'One state, many worlds': Parties can’t sell identity politics in Karnataka

Kannada activists and political leaders from the state agitated last week against an alleged decision by Kerala to rename a few Kannada villages in Kasargod district to Malayalam.

While Kerala denied such a move, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah and JD(S) leader H D Kumaraswamy shot off letters to the neighbouring state’s CM Pinarayi Vijayan, protesting against the move.

A few weeks earlier, Karnataka’s political leaders strongly condemned a Google algorithm that showed Kannada as the “ugliest language”.

These recent incidents also led to a backlash on social media against the state’s politicians for sporadic reactions and for not investing in sustained efforts for asserting regional
identity.

A look into Karnataka’s political history shows that regional and linguistic assertion has never emerged as a strong election issue. One of the reasons why the state does not have a single, sustained linguistic or regional identity movement is its complex geographical history.

The Hyderabad-Karnataka (Kalyana Karnataka), Bombay-Karnataka, Old Mysore and coastal regions, came together to be administratively unified under one state. To this day, these regional differences remain, which makes it difficult to have a single regional or linguistic movement for the state, says former speaker K R Ramesh Kumar, a senior Congress legislator.

“The state is also cosmopolitan in nature which probably is one of the impediments for making regional assertion an electoral focus,” he says.

Further Karnataka has more minor languages than any other state in the country. Even though the state unification was done administratively, the speakers of these minor languages have not considered Kannada as the mother tongue, says Kannada author Purushotham Bilimale.

As a result, the unique language-centric Gokak movement in the 1980s, which was launched against the Centre’s three-language policy, did not find support from all regions of the state.

“The Tulu-speaking community, for instance, could not relate to a Kannada movement,” he observes. According to him, the solution lies in creating a strong language policy for the state.

Kannada activist Vatal Nagaraj, who leads the Kannada Chaluvali Vatal Paksha, is one of the few activists to have led sustained language-centric political efforts in the state.

Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) state organisation secretary Arun Javagal weighed in on the challenge to transition a pro-Kannada movement into electoral politics.

“It’s not possible to fight elections solely on the basis on linguistic identity. We have to look at federalism as an issue and look at problems created by policies such as the GST,” he says.

Also, for smaller regional parties, sustaining their efforts through multiple elections is important and not many can afford it. KRV, too, is contemplating contesting the next elections.

How can regional parties find a voice within India’s federal structure?

“We need to redefine Karnataka’s identity in the federal structure so as to benefit its people. This includes political, geographical and linguistic identities,” says K V Narayan, a linguist, critic and former chairman of Kuvempu Bhasha Bharathi Pradhikara.

For instance, Karnataka has not been able to strengthen the rail network according to its requirement as it is controlled by Centre. People from Bidar find it easier to go to Hyderabad in search of job opportunities rather than come to Bengaluru, all because of connectivity, he explains, adding that political parties need to think on these lines to sustain any long-term movement asserting Karnataka’s identity.

While the lack of strong regional identity politics in Karnataka is often held in contrast to Tamil Nadu’s politics, BJP national general secretary C T Ravi feels that the situation in both states is similar.

“Even in Tamil Nadu, Tamil schools are finding it difficult to attract students,” says Ravi, who is in charge of the BJP in Tamil Nadu, Goa and Maharashtra.

“Whether it is Tamil Nadu or Karnataka, regional assertion can sustain only by developing love for mother tongue, which should begin at home. Kannada pride should not be reduced to names and boards or burning tyres during a protest.”