Govt moves to give Kannada its classical due

The state government on Thursday announced that it will expedite steps to make full use of Kannada’s heritage, after finding that little had been done on this front a full eleven years after the language was accorded classical status.

To start with, the government will finalise a piece of land to establish a full-fledged Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Kannada, which is currently functioning out of a small building in Mysuru. This will be followed by constituting a governing board, finance committee and academic board.

“Kannada was declared as a classical language in 2008, but the initial confusions have persisted all these years,” Kannada & Culture Minister C T Ravi said, after discussing the classical language status with experts.

“As a result, we have not been able to achieve the results that were desired over these 11 years and Kannada lags behind other classical languages such as Tamil and Malayalam,” he said.

According to Ravi, the University of Mysore has volunteered to provide five acres land on its campus for the Centre whereas Bangalore University has offered three. “The Centre needs anywhere between 3-5 acres. The overall opinion is that Mysuru will be conducive for research into classical Kannada literature,” he said, adding that the land will be finalized soon.

The government is under pressure to complete the formalities before November 1, when Karnataka celebrates Rajyotsava.

Since 2011, the government has received just Rs 10 crore for the classical language status. “The maximum we have spent in a year is Rs 84 lakh with the remaining funds going back to the Centre. That’s because we don’t have the proper infrastructure,” Ravi said.

At present, the existing Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Kannada functions under the Central Institute of Indian Languages. Once it gets its own infrastructure, the government will approach the Centre to make it an autonomous body like the Central Institute of Classical Tamil.