Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi recently recounted how he felt humiliated and saddened when the greats of South Indian cinema did not find a mention at an award ceremony in Delhi years ago.
"In 1988, I made a movie called Rudraveena with Naga Babu," Chiranjeevi said at an event for his film Acharya, according to a translation provided by video publisher Brut India. "It received the National Integration Award. The Nargis Dutt Award. We went to Delhi to receive the award."
Chiranjeevi added that at a high tea before the ceremony, photos of legendary Hindi film actors like Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand, Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna and Dharmendra were showcased. "They described them beautifully," he said.
But the representation of stars from South India was disproportionate, he added.
"And we thought they would also talk about South Indian cinema in such great detail. But they just showed a still image of MGR and Jayalalithaa dancing," Chiranjeevi was quoted as saying by Brut India. “And Prem Nazir, who played a hero in a record number of films in the history of Indian cinema, they showed his picture and that was it."
He said there was no mention of Kannada and Telugu actors Dr Rajkumar, Vishnuvardhan, Rama Rao, A Nageswara Rao.
"They were demigods to us," Chiranjeevi said. "And there were no pictures of them. For me, it was humiliating. I felt very sad. They projected only Hindi cinema as Indian cinema. And they dismissed other industries as regional language cinema. They didn't even bother to acknowledge its contribution," he said.
Chiranjeevi's comments are all the more significant amid a renewed debated about the hegemony of Hindi.
Recently, Kannada actor Kicha Sudeep had said in a tweet that Hindi is not India's national language.
Bollywood star Ajay Devgn responded to him. "Kiccha Sudeep my brother, according to you if Hindi is not our national language then why do you release your mother tongue movies by dubbing them in Hindi? Hindi was, is and always will be our mother tongue and national language. Jan Gan Man."
Many people slammed Devgn, pointing out to him that India's national anthem itself was written in Bengali by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
Read: Kiccha Sudeep says 'Hindi is not our national language', Ajay Devgn's counter is viral
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