Battle against Hindi imposition will be bigger than jallikattu protest: Kamal

Actor turned politician and head of Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) Kamal Hassan on Monday said that any imposition of Hindi will lead to a battle that will be "exponentially bigger" than the 'jallikattu' protest.

"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," Hassan said.

He said that no matter what politicians say, students should be the one who decide what language they want to learn.

Earlier, Hassan said that the imposition of Hindi on Tamil Nadu will lead to a battle that would be exponentially bigger than the 'Jallikattu' protest.

"Jallikattu was just a protest, the battle for our language will be exponentially bigger than that. India or Tamil Nadu does not need or deserve such a battle," Hassan said in a short video he shared on his Twitter handle.

"The unity in diversity is the promise we made when we made India into a republic. 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.

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy had earlier today, slammed Hassan over his "impositions".

"Moron Kamalahasan and DMK Chief Stalin are howling about the imposition of Hindi. What about their imposition that no Hindi will be taught in Tamil Nadu? Let Hindi be an optional third language and the choice on which language to opt left to the student," Swamy had tweeted earlier today.

this comes in the backdrop of Union Home Minister Amit Shah's call to culturally unify India with Hindi as its national language. It has triggered a row with several opposition leaders training their guns at each other over the issue.