Do Maharashtrians hate Hindi?

The recent 'slap' episode in Maharashtra assembly, made Raj Thakre's MNS overnight hit in Maharashtrians. Abu Azmi, an elected MLA of Samajwadi Party insisted on taking oath in Hindi and MNS MLA manhandled him in the assembly. It started different debates in media..right from whether Hindi is a national language to whether it was a petty attempt to grab media attention.

But in various internet forums, when common people from Hindi belt reacted...they claimed that Maharashtrians hate Hindi and it is an attempt to dishonor Hindi.

Do maharashtrians really hate Hindi?

In ancient India, there were three dialects of Prakrit
1] shaurseni
2] magadhi
3] maharashtri

Maharashtri was prevalent in today's MP and Maharashtra.
Maharattha is a 'Apabhransh' of Maharashtri. 'Apabhransh' was a form
of language spoken by common people.
Marathi language evolved mainly from Maharashtri.

The people speaking this language were referred as Maharrthis or Marathis.

Marathis always were a marshal race mainly due to the tough terrain.
They have to fight hard to earn their livelihood.

Shivaji carved a nation out of these people. But his vision was never
narrow. Shivaji always talked about expelling foreigners from entire
India and talked about 'Hindavi Swaraj'. The Swaraj of Hindavi'
(locals of Hindustan) people. Therefore it spread all across the India
in future, but the then Marathi rulers could not spread nationhood
everywhere and Maratha State became a confederacy of some feuds.

Though this history gave Marathis a national vision. The Marathi
leaders in 19-20th century were never confined to Maharashtra.
Gokhale, Tilak, Hedgewar, Savarkar, Dange were pioneers of different
political streams in India.

Even when Indian cinema started, Hindi was adopted as its language.

So if someone thinks that Marathis hate Hindi because they are narrow
minded or paranoid, he needs 'Atma-shuddhi'.

Marathis do not hate Hindi. They watch Hindi news channel, hindi
movies. They speak in Hindi with non-marathis.

When Marathis support Raj Thakre, it is not because of the paranoia,
it is mainly because they hate the political culture which comes along
with North Indian vote bank. Marathis do not oppose 'chhat puja', but
can not see Lalu's, Mulayams making inroads in the Mumbai politics.
Therefore the support to Thakres is because they at least take up
their issues fearlessly.

Go back and check the history..Bal thakre took up the issue of jobs
for Marathis in 1969.. When it got solved, it took him 20 years to
rise in politics (that to with Hindutva)