Didn't seek Pampa Mahakavi Road name change: KSP's Mahesh Joshi

The Kannada Sahitya Parishat on Monday said it had not requested a change in the name of a road now named after a revered Kannada poet.

Reports over the weekend said the Parishat had asked the BBMP to change the name of Pampa Mahakavi Road to Kannada Sahitya Parishat Road. The Karnataka Jain Association, besides a host of writers, had opposed the idea.

“We plan to beautify the road to create a Kannada atmosphere, but we have no proposal to rename the road,” Mahesh Joshi, president of the Parishat, told DH. The plan is to display and sell Kannada books, play Kannada music and put up posters about literary stalwarts, he said.

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Reports say the Parishat had requested the BBMP to rename the road on which it is located. Joshi blamed “vested interests” for the controversy.

Connecting Basavanagudi and Chamarajpet, the road is named after Pampa, the 10th-century Kannada poet who wrote Vikramarjuna Vijaya and Adi Purana, regarded as classics, and studied closely by students of Kannada literature.

When Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai visited the Parishat after its renovation recently, Joshi handed him a memorandum.

“Some people who had gathered there wanted the stretch in front of the Parishat renamed, and suggested names like Kannada Sahitya Parishat Road, Pampa and Kannada Sahitya Parishat Road and Nadoja Pampa Mahakavi Kannada Sahitya Parishat Road. We can’t stop people from making suggestions,” Joshi said.

The Parishat’s executive committee’s approval is mandatory for any such request, Joshi said, deflecting criticism that he had, in an individual capacity, pitched for a name change.

His letter to the BBMP dated June 3 seeks measures to develop the stretch to create a “Kannada atmosphere”.

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Not everyone is convinced about Joshi’s defence. “He is trying to cover it all up. If there was no such proposal, how did the controversy erupt?” said writer R G Halli Nagaraja.

Well-known academics such as Baraguru Ramachandrappa, Rajendra Chenni and S G Siddaramaiah told DH that Joshi should categorically state his intentions.

“How did the matter crop up now? Pampa is Kannada’s Adikavi (first poet). The Sahitya Parishat is the first organisation set up to promote the cause of Kannada. You can’t separate the two,” Ramachandrappa told DH.

Writer Siddaramaiah said Joshi might go back on his word that the road won’t be renamed. “He said he wouldn’t amend the Parishat bylaws, but went ahead and did it. We oppose any move to rename the road,” he said.