Editor,
The Karnataka government has merely asked the commercial establishments to award 60 percent space for Kannada on its nameboards. At least Kannada is the indigenous language of the state with the government not preventing inclusion of any other language in signboards.
Still, if such absolutely justified initiative in favour of the indigenous language in this diverse land, based on federal spirit, gets perceived as ‘chauvinism’, what then constitutes ‘nationalism’? Imposing the language of a few north Indian states named Hindi upon this multilingual heterogeneous country of diversities, that too by relegating the concerned local languages to oblivion.
Those who are protesting against the absolutely rational decision of the Karnataka government should display guts enough to protest against the imperialist mindset of New Delhi also, which is trying its level best to denigrate the diverse India into a narrow cesspool named ‘Hindia’.
The self-declared guardians of the country, zealously shouting ‘nation first’, must also clearly specify what represents the nation, so that no ‘antinational’ can dare to belittle the entities placed ‘first’ – Hindi, Hindu, Gomata, Ram and all things associated with saffron ecosystem.
And they must also frankly declare that no citizen should demand any sort of right or protection from the state, despite stark poverty, hunger, malnourishment, unemployment, and lack of education justice and medical care. Rather, they should burn the midnight oil to explore what they can do to unquestionably serve the ‘representatives’ of the nation.
Yes, the nation above the individual theory is itself ridiculous; after all, nation is nothing but a group of individuals. So, no nation can survive or progress without taking into account the interest of the smallest unit named the individual. Only when the state devotes itself to serve each and every individual of the country through provision of basic necessities and human rights can a nation afford to move ahead.
Kajal Chatterjee,
D-2/403,
Peerless Nagar,
Kolkata