Two scholars resign from PMB of Classical Kannada centre

T V Venkatachala Shastri and N S Taranath, the two scholars, who played a major role in the establishment of the Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Kannada (CESCK) in Mysuru, have resigned from its Planning and Monitoring Board (PMB) citing age factor and health issues.

The term of the two expires in a couple of months. Another scholar, B A Vivek Rai resigned nine months ago.

Shastri said that he was 88 years old and could not move out of the house for meetings of the PMB of the CESCK.

“I have resigned due to age and health issues,” he said. Taranath said that he was resigning due to health issues.

CESCK Project Director B Shivarama Shetty said that the scholars cited health issues for their resignation.

“Meetings are held online due to the Covid crisis. Adapting to the new format is difficult as they are elderly persons. We take all PMB members into confidence in our functioning. There is no discord,” he said.

Some professors and scholars suspect that they might have resigned due to the negligence of the officials of Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) and also the project director of CESCK.

“The scholars are disillusioned as the CESCK could not be developed into an autonomous institution. They are not getting support from either officials or politicians,” they said.

They said that the CIIL, which was planning to evolve into a university, was intending to convert the CESCK into one of its departments. The dream of autonomy for the CESCK would not be fulfilled. The State government was not prevailing upon the Centre to get autonomous status like Tamil and Odiya.

R V S Sundaram, a member of the PMB, said that even he was not happy with the recent developments.

"The CESCK was established with the efforts of many people. It should have got a permanent address. The University of Mysore (UoM) had offered to give necessary land. We do not know its status. The centre has not got autonomy. Many works and projects are pending,” he said.