‘I don’t know Hindi’ T-shirts set Twitter on fire, actors, activists, politicos join chorus

Chennai

T-shirts carrying the phrase ‘I do not know Hindi’ and similar messages supporting mother tongue, Tamil, were trending on social media after BJP State Treasurer SR Sekar criticised T-shirts worn by actor Shanthnu and his wife Keerthi, carrying messages supporting Tamil and condemning the imposition of Hindi resulting in a social media outrage. The hashtag, ‘I don’t know Hindi’, received close to 2 lakh tweets.

Keerthi and Shanthnu, on Saturday, shared their image on Twitter with T-shirts saying ‘I don’t know Hindi’. A similar photo, wearing a similar t-shirt, was also shared by music director Yuvan Shankar Raja.

Meanwhile, Sekar on Sunday criticised the image saying that it was an advertisement for selling T-shirts. As soon as Sekar’s tweet went online, there was outrage across the State as actors, politicians and social activists soon became part of the nation-wide trending.

“A spark is enough to ignite a sentiment. When we printed T-shirts, in the era of blatant Hindi imposition, we didn’t know that the youngsters would respond passionately like our forefathers in fighting discriminating practices. Thank you,” said DMK MP Kanimozhi, on twitter.

As soon as the tweets with the hashtag ‘I don’t know Hindi’ went viral, photos of t-shirts with similar phrases surfaced online. Captions on T-shirts like “I am a Tamil speaking Indian”, and “I am Indian, I don’t speak Hindi” went viral along with the images of legendary Tamil poets Thiruvalluvar and Bharathiyar.

DMK leader and actor Udayanidhi Stalin also shared a video in which he was wearing a T-shirt saying ‘Hindi teriyadhu poda’. He was seen in a video chat in which he quipped, “It was respectably said that Hindi teriyadhu poda.”

Environmental activists, including G Sundarrajan of Poovulagin Nanbargal, also became part of the national trend by posting an image of him and his daughter with T-shirts with the phrase “I am Indian, I don’t speak Hindi”. He added, “My language, my right.”