Commentator makes a controversial comment during Ranji Trophy match; says every Indian must know Hindi
A Ranji Trophy match between Karnataka and Baroda on Thursday at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore grabbed headlines after an on-air commentator said that ‘every Indian should know Hindi as it is our mother tongue.’
The incident took place when the visitors were into the seventh over of their second innings. The commentator said: ‘I liked the fact that Sunil Gavaskar is commentating in Hindi and is giving his valuable in the same language. I also loved it that he called the dot ball as a ‘bindi’ ball.”
The other commentator Sushil Doshi responded: “Every Indian must know Hindi. This is our mother tongue. There is no bigger language than this.”
“In fact, I look at those people with a lot of anger who say that we are cricketers still we should talk in Hindi? You are staying in India then you will obviously speak its mother tongue,” he said.
People on social media were not pleased with the comments, with several questioning why not knowing Hindi should be a matter of shame.
As per the language census 2011, less than 50% Indians speak Hindi, which also includes many other languages like Bhojpuri and Sanskrit. The rest of the population is more fluent in English.
Here is how twitter reacted to the comment