Kiccha Sudeep believes ‘some third person’ was behind his Twitter spat with Ajay Devgn: ‘The man I know would never…’

A few months ago, Kannada star Kiccha Sudeep made headlines as he and Ajay Devgn sparred 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 a to-and-fro between the two actors on the platform. In a recent interaction with Hindustan Times, Kiccha Sudeep indicated that the two actors have buried the hatchet but also hinted that he believes it wasn’t Ajay’s idea to tweet to him in that manner. Also read: Kiccha Sudeep responds to Ajay Devgn’s tweet: ‘What if I responded in Kannada’

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.”

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.”

Sudeep jokes that people in south India learnt Hindi even before they went to school, courtesy Bollywood films. He says, “In south, we have all learnt Hindi even before it became a second language or third language in our school. We had two teachers–Kishore Kumar ji and Amit ji (Amitabh Bachchan). Because of these two people, we have learnt Hindi much before we went to school. They have forcibly taught us. To understand their songs and Mr Bachchan’s dialogues, we had to. Since then, we have loved Hindi.”

He reiterates that the entire spat with Ajay happened because of a misunderstanding. Sudeep says he was trying to talk about Hindi’s position as the dominant 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.”

Apart from his success in the Kannada film industry, Sudeep has worked in Hindi films like Rann, Rakta Charitra and Dabangg 3 as well. His upcoming Kannada film–Vikrant Rona–is also releasing in Hindi as well as Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam. The film, which also stars Jacqueline Fernandez, hits the screens on July 28.