South Indian leaders say they will oppose any imposition of Hindi on their states after India's home minister spoke about having one language that becomes India's identity internationally.

In Tamil Nadu, where the language issue is highly sensitive, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party president MK Stalin (photo) warned: "This is India, not Hindia".

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) enjoys wide support in the Hindi heartland and favours Hindi as the Indian federation's common language.

BJP president and Home Minister Amit Shah in a speech and tweets on the annual "Hindi Diwas" (Hindi Day) last Saturday said that while diversity in languages is the strength of India, it was necessary to have one dominant language that won't let "foreign languages" create a space for themselves in the country.

The minister called for popularising Hindi's use within India and making it the most widely used language in the world.

"India has many languages and every language has its importance. But it is absolutely necessary that the entire country should have one language that becomes India's identity internationally," he said in a tweet.

If any language that can unite India, it is the most widely-spoken Hindi, he added.

English is seen as the lingua franca of India, where many states were organised on a linguistic basis following independence from Britain in 1947.

India's Constitution recognises a total of 22 languages and Hindi is the primary language of work and communication in northern and central India.

Shah and Prime Minister Narendra Modi (above) come from the Gujarati-speaking western state of Gujarat, but they are big champions of Hindi's promotion.

Praising Modi's commitment to Hindi, the home minister said wherever the prime minister addresses overseas Indian communities, he uses Hindi.

However, their enthusiasm is not shared by people in the southern states.

"The claim that Hindi unifies our country is absurd. That language is not the mother tongue of a majority of Indians. The move to inflict Hindi upon them amounts to enslaving them. The Union Minister's statement is a war cry against the mother tongues of non-Hindi speaking people," said Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, whose state language is Malayalam.

Vijayan sees the Hindi campaign as part of the "divisive policies" of the Hindu nationalist groups collectively known as "Sangh Parivar" in India.

"No Indian should feel alienated because of language. India's strength is its ability to embrace diversity. Sangh Parivar must relinquish divisive policies. They must realise that people can see through the ploy; that this is an attempt to divert attention from the real problems," the Kerala chief minister tweeted on Sunday.

Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy said he opposed attempts to impose the language on non-Hindi speaking states.

"India is a multi-lingual, multi-cultural and secular nation and any move to impose Hindi would only strike at the pluralistic features of the nation and its cultural identity," Narayanasamy said.

Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah said he treated Hindi as no superior to other Indian languages.

"The lie that Hindi is a national language should stop. Let it be known to all that it is just like Kannada, one among the 22 official languages of India. You cannot promote a language by spreading lies and fake information. Languages flourish by affection and respect for each other," he said in a tweet in his state's Kannada language.

HD Kumaraswamy, another former chief minister of Karnataka, asked in a tweet when will the central government celebrate a "Kannada Diwas", the way it organises the annual Hindi Day.

About 43 percent of India's 1.3 billion people speak Hindi, with Bengali, Marathi, Telugu and Tamil being the other most popular languages.

- Bernama