BJP to use NEP proposals to woo Kannadigas

Sachchidananda Gautam
Bengaluru

With only ten months left for the polls to Karnataka Legislative Assembly, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka is apparently trying to appease Kannadigas and making Kannada mandatory from Class 1 to 12 is being viewed as a move in the direction. Karnataka’s Position Paper on language education under the National Education Policy (NEP) is an indication of Karnataka BJP’s new-found ‘love’ for Kannada and Kannadigas.

NEP proposes a three-language policy with Kannada being the mandatory language from Class 1 to 12. Interestingly, the Position Paper mandates that the medium of instruction till Class 5 should be the mother tongue or native language or Kannada, which provides the flexibility of a bilingual medium of instruction.

It appears that the Karnataka BJP is emulating Telangana, where Telugu has been made compulsory for Class 10 from this year. Accordingly, all class 10 students, irrespective of their board of education, will have to study Telugu as a compulsory subject and even take a test during their board examination. The move is being perceived as the initiative of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) to capitalise on the Telugu language pride.

Karnataka BJP, which was daydreaming of making Hindi a national language and imposing Hindi with impunity, suddenly woke up from its slumber, when Karnataka Congress decided to contest the election on Kannadiga pride. Congress leader Siddaramaiah recently announced that “the Congress will contest the next Assembly election in Karnataka on the plank of “Kannada pride” against the BJP’s effort to indirectly impose Hindi on the State

Congress’s Kannada pride

Siddaramaiah argued that the BJP government in the State is controlled from Delhi and is seeking to indirectly impose Hindi and Hindutva in Karnataka. But, Congress will bank on the domicile-based reservation in Class III and IV government jobs for Kannadigas based on the revised Sarojini Mahishi Committee report, which recommends a certain percentage of jobs to Kannadigas in the public sector undertakings, private companies and multinational companies.

It is important that Congress’s concern for Kannadiga is not a poll-bound agenda. In his five-year tenure, Siddaramaiah made it a point to uphold Kannada’s pride and it was his major priority. In fact, Siddaramaiah was the first chairman of the Kannada Watchdog Committee set up to supervise the implantation of Kannada as the official language.

Sarojini Mahishi panel

It is significant that the three-decade-old Sarojini Mahishi Committee report was gathering dust and it was revised during the previous Congress tenure to extend employment to localities. But, Congress lost power and the present BJP government is sitting ideal on that.

Kannada organisations are urging the BJP government to implement the recommendations of the revised report and make it an act. Unfortunately, BJP, in its enthusiasm to promote the Hindu-Hindi agenda has not considered the revised committee report as a priority.

But Siddaramaiah said that Congress will pitch for first preference to Kannadigas in jobs and ensure “full implementation” of the Sarojini Mahishi Committee report. “While Congress is committed to the welfare of all the sections, Kannadigas have to be given preference in Karnataka,” he said