In August, noted writer, Kannada professor, and folklorist Purushottam Bilimale served up a familiar refrain in Bengaluru. As the head of the Kannada Development Authority, he reiterated an argument that had been made for several decades. “Bengaluru today has more non-Kannadigas than Kannadigas. In several parts of the city, Kannadigas have become refugees,” he said. Purushottam might have been trying to capture the resurgent anxiety about the declining prominence of Kannada and Kannadigas, but the available census data contradicts it. Migration data shows that for decades across the country, intra-state migration has been far higher than inter-state migration. This is true of Bengaluru too. Yet, with the current census delayed, there is fear that the numbers have changed drastically, leaving these claims open to interpretation. And the idea that Kannadigas are outnumbered in the city continues to persist.
The concern for the primacy of Kannada has existed for around a century, but its contours and targets have changed. In the past 50 years, hostility has been directed at several groups. Starting in the 1960s, Kannada activists and writers, beginning with demands at the Ramotsava festival to feature Karnataka singers over Tamil Nadu artistes, responded to the waning dominance of Kannada in Bengaluru. These efforts extended to cinema, public sector jobs, and calls for prioritising Kannadiga employment, symbolised by the creation of the Karnataka flag.
Today, it appears, it is directed at the most visibly different outsider—the north Indian/Hindi speaker, particularly an affluent one who is often seen as aggressive and disrespectful of local sentiments.
Many scholars, however, argue the causes have largely remained constant: the desire for economic mobility and the opposition to the imposition of Hindi language. What started out as a positive movement for the Kannada language has acquired strains of fear and antagonism over time. Besides Kannada’s trajectory compared to other languages in the country, many factors have fuelled this antagonism: the shortsightedness of the state government, the Hindi tilt of the Union government, and economic distress caused in agrarian families by the neo-liberalism shift since the 1990s. Consequently, the feeling that Kannadigas are outnumbered in their own land persists among a cross-section of people, especially Bengaluru, where Kannada vies for space among other tongues more than it does anywhere else in the state.
Developments of the past few months capture the range of concerns of the present-day Kannada movement: battles against Hindi-imposition as typified by the move to remove Hindi text from the Metro announcement boards, mandatory Kannada signboards for shops, demands for a bilingual policy, a short-lived law proposing jobs for Karnataka domicile people, the grouse against bank mergers and lack of Kannada speaking staff at banks, and a demand for medical prescriptions in Kannada.
These battles, which largely play out on social media, invariably turn into ‘Kannadigas vs outsiders’ or ‘Kannadigas vs north Indians’ fights, with everyone pitching in. We’ve heard the arguments before: ‘Kannadigas’ say “respect Kannada and Karnataka or get lost," while “outsiders” claim they made Bengaluru what it is.
On one side, the narrative is about Kannadiga "tolerance” which allowed “outsiders” to take over. On the other, “outsiders” responded by poking fun at Kannada activists with memes and comparing Bengaluru with other cities, which they claimed were more welcoming.
“There are so many dimensions to this issue, and each one makes a different culprit visible,” said Chandan Gowda, a sociologist and Professor at Bengaluru’s Institute of Social and Economic Change.
Madhu Kumar, a 34-year-old resident of Kengeri, has had several jobs over the years before settling on work as an autorickshaw driver. He is part of a WhatsApp group of fellow autorickshaw drivers that promotes Kannada activism.
He has no animosity towards Hindi-speaking migrants, but he cannot help noticing their presence, particularly in jobs that were once held by locals. “Earlier, construction workers were all Tamilians. Now they are all Hindi speakers. The metro construction sites are filled with Hindi speakers. Brokers control everything,” he said.
Madhu has also noticed that the two-wheelers of many Rapido drivers are registered in other states. “The rides they offer are illegal. We pay taxes for our auto licenses. These people should not take away someone’s work, as we suffer a blow as a result. Where are we to go? This situation has risen because we welcome everybody here,” Madhu said.