Has the creation of a united Karnataka damaged the multi-lingual character of the Kannada sensibility? Not so, writes
M.S. Prabhakara, the Kannadiga who was The Hindu‘s Guwahati correspondent before being posted to South Africa, in a column in today’s issue of the paper:
“The resentment over the influx of non-Kannadigas, and anxieties that the native Kannada speakers are being reduced to an irrelevant minority—as they are very nearly so in Bangalore—is now more or less a given in popular discourse. This was not always so.
“Areas across the borders of present day Karnataka inhabited by Kannada speakers were once part of the Kannada country and are even now claimed for Karnataka. The reverse too is true….
“If in pre-integration days the Kannada sensibility was enriched by the cross-fertilisation with cultures of Telugu and Tamil as well as Marathi, some Urdu and the minor languages of coastal Karnataka (and vice-versa), seen at its best in the culture of folk literature the popular cinema, post 1956 the Kannada sensibility has been enriched by forces that were till recently dormant, powerless.”
Read the full column here: Who owns Kannada?
churumuri 
Kannada getting enriched by other languages or Kannada enriching other languages is is a natural phenomenon and that has been happening for ages now. For instance, madieval Kannada influenced Marathi and even Gujarati. But the fear of Kanndadigas in Bangalore is that of the Mumbai phenomenon repeating itself. Despite being part of Maharashtra Mumbai is a Hindi bastion. The Bambaiya Hindi is the official language here. And all it has are a few traces of Marathi.
It’s great that everybody here speaks a common tongue. But how would a Maharashtrian who has seen his language disappearing from the mainstream?
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I dont understand what the author is trying to convey…its too convoluted or the english is too high brow for me, maybe it is meant for the ‘loyal red rag ‘ readers only
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I second Vinay’s opinion. I could not understand what author is trying the say per se.
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“Ownership” can’t be ‘democratized’ anymore than a language can be ‘owned’. This is more post-modernist (“po-mo” in acad circles) BS masquerading as informed opinion.
The author fails to appreciate the point that the scale of immigration happening now is unprecedented, and at the same time, misses out the point that Kannada is being globalized (through our techies and expats) in a manner never before through emigration of Kannadigas to far corners of the world. The only two pieces of fact that seem to emerge in the entire article are based on the writer’s personal experience.
Also completely ignores the role played by the popular media in modifying, altering and creating new accents/words/phrases in Kannada. Any discussion on the evolution of spoken Kannada cannot ignore the huge impact films/drama/ TV soap operas have had on the way Kannada is spoken by various classes who have access to these media. What we instead get from the author is a fleeting mention of the most fledgling, urban-centric of the various media (FM radio).
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this is the second article of prabhakara that Hindu has carried with a provocative title. eno aaTa ide. yenu anta gottilla.
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ಈ ಎಂ. ಎಸ್. ಪ್ರಭಾಕರ ಅವರು ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ “ಕುದುರೆ ಮೊಟ್ಟೆ” ಎಂಬ ಕಾದಂಬರಿ ಬರೆದಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಎಂ.ಎ. ಮತ್ತು ಪಿ.ಎಚ್.ಡಿ. ಮಾಡಿರುವವರು ಸಹ ಅದನ್ನು ಈಗಲೂ ಅರ್ಥ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ಆಗಿಲ್ಲ. ಅರ್ಥ ಆಗಲಿಲ್ಲ ಅಂದ್ರೆ ಅವಮಾನ ಆಗತ್ತೆ ಅಂತ ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ ಅಕಾಡಮಿ ಅವರು ಪ್ರಶಸ್ತಿ ಸಹ ಕೊಟ್ಟೂ ಬಿಟ್ಟಿದ್ದಾರೆ.
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The Reverse is True
This is the author’s way of sending a thank you note to the editor at Hindu for the South Africa posting. The author comes off as a schizophrenic. While hinting darkly at the ‘growing insularity’, ‘resentment against the outsiders’, he employs too many meaningless inversions!
Expect to see more nuggets from the author …”Many Bantus speak Ulayeoh word as Ulay–which is remarkably the same word spoken by many Bants in coastal Karnataka. The tribes here have their own colors which are nailed to their ancestral huts. To my trained eye they looked like DMK flags and remarkably many Zulus look like DMK foot soldiers…In fact in my next despatch I will discuss the remarkable similarities between swahili and tamil…
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Talk of self glorification facade…what a mystery!!!
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i third vinay’s opinion!
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Third paradalli avaru yenu heLalikke horaTiddaare antha yaarigoo thiLiyuvanthilla, allave , KannaDigare, athava ivaru thumba buddHijeevigaLu irabeku
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I don’t understand the premise of the guy’s article. Who claimed to own Kannada in the first place? It doesn’t make sense. If the Tamilian says he owns Kannada, I’d say by all means please do and also use it once in a while!
