A couple of months ago, a pro-Kannada organization destroyed the wares of a pirated CD shop hawker. The reason, they gave for it was not that he was selling pirated CDs which is illegal, or that he was blocking the footpath. But the reason they gave was first “he is a Tamil,” and “he sold only Tamil and Telugu CDs.” Forget about being ashamed of their cheap thoughts, but they were in fact proud of it. They said that the hawker had no respect for Kannada since he didn’t have Kannada CDs, and proclaimed themselves to be true Kannada devotees. By doing this, they are actually making us Kannadigas feel ashamed.
Why can’t we think of ourselves as Indians first and then identify with our language, caste or creed? The Kannada Rakshana Vedike, which started the pro-Kannada protests is itself not united. They have split into two- the Narayan Gowda faction and the Praveen Shetty faction, and are constantly fighting. Praveen Shetty alleges that Narayan Gowda was into extortion, and so he split to form the true Vedike. Whatever may be the truth, aren’t most of Kannadigas becoming pawns in their hands?
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