From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Sept 14: Janata Dal (S) legislature party leader and former chief minister H D Kumaraswamy along with party’s State President C M Ibrahim and others held a black badge protest demonstration by staging a dharna before the Mahatma Gandhi statue in front of Vidhana Soudha on Wednesday, September 14 against the Union Government’s celebration of Hindi Divas.
The JD(S) leaders and legislators wore Kannada shawls during their protest and strongly condemned the Centre’s Hindi Divas celebration and strongly objected to the ruling BJP leaders and the Basavaraj Bommai government lending its support to the blatant attempts by the Modi government to propagate and impose Hindi all over the country.
Speaking to media persons at the protest site, Kumaraswamy said the Union Government does not observe and practice linguistic tolerance. The Centre has been constantly imposing Hindi on the states and Karnataka’s official language of Kannada is sought to be continuously suppressed, he said.
The JD(S) leader declared that the party will stoutly oppose the imposition of Hindi as India is home to thousands of languages and people speaking different languages are living in the country. It is shameful that 75 years after Independence when the country celebrated the Amrit Mahotsav, Hindi is being imposed on the State to the exclusion of all other languages, he added.
The former chief minister objected to Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s statement that India is one country with one language. The unity of the country does not depend on Hindi and unity in diversity is the essence of the country, he said.
Kumaraswamy said Hindi does not exist in several parts of North India and all states have their own language, culture and identity. Regional languages have been in existence since thousands of years, he said and pointed out that the ruling BJP is allergic to Kannada and has been trying to suppress the Kannada language.
He attacked the Bommai regime and the Centre for wasting money on propagating Hindi and celebrating Hindi Divas ignoring all other regional languages, especially Kannada.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Bommai took to social media and in a tweet, asserted that the State Government is committed to protecting and strengthening Kannada language. Our government has been consistently following the policy of keeping politics outside in the matter of Kannada language, protecting the interests of the state with regard to water and border issues. The government will shortly come out with a legislation to make use of Kannada legally binding and also increase the usage of Kannada.