The second day of the three-day Dharwad Sahitya Sambhrama initiated a dialogue on what could be a plausible solution to the controversy surrounding the enforcement of Kannada as the medium of instruction in primary schools in the wake of an apex court verdict leaving the issue to the discretion of parents.
Participating in the session on ‘Kannada medium: what next?’, panellists Abdul Rehaman Pasha, Lohit Naikar and Venkatesh Machakanur and moderator S.R. Sudarshan analysed at length the solutions for the problem the language was facing in the wake of the judgment.
Mr. Naikar, an advocate, felt that the doors of the court were almost closed now on the issue as a full bench of the Supreme Court had issued its order on the matter and the chances of possible review of the order that had far reaching effects seemed remote.
Legal remedy
Mr. Machakanur, a retired bureaucrat from the Department of Public instruction, was hopeful of a legal remedy.
Mr. Pasha, however, felt the need for a “mass movement” to sensitise the people on the language issue so that the court order would ultimately have no impact on the language.
Elaborating his view point, Mr. Pasha said that it had been established that learning would be easier for a child if it is given in the mother tongue or the language of the environment around him/her. He felt that the act of deifying the language by referring to it as ‘Kannadambe’ and ‘Goddess Bhuvaneshwari’ was likely to create an aversion towards it among the minority communities.
Presenting statistics on decline of the number of children getting education in Kannada medium and also in Urdu and Marathi medium and the increasing number of English medium students, Mr. Machakanur said that only a comprehensive amendment to the Constitution would help address the problem as other Indian languages too were facing similar problems.
Mr. Naikar said there was a need for addressing the issue of low percentage of students pursuing higher education and also the “issue of livelihood” for the Kannada medium students.
Participating in the discussion, Chandrashekhar Patil, C. Viranna and others from the audience raised some valid points.
The need for looking at the issue from political point of view, not to argue just from the emotional point of view, and the need for reservation of 50 per cent for Kannada medium students in professional colleges, were some of the suggestions that came up.
Chances of review of Supreme Court order on medium of instruction remote, says advocate
