Akshay Kumar has lent his two cents on the whole North cinema vs South cinema debacle.
Ever since the rise and rise of regional language films like Bahubali, RRR, KGF and Pushpa, the debate about how the Telugu and Tamil film industry has eaten up a big portion of the cake that Bollywood was holding monopoly on for several years.
Even in so-called North Indian circuits, the films have been doing well – turning names like Prabhas, Yash and Allu Arjuun into Pan India stars.
In the past couple of weeks/months, we also saw how it gave rise to the never-ending debate about National language, the importance given to Hindi on national platforms, in comparison to some Southern Indian languages.
Adding to the same, Akshay Kumar stated that this dialect is divisive, and urged people to stop engaging into it. The ‘Prithviraj’ actor also pointed out that this divisive dialogue is exactly how the ‘Britishers had come and divided us.’
Here’s what he was quoted as saying by Indian Express on the subject:
“I don’t believe in this divide. I hate it when somebody says south industry or north industry, we are all a common industry. I think we should stop asking this question. It is important that we understand that this is how the Britishers came and divided us, they invaded us and ruled us. We don’t seem to have learnt our lesson, we are still not understanding this. The day we understand that we are all one industry, I think things will start working much better.”
He further added:
“This word ‘pan-India’ films and all, woh meri samajh ki bahar hai, (I don’t understand it). All I want is all the films to work, and that’s about it.”
A very good point added by Akshay.
Perhaps we should all look at this moment as something that unifies all our strengths, instead of letting our egos get the best of us.
What do you think?