Andhra Pradesh

A long-standing demand of Karnataka

Bangalore: The struggle of successive governments in Karnataka to get the Union Government’s consent for the prestigious classical status to the Kannada language has ended with the Union government on Friday approving the special status to Kannada (apart from Telugu) on the eve of the 52nd Kannada Rajyotsava.

The threat of Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa to stage a demonstration in New Delhi on November 5 has perhaps yielded the desired result. With the announcement of the special status, the proposed demonstration in New Delhi has been called off. It is another case of a long standing demand of a State getting mired down in politics. Mr Yeddyurappa told The Hindu: “I am happy with the decision of the Union government. It was a hard fought struggle of all Kannadigas and the credit should go to the people of the State. ”

The demand for the special status to Kannada — the official and administrative language of the State backed by a nearly 2,000-year history — intensified during the first-ever coalition government headed by N. Dharam Singh in 2004, soon after Tamil was accorded the classical status.

Thereafter, the Kumaraswamy government too followed up on the issue. Succeeding in obtaining the special status on the eve of the 52nd Kannada Rajyotsava has come as a shot in the arm for Mr. Yeddyurappa. Interestingly, the late D. Devaraj Urs made a feeble attempt during his chief ministership (in 1978) to obtain the classical status for Kannada while the late Ramakrishna Hegde placed a special priority to promote Kannada in the administration of the State.

One of the important arguments put across by the State while seeking the status for Kannada was that it meets all the four basic criteria set by the Union government for recognising any scheduled language as a classical language. The four criteria are: antiquity of a language’s early texts — recorded history of over a thousand years; a body of ancient literature, which is considered a valuable heritage by a generation of speakers; the literary tradition has to be original and not borrowed from another speech community and the language could be distinct from its “later and current” forms or it could be continuous.

The first record on Kannada is traced to Emperor Ashoka’s Brahmagiri edict dated 230 B.C. Kannada words are found in Greek comedies of first and second century A.D. The first full-length Kannada edict is “Hanmidi” (also known as Halmidi) dated AD 450. The first-ever available literary work is “Kaviraja Maaraga” (AD 850), a text of literary criticism.

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