WHAT HAPPENED? At a recent event, Kamal Haasan said, "Kannada was born out of Tamil." At the same event, in Chennai, Kannada star Shivarajkumar was a special guest. While sharing the stage with Shivarajkumar, Kamal Haasan opened his speech with “Uyire Urave Tamizhe” (“My life, and my family, is in Tamil language”), before making the now-controversial remark: “Your language (Kannada) was born out of Tamil, so you too are included.”
THE BACKLASH THAT FOLLOWED: The reaction from Karnataka was swift. Linguists, historians, politicians and cultural commentators refuted Kamal’s claim, emphasising that Kannada boasts a literary history of over 2,000 years and a rich tradition rooted in its heritage. Kannada pro activists have demanded an unconditional apology from Kamal Hassan. Shivarajkumar himself is being trolled online for having spoken Tamil at the event. At the time of going to press, there was no official word from Kamal about the issue.
‘WAS WRONG OF KAMAL HAASAN TO SPEAK LIKE THAT BEFORE SHIVANNA’
KP Srikanth, Shivarajkumar’s close aide, reiterated that the actor’s love, commitment, and loyalty towards Kannada can never be doubted. “All the 135 films he has done have been in Kannada. Like his father, Dr Rajkumar, Shivarajkumar (Shivanna) too has always been a frontrunner in the film industry — fighting for his people, language, and water,” Srikanth said. “So, bearing this in mind, it is wrong to question or doubt his ‘Kannada Prema.’ Shivanna was invited to the event as an ambassador for Kannada, so it was wrong of Kamal Haasan to have spoken the way he did in front of him,” says a firm Srikanth, who also heads the Akhila Karnataka Shivarajkumar Abhimanigala Sangha as its president.