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The Rediff Special/Madhuri V Krishnan
'100 % job reservations for Kannadigas is the KDA's main objective'
Professor Chandrashekhar Patil -- aka 'Champa,' his nom-de-plume -- has been head of the English department at Dharwad, and is a writer in English and Kannada. Madhuri V Krishnan caught up with the Kannada Development Authority chairman in Banagalore this week:
Why are you conducting this drive, dredging up an outdated law and implementing it in the 1990s in a cosmopolitan city like Bangalore?
Why not? It saddens me that no one did anything about this way back and we have to enforce it now. Our only intention is to give the official language of the state due respect and to make it popular among the citizens of Karnataka.
So what if Bangalore is cosmopolitan, is it not the capital of Karnataka? You have to follow certain rules if you stay in any place. In Tamil Nadu, Tamil is compulsory at all administrative levels and ordinary life. Marathi is given the same prominence in Maharashtra. Unfortunately, we have not done the same with Kannada. We are doing it now.
Why are you forcing this down people's throats? If you want them to develop a love for the language, surely this is not the right way.
This is the only way they will understand. One has to be realistic and aggressive in a positive way. We have a reputation for being idle, lazy and unassertive. It is time we changed because we sincerely love this land, its language and culture. Dr Raj Kumar (the Kannada movie superstar) put it rightly when he appealed to all Karnataka vasis (residents of Karnataka) to see this as their own land and become Kannadigas.
You plan to enforce 100 per cent job reservations for Kannadigas. Don't you expect a backlash?
Not at all. We want to implement Dr Mahishi's report to grant job opportunities to Kannadigas. This is the KDA's primary objective. Hundred per cent reservations will be there in state-owned enterprises. In private enterprises, the percentage of job reservations will be fixed. In private factories, the C and D categories will have 100 per cent reservations, the B category will have 85 per cent and the A category will have 65 per cent.
In a nation with so many languages and dialects, if every state begins doing what Karnataka has done, India will soon be fragmented.
I personally think we need a link language connecting us all nationally, which can be Hindi. The international language, the language we use globally, will be English. This policy should come from the Centre. And in every state, we must insist on the language of the state, then Hindi and English.
The Rediff Special
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