The 85th Kannada Sahitya Sammelana held at Karnataka’s Kalaburgi on Friday passed a number of resolutions, among which one stood out starkly. The resolution urged the state government to make Kannada the medium of instruction in all government and private schools, regardless of board affiliation.
This resolution was passed by the Kannada Sahitya Parishad’s central executive committee on Friday, the last day of the summit. Members of the Kannada Sahitya Parishad noted that despite many such resolutions passed by previous sessions of the Kannada Sahitya Sammelana, there has been no action on the ground, Deccan Herald reported.
Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Assembly, Siddaramaiah also made similar demands during his valedictory speech at the event on Friday. Siddaramaiah demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi bring in a legislation where primary education is only taught to children in one’s mother tongue, TNIE reported.
The panel that discussed the issues of empowering Kannada language at the summit also condemned the closure of Kannada-medium schools in Andhra Pradesh and demanded that the Karnataka government must intervene and save such schools located in the border areas.
It urged the government to declare the Mahajan Commission report of 1992 on the Belagavi border as final and also asked the government to take measures to implement Article 371(J) (granting special status) of the Constitution and said many neglected memorials in Hyderabad-Karnataka must be revived, TOI reported.
On February 6, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, who inaugurated the Kannada Sahitya Sammelana, said that the government is determined to implement the Compulsory Kannada Learning Act. The state government’s decision to make it mandatory to study Kannada from 2017 onwards, either as first or second language, had received opposition from a certain section of parents.
However, both the pro-Kannada activists and the Kannada development authority had stressed that the government must ensure that children living in Karnataka must learn how to speak the language. Primary and Secondary Education Minister Suresh Kumar too has on multiple occasions said that stringent action would be taken against schools that do not implement the rules.