English
Gujarati
Hindi
Punjabi
Tamil
India One News
As actor Ajay Devgn and Kiccha Sudeep momentarily participated in a Twitter conversation, the debate about how Bollywood is no longer the secret formula for ensuring pan-India success soon erupted into a national language war. Vimal, not the languages, was the one who dominated online trends and dialogues. Yes, it was the tobacco-based product that was exploited by netizens to mock Devgn.
For the uninitiated, it all started on Wednesday when the Singham actor tagged Sudeep and asked why he distributes his films in Hindi dubbed if he doesn’t consider Hindi to be the national language. Devgn was responding to Sudeep’s prior remarks, in which he declared that “Hindi is no longer a national language” while speaking about pan-Indian films at an event.
“Hindi is our mother tongue and our national language, and it will always be. Jana Gana Mana,” Devgn tweeted in Hindi.
“No offence sir, but was wondering what’d the situation be if my response was typed in Kannada.!! Don’t we too belong to India sir,” he added. And even though the two actors finally came on the same page and blamed the controversy as a misunderstanding calling it “lost in translation”, netizens were not done yet.’
Vimal soon took over Twitter, eclipsing all trends, with many targeting Devgn again for sponsoring the tobacco-based product, tweeting memes similar to those used to criticise Akshay Kumar recently. Although Devgn clarified that he wasn’t endorsing gutka and was merely appearing in the ad for Vimal Elaichi, netizens pointed out that this is exactly how surrogate advertising works, where one product is used to promote another.
Fans questioned why Devgn’s ads were dubbed in other languages in response to Devgn’s remark on why South Indian films are being dubbed in Hindi. Many people argued that the Indian Constitution recognises numerous regional languages and requested Devgn to cease sponsoring cigarette products.
The success of films like KGF Chapter 2, RRR, and Pushpa: The Rise in recent months has sparked speculation that regional cinema has cracked the pan-Indian success formula, while Hindi films are lagging behind.
