Hindi for India, Kannada supreme here: Karnataka BJP

BENGALURU: The state BJP leadership is caught in a bind over national president Amit Shah’s remarks on Hindi Divas, faced with the task of defending the party line and fighting off perceptions of being against Kannada language.
The opposition has rejected Shah’s statements, with Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh saying, “‘One nation one language’ will never be a reality.”
On Saturday, Shah had, in a series of tweets, pitched for Hindi as a common language for the country.“India has many languages, and every language has its importance. But it is absolutely necessary the entire country should have one language that becomes India’s identity globally,” he said.
State BJP leaders said Shah’s statements were bring misread.
“Opposition parties are trying to mislead people about Shah’s appeal. It is beyond doubt Kannada will be supreme in Karnataka and Hindi will be the country’s identity in the international arena. Shah’s tweet was in that context and it doesn’t tantamount to Hindi imposition,” primary and secondary education minister S Sureshkumar said on Sunday.
CT Ravi: Hindi as common language is advantageous
Since the language issue is related to his department, Sureshkumar said he would hold discussions with chief minister BS Yediyurappa before formulating a language policy with emphasis on Kannada.
Kannada and culture minister CT Ravi said, “When we accept English — a foreign language — as a common language, why not Hindi? Protecting regional languages is imperative, but projecting Hindi as common language is advantageous.” Ravi had recently drawn flak for saying a separate state flag was not on the cards.
“Shah did not say he wants to impose the Hindi language. He said like ‘one country, one flag’, there should be ‘one country, one language’. It should be understood in a broader sense,” said industries minister Jagadish Shettar.
Delivering Sir M Visvesvaraya memorial lecture in Bengaluru, Congress MP Jairam Ramesh said, “We may have ‘one nation one tax’, but ‘one nation one language’ will never be a reality. We are ‘one nation many languages’, we are ‘one nation many countries’.”
Addressing the dignitaries in Kannada, Hindi and English, he said, “I spoke in three languages in one minute just to give you a message.”
While former chief ministers Siddaramaiah and HD Kumaraswamy have taken a dig at BJP, Karnataka Rakshana Vedike has threatened to launch an agitation against the saffron party’s “lopsided language policy”.