I wholeheartedly support the move by the Karnataka government which makes the teaching of Kannada mandatory in Karnataka schools ( >April 1 ). I wish every State in India does this with respect to native tongues. Indian languages are in no way inferior to English and our heritage should not be lost due to short-sighted considerations. One of the reasons why we are not as creative in science and technology as the Chinese and the Japanese are, is because we are rootless and try to thrive on a borrowed language. This is also perhaps the single most important obstacle in getting the poor and the marginalised into the mainstream. India needs to preserve its rich cultural and linguistic diversity. It is tragic to see urban children speak only in English. The average Indian has a fantastic ability to learn several languages and this must be encouraged.
M.V. Nadkarni,
Bengaluru
A few CBSE schools in Bengaluru are getting away without including Kannada as a second or a third language choice. Even native, Kannada-speaking children in these schools, who would ideally want to learn Kannada, are being forced to take up Hindi as the second language and Sanskrit or French as third language choices. This amounts to a gross violation of the rights of Kannada-speaking students in their own State. An entire generation of such students is passing out every year with no knowledge of the mother tongue.
Geetha Rao,
Bengaluru
