Everyone who lives in Karnataka is a Kannadiga. They should learn Kannada and make their children learn it too, said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, while speaking at the 62nd Karnataka Rajyotsava celebrations in Bengaluru on November 1.
"I am a Kannadiga first, and then an Indian," he added.
At a time when pro-Kannada groups are opposing the "imposition" of Hindi, and the Congress government has appointed a panel to design and study the legal tenability of having a separate Kannada flag for the state, the CM's assertion of the Kannada identity assumes significance.
"If you don't learn Kannada, it means you're showing disrespect to the language," said Siddaramaiah, who also expressed concern that the Kannadigas need to grow more pride and affection towards their language and the State had not succeeded in establishing the right Kannada ambience.
The CM also asked the Kannadigas to be more affectionate towards their language.
Focusing on preservation of Kannada language, the chief minister called for efforts towards creating an atmosphere for learning Kannada and said all schools in the state should teach Kannada.
Lamenting that Karnataka did not succeed in making Kannada a priority in the last 60 years, he said, "Teaching Kannada language is made compulsory even in CBSE and ICSE schools in the state."
Every school irrespective of its board should teach Kannada, he clarified adding that the government would not shutdown any government school even if there is a single student as there is a concerted effort to upgrade their standard.
Countering the critics who dub his concern for Kannada as an "election-oriented" move, he says, "I don't believe in playing politics over Kannada. I am a Kannada lover by birth. I started my political career as the chairman of Kannada Vigilance Committee. Kannada has a history of 2,000 years. I have never compromised on issues concerning the Kannada language, land and water."
Listing his government's initiatives, he said, "After my party came to power, I ensured that five per cent reservation is extended to Kannada medium students appearing for the KPSC exams, 100 per cent reservations to Kannadigas in Group C and D posts in private sector. Our language policy emphasises on conducting recruitment exams for rural banks in Kannada. Knowledge of Kannada has been made compulsory for employees of nationalised, rural and scheduled banks in the state. Screening of Kannada movies has been made mandatory at all theatres including multiplexes. The annual subsidy for Kannada movies has been extended to 125 films and Kannada learning centre's have been opened to teach non-Kannadigas."
Reminding the BJP and the Centre about the federal system of democracy, Siddaramaiah said, "We are not opposed to Hindi or English. But we will not tolerate imposition of other languages at the expense of Kannada. When the pro-Kannada groups opposed imposition of Hindi at Metro stations, my government intervened and got the Centre to adopt two-language (Kannada and English) policy. The Constitution recognises the fact that the state language is supreme in every state. Imposing another language defeats the purpose of linguistic reorganisation of states. A federal system should protect the autonomy of the regional language."
Noting that parents were closing English medium schools over the Kannada schools, the CM called it an "alarming trend".
"My government has been urging the Centre to implement the national education policy to impart primary education in the mother tongue. I wrote to the PM soon after the SC ruling and mentioned it was a setback for every regional language. But to no avail," he rued.
"It is a false notion that students studying in Kannada medium have no future," said the CM, adding that stalwarts like Bharat Ratna Sir M Visvesvaraya and Bharat Ratna CNR Rao had studied in Kannada medium.
"I became a chief minister though I too studied in Kannada medium. However, we have trained 5000 teachers and told them to teach English as one of the subjects in government primary schools. There is a misconception that modern science cannot be taught in Kannada, but one can study any discipline in Kannada. This will enrich the knowledge, language and literature. Likewise doctors, lawyers, technologists and engineers too should adopt Kannada. A new language policy is the need of the hour. Kannada should become the administrative language in the true sense."