I don’t understand these so called scholars. Kannada is rich because of influences from other languages, so we should be open to outsiders. Tamil is rich because it is NOT influenced by other languages so we should celebrate that and even make it a classical language!
Is it just me or is something wrong with this picture?
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@G3S
I am not so sure how ”uninfluenced” Tamil is by other languages. I remember reading some time back in the Hindu , an interview of a research scholar who had come to AP from Europe or the US for a kind of fellowship studying ancient Telugu. He was living in Vijaywada if I recall correctly. I cannot remember his name. What I do remember is that he said that Telugu was richer than one might think and that Tamil wasn’t anywhere near as independent and free of influence from other languages as it is often thought. It wasn’t quite as isolated as it often supposed.
It has always struck as a bit odd: how is it even the governments, state or central, have never tried to give incentives to people in India to learn languages other than their mother tongues? How is it we have never tried to encourage people from different parts of India to learn other Indian
languages? It is harder to learn Bengali or Telugu than it is to learn German or French. Economics has a major part to play here.
Unless of course they are going there-unfortunately, because of Hindi, even that is going down dramatically. Bangalore/Chennai are the exceptions, where one has to learn the local language. That may change.
Imagine Keralites going to Kashmir to learn and study Kashmiri and Kashmiris going to Kerala to learn and study Malayalam. Or Gujjus/Maharashtrians going to Bengal and Orissa to study and learn Bengali or Oriya, them coming here to study Marathi or Gujarati. Scholarships can be provided to those people and one can carefully select those who are genuinely interested. THe basic premise is encourage learning and study in other Indian languges. Heck, imagine the best of Kannada/Malayalam/ being directly translated into Marathi or Bengali. Not through English.
Something to think about….
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ouch! g3s!!
intaha prashne ella keLa bahuda? ;)
hindu is full of this, do as i say not as i do type of editorial flourishes.
how come we never hear about this type of syncretism? from the Hindu?
how come we never hear about the great purge?
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Same here.. i dont understand what is the point behind the writer’s verbosity.. idu tamilnadu’s national newspaperdu eno maamooli kitapati irabeku. However, i have noticed that china post is now less biased against Karnataka vis-a-vis TN than it was say 10 yrs ago.
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ts, yen maDodu…..haLAddu logic anta taleli kootide :) heegella asambaddhavaagi prashne baMdbiDatte.
The only thing I like about Hindu is its sports pages. Good coverage of everything. Thankfully they can’t play politics there as much as in the other sections.
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the hindu—- yen paper swami adu, national newspaper with tamil outlook.
everything and anything in the world will be connected to tamil and tamilnadu .
article on bolivia —- finally ends up with a line that it once belonged to tamil kingdom. sincerely request people to switch over to other newspapers
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vo, 10 years ago it was even more blatant? eeginde taDiyokk aagthilla …
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Bottom Line: Whatever the Prabhakars of the world may say, it is difficult-if not very difficult o get by in Bangaluru if you don’t know Kannada. The Mumbai phenomeon is a long way off. Kannadigas are at least 40-50 % of the population. There are far more Kannadigas in Bangaluru than Maharashtrians in Mumbai for the simple reason that when I go to Bangaluru I see, hear, meet Kannada and Kannadigas everywhere. THis trumped up 30 % figure is one I mistrust for the simple reason that Kannada is so much more in presence in Bangaluru than its counterpart Mumbai.
Bonus question: Why is it cities like Bangalore/Mumbai only come up in KA/MA? Or has everyone else already built their cities?
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Who ever M.S. Prabhakar is, he didn’t sound very smart. No one owns a language but belong to it. It is part of their soul. For this simple reason, Kannadigas should become more assertive about talking in Kannada and helping Kannadigas get more jobs in the IT industry. After all, language is the basis under which the states were reorganized. So if someone tells you that what’s the big deal if they don’t speak Kannada, ask him or her what’s the big deal if they did actually learn Kannada. Don’t expect the whole world to change for you. If Indians can go to other parts of the world and pick up foreign languages they very well can pick up Kannada too! No excuses. This message applies especially to those people who have lived in Bengaluru for more than 20-30 years and have always shunned learning Kannada. No where else in India would one tolerate such nonsense. Look at our fanatic neighbors in Chennai for a start!!Sirigannadam gelge!
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pardon my grand standing, but i think the rest of SI has for a bit too long let the TN usurp the dravidian identity. The digas, the gults and the mallus have lived comfortably in reality and have been lethargic enough to let the folks in south cauvery basin to run with the notion some sort of racial purity. its time for the veto on dravidian identity to be restored to its original habitat – the south krishna basin. too much nonsense and garbage coming out of TN for anybody’s comforts. How the hell can they usurp entire dravidian identity when they are really just a twig in the southern branch of the dravidian tree?
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How can TN usurp entire dravidian identity when they are really just a twig in the southern branch of the dravidian tree and the real cradle of dravidian civilization is the south krishna basin?
