Rashmika Mandanna
Rashmika Mandanna.PR Handout

Rashmika Mandanna has found herself in a centre of controversy as a section of media reported the actress of making anti-Kannada comments. The speculations enraged the Kannadigas with a section of people demanding others to boycott her upcoming multilingual movie Dear Comrade.

What Media reported?

A section of media reported that Rashmika Mandanna had claimed in an interview that Kannada was a difficult language and she was not fluent in the language. This comment did not go well with a section of Kannadigas, who were hurt to know that she was not fluent in Kannada despite being born and brought up in Karnataka.

What is the truth?

In the interview, Rashmika Mandanna was speaking about the Dear Comrade music festivals organised in four southern states. She revealed that her latest film was initially planned only in Telugu and dubbing in other languages like in Kannada and Tamil were taken at the later stages.

When she mentioned about Kannada, the interviewer, reminded her that the language was easy for her understanding because she hails from Karnataka. Her instant reaction was "no" following which she added, "adu kastam....yenaku Aa language correct agi varaadungaa" (It is also difficult...I cannot speak any language correctly)."

Her comments were taken out of context and apparently misinterpreted by a section of media projecting that she insulted Kannada. There is no truth in the reports which accused Rashmika of calling Kannada a difficult language to learn.

In the same interview, when the question of speaking in English arose, she had responded similarly by claiming that she was not very good in the said language.

However, the issue was blown out of proportion to an extent where people started a campaign on Twitter to boycott Dear Comrade. It took an interesting turn after pro-dubbing activists hit out at the call to boycott the multilingual flick stating that it was an attempt by the anti-dubbing lobby to prevent the growth of the pro-dubbing movement in Karnataka.

Dear Comrade, which has Vijay Deverakonda in the lead role, is releasing in four languages – Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam – on 26 July.