Congress Opens a…

Linguistic Pandora’s Box?

IN BLACK AND WHITE BY VIKRAM MUTHANNA

The Karnataka Cabinet’s decision to recognise Tulu as the State’s second additional administrative language has understandably been welcomed across coastal Karnataka.

While celebrations continue in Mangaluru, a quieter conversation has begun in the corridors of Vidhana Soudha, which is: Has the Government inadvertently opened a linguistic Pandora’s box?

Let us call a spade a spade. In India, cultural recognition and political calculation are not mutually exclusive. Language is rarely just about culture. It is almost always about banks… vote banks.

The coastal belt of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi has long been a BJP bastion that the Congress party has been unable to break into in major elections. Now, by suddenly acceding to this 70-year-old linguistic demand, the Congress is making a blatant play to win over the coastal electorate.  

This move by the Congress Government seems like a textbook case of appeasement politics dressed up in the noble garb of cultural preservation. The issue, however, is not why Tulu was recognised, but what comes next.

Karnataka is not a monolingual State. It is, as Karnataka Tourism proudly reminds us, “One State. Many Worlds” and those many worlds have many languages.

If Tulu deserves administrative recognition in coastal Karnataka, what principled argument remains for denying the same status to ‘Kodava Thakk’ in Kodagu?

If the argument is that Tulu has a script, then ‘Kodava Thakk’ too has its own script in the making. Once a script is ready, will the Government make ‘Kodava Thakk’ the administrative language of the Kodagu region?  

What about the Konkani speakers of Karwar and Uttara Kannada, who have preserved their tongue against immense regional pressures?  Will the Government make Konkani the second administrative language of the Konkan region?

Ah! Then what of ‘Dakhni’, the dialect spoken widely across Hubballi-Dharwad, Bengaluru and our own Old Mysore region among the Muslims? Will the Government make ‘Dakhni’ and Urdu the second administrative language of these regions?

Proponents argue that Tulu is a unique case because of its vast speaker base, its newly revived ‘Tigalari’ script and its robust linguistic infrastructure.

They claim that allocating Rs. 82 lakh annually is a drop in the ocean and won’t burden the State exchequer. This is valid, but it misses the larger issue, which is about setting a precedent.

Once you establish that a regional language can be elevated to an administrative language, every other linguistic community will demand their share of the pie. They will want their own academies, their own dedicated budgets and their own administrative concessions.

Democracies operate on the principle of equity. If one language deserves institutional support, others will understandably ask why theirs does not.

If Governments begin recognising languages based on electoral considerations rather than a transparent and consistent policy, every linguistic community will understandably seek equal treatment.

That raises the question: Can Karnataka sustain multiple administrative languages across different regions wherever comparable demands emerge?

Just imagine the bureaucratic nightmare. True administrative implementation means translating official documents, changing signage and deploying staff fluent in local tongues.  

Do we have the infrastructure? Do we have the human resources? Or will this remain a paper-only decree meant solely to secure a few seats in the next election?  

History suggests that once politics begins rewarding identity, identity inevitably becomes political.

That is how cultural recognition risks becoming competitive politics. Ironically, a decision intended to strengthen one community’s identity may encourage several others to intensify demands for similar recognition.

There is another practical question. How many Tulu speakers today can comfortably read and write the revived ‘Tigalari’ script? Probably not many.

That should not diminish the language’s importance, but it does remind us that language preservation involves much more than Government notifications. People need to read and write in that language regularly for it to thrive.

None of this is an argument against Tulu, but one has to question whether administrative recognition is the best model to promote language. If it is, then is the Government prepared to apply the same principle consistently across Karnataka’s many linguistic communities?

For now, it will be interesting to see if CM D.K. Shivakumar has managed to electorally seduce the Tulu speakers by sprinkling them with linguistic magic dust.  

One wonders if voters of the South Karnataka region, traditional BJP voters, will be “oh! so”  smitten and grateful to Shivakumar for making Tulu the administrative language that they’ll suddenly start voting for Congress.

Will language appeasement beat ideology? We’ll know soon enough and if it works…  Urdu next? Why not?

e-mail: vikram@starofmysore.com