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TS, afterall it’s privately owned ;)
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I fourth Vinay’s opinion.
The author is trying to say that good Kannada is no longer defined by “a caste-class elite”? So..? And what’s it got to do with insularity of the state?
In any case, that’s because of mass media and definitely not “the inescapable fallout of influx”.
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@SanjeevN:
Chennaities are fanatics. Agreed. However Marathis in Mumbai have been overrun by people who cannot speak and refuse to learn how to speak Marathi. It has not only been tolerated, but tacitly encouraged. Any attempt by the government of Maharashtra to actually enforce Marathi in any sphere of life, has been opposed. Look at Bombay:=schools havbeen adamant about not teaching Marathi. They keep resorting to the constitution to justify not teaching Marathi even though nowhere in the constitution has it been mentioned that the local language should not be taught to non-natives. There are plenty of South Indians in Gujarat. Many of the white collar jobs were taken by them in refineries, banks, offices et al. IPCL has a lot of South Indians, so does Reliance. However, how many of them can speak Gujarati? How many of them are fluent in the language? How many Kannadigas in Baroda/Surat/Pune/Mumbai are fluent in the local language there? While I am hardly a supporter of either Gujarati or Marathi chauvanism, the locals of these places have certainly tolerated peope who cannot speak their language. Just try to get by in these two states without knowing the local language. Then go to WB/TN/AP and see the difference.
Unfortunately, the Maharashtrian tolerance of other people has led to his sorry plight in the city. Hence, overmuch tolerance of other people leads to a situation like that. If they had been more strident from the start, things would have been different. Those Kannadigas who are uncertain about whether it is good to be language fanatics need only to look at what has happened to Marathi in Mumbai. That should be at the back of their minds: if we are not going to insist on our language….then we’ll land up like the Maharashtrians of Mumbai. Do we want to? Or do we prefer to be like the Tamils in Chennai? Bengalis in Kolkata? The Marathis are a standing testimony to what happens to tolerant people.
The choice is ours.
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@Sugata
I agree with your analysis of the impact on languages through migrations of people. While what you have said is true with regards to Marati in Mumbai I think the people of Maharastra do consider themselves aligned as part of North India and thus are “ok” that they are absorbed in to the Hindi mainstream even though people from all parts of India live in Mumbai. The de facto language in Mumbai is Hindi now which everyone knows.
However the situation in Bengaluru specifically is very different. You have large numbers of Tamilians, Andhrites, Malayalis, north Indians etc where by all the diversity is ultimately drowning out the “local” language of Kannada. It is a state of flux. So many people refuse to acknowledge that Kannada is the local language resulting in a precarious tipping point for the fate of the language. It is a numbers game and unless we have more people who actually speak and use the language you can just imagine 10-15 years from now what the situation might become. We have much a smaller number of speakers as compared to Telugu and Tamil and not much to speak of outside of India who actually speak and connect with Kannada [e.g. like the Tamils in Singapore and Malaysia]
As Tarlesubba has pointed out why is that the Tamils seem to think they represent the South Indian identity? I am from north Karnataka and I have a strong Kannada identity so Tamil Nadu, AP and Kerala are as foreign to me as other parts of India. But unfortunately inside and outside of India, the Kannada identity is not well known, if at all. Why? We haven’t done a good job “selling” it. As in other competitive spheres of life, people treat their languages and identities as an entity they must market and bring awareness to in all ways possible. But we seem to be not be bothered about it. I don’t know where all this is going because no one can foresee what Bengaluru is going to look like in 10 years when the situation today is already looking so murky!
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Mr. SanjeevN, you’re wrong. The average Marathi does not consider himself a North Indian, despite his suicidical fascination for speaking in Hindi. Infact, in BOmbay, the Marathi resents the North Indian. PLease have the courage to speak to Marathis (they will not bite your head off, trust me) and you will be surprised at how much resentment and anger they have against North Indians. While the Marathi obsession with speaking Hindi has resulted in some co-option, and some Marahtis do think they are more north Indian, the fact is that there is far more anger about north Indians than south Indians in the minds of the average Maharashtrian. Don’t merely blame them: in their own state, their language has become redundant in their own capital city, their language has become an object of ridicule, they have been forced to speak an alien language (Hindi) and their accents when they speak it is mocked, they are subject to never-ending ethnic slurs, they are caricatured as a sort of half-bred mongrel people and despite their culture being as rich as any other in India, the popular perception is that the average Maharashtrian is only a maid, clerk or constable.
If Hindi has become the de-facto language, it is INSPITE of the Maharashtrian, not BECAUSE of him. Other communities (including, I hate to say-Kannadigas) have ridden roughshod overhim and forced Marathi to the sidelines. HIndi has been forcibly imposed over Marathi, Maharashtrians have despairingly watched-not as you imply, wanted it to happen. Hindi’s de-facto status is a source of pain to any Maharashtrian.
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