Chennai: Rejecting outright home minister Amit Shah’s prescription, ‘One Nation, One Language’ as going against India’s unique identity as the land of multiple languages and cultures yet practising ‘Unity in Diversity’, actor-politician Kamal Haasan on Monday cautioned the BJP regime at the Centre against ‘thrusting’ Hindi on the Tamil people.

“Do not make an inclusive India, an exclusive one,” Mr Kamal said, warning that if the Centre persists with its Hindi imposition, that could lead to public unrest in Tamil Nadu that would not do good either to the Centre or to Tamil Nadu. “Jallikattu (2017) was just a protest; the battle for our language will be exponentially bigger than that. India or Tamil Nadu do not need or deserve such a battle,” he said and everybody would suffer “due to such short-sighted folly”.

Kamal reminded the rulers that Unity in Diversity was a promise made by the leaders when India finally won its freedom and became Republic. “No Shah, Sultan or Samrat should renege on that promise”, he warned.

“We respect all languages, but our mother language will always be Tamil,” said Mr Kamal in his video message.