Former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, on Wednesday, expressed his reservations over the Union Government forming a 16-member expert committee without any south Indians to study the Indian culture for the past 1200 years. He even highlighted that the committee lacks diversity in terms of gender too, with no women being named as part of the expert committee. Casting doubt over the ‘objectiveness’ of the committee, HDK called for the committee to be reconstituted.
The ex-CM was referring to the expert committee set up for “conducting holistic study of origin and evolution of Indian culture and its inference with other cultures of the world” under the Union Ministry of Culture.
In the first of a series of tweets, Kumaraswamy said, “The Centre has constituted a 16-member expert committee to study Indian culture for the past 1200 years.
The Centre has constituted a 16-member expert committee to study Indian culture for the past 12000years.
— H D Kumaraswamy (@hd_kumaraswamy) September 16, 2020
It is very unfortunate that the expert committee does not have any Kannadigas or South Indians who know Dravidian culture. The committee does not even have a woman member!
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It is very unfortunate that the expert committee does not have any Kannadigas or South Indians who know the Dravidian culture. The committee does not even have a woman member!”
He questioned how without having any Kannadiga, the committee would do an unbiased study of Karnataka’s culture and the same broadly for Dravidian culture without having any south Indians.
He tweeted, “Is it possible to conduct a fair and unbiased study of Karnataka’s culture and heritage without having Kannadiga representatives in the committee? How can we think of studying the history and culture of the entire country by keeping South Indians out?”
Stressing on the point of underrepresentation of women, Kumaraswamy said, “We compare the country to our mother and the holy cow. How is that the committee to study the culture of a country that worships women does not have a place for any woman?”
He concluded by saying, “There are doubts about the objectiveness of the proposed study as the committee is full of those who appear to be having prejudices over culture, history and heritage besides being fully occupied by north Indians. There is a dire need to reconstitute the study committee.”