Karnataka - Bangalore

Reporter's Diary

Countering ideology

LAW AND Home Minister M.P. Prakash, well-versed in vachanas, recently maintained that Basaveswara, the 12th century social reformer, was not born to the Madiga couple, but only identified himself with them with an intention of boosting the morale of the Dalits, who were facing ostracism by the upper castes.

The Minister said that Banjagere Jayaprakash was wrong in concluding that Basaveswara was born in that caste. Mr. Prakash was, however, opposed to burning of copies of the book. Any book containing an ideology, however unpalatable it was for a section of society, should be countered by another book and not by resorting to unruly behaviour in a democratic society.

Recalling the sane reaction of Devanuru Mahadeva, a Dalit writer to the burning of the former Union Minister Arun Shourie`s book Worshipping of the False Gods, which had some unpalatable references to B.R. Ambedkar, the Minister said that the book containing reference to the caste of Basaveswara should neither be banned nor burnt. Let there be a debate on the points raised by the author, he said.

Déjà vu

IT HAS been over five years since the maverick police officer H.T. Sangliana ceased to be Bangalore Police Commissioner. But for some police constables, Mr. Sangliana, who is now the Bangalore North MP, is still the Police Commissioner.

On Friday, the city police had organised a function at the Banquet Hall of the Vidhana Soudha to launch some traffic improvement programmes under the BTRAC 2010 project. The constables on duty at the main entrance of the Vidhana Soudha at once started the pushing aside the visitors saying: "Commissioner sahebarige daari bidi." (Make way for the Commissioner).

Some journalists present at the gate thought that Commissioner of Police Neelam Achuta Rao had arrived. But the one who walked in was Mr. Sangliana.

Er, we have moved on

RESIDENTS of Kundapura taluk in erstwhile Dakshina Kannada district and presently in Udupi district claim that the Kundapura Kannada is the original and chaste Kannada that has not been influenced by any other language. But this does not appear to apply to the KSRTC, that calls this place as "Coondapur." The spelling Coondapur was given by the British and one can find a few old colonial milestones even now.

If you are looking to book a ticket online Kundapur, you will not find it. Only Coondapur will do the trick

T.S. Ranganna,

K.V. Subramanya,

Anil Kumar Sastry

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu