Bonus Episode: Kannada or Hindi? The Language Debate

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The 74th

Society & Culture


Bengaluru is angry.


People are debating, sometimes fighting, over the language of business in Karnataka. Immigrants are asking for Hindi while native born residents resent Kannada's loss of primacy. It is starting to get ugly.


In this bonus episode, I add my two cents to the debate as a natural born immigrant - someone who is ethnically a Tamilian but has no connection with his home state. I also offer two solutions to the problem of language which has reared its head in India multiple times since independence like the anti-Hindi riots in TN in the 1960s.


The first solution is to create a Kannada language test for those desiring to work in Bengaluru and Karnataka much like IELTS, TOEFL, and other language proficiency tests.


The second suggestion is to evolve from being a society of norms and majoritarianism to a society strictly governed by rule of law.