hindi is ours too. It is one language that doesn’t belong to a particular religion or community. It’s a common language that we use in India to talk to each other. It’s a connecting language and we are proud of it.”

He restates that the entire spat with Ajay happened because of a misunderstanding. Sudeep says he was trying to talk about Hindi’s position as the main language in Indian cinema now and nothing more. He says, “I don’t have a fight against Hindi. My simple point was that pan-India shouldn’t always mean Hindi. Just because you are making Hindi films does not automatically make it pan-India. Marathi, Kannada, Telugu, Punjabi, Tamil films are also becoming pan-India now. This is what I wanted to say. The debate at the time was that it’s our national language. It’s not but we love it still. He may be coming from there but this language belongs to us also. It belongs to us as much as it belongs to you.”

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