Gokak agitation - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Gokak agitation was a successful language rights agitation in the 1980s that fought for the first language status of the Kannada language

Kannada language

Kannada or , is a language spoken in India predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas and number roughly 50 million, is one of the 30 most spoken languages in the world...

in the state of Karnataka

Karnataka

Karnataka , the land of the Kannadigas, is a state in South West India. It was created on 1 November 1956, with the passing of the States Reorganisation Act and this day is annually celebrated as Karnataka Rajyotsava...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

.

It was named after the committee headed by V. K. Gokak

V. K. Gokak

Vinayaka Krishna Gokak was a major writer in Kannada language and a scholar of English and Kannada literatures. He was fifth among eight recipients of Jnanpith Award for Kannada language for his epic Bharatha Sindhu Rashmi...

that had recommended giving primacy to Kannada in State schools. Actor Dr Rajkumar led the campaign.

Background

Karnataka had adopted the Three language formula for education in schools since the linguistic reorganization of states in 1956. Strong opposition to Hindi

Hindi

Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

was witnessed in the 1960s and '70s, leading to Kannada speakers leaning towards English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

. It was also felt that Kannada faced threat from Sanskrit

Sanskrit

Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

, which was the dominant language in schools, leading to a situation where students could complete their high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

education without having to study Kannada. This created a wide incompatibility between languages used for state administration and education.

This led to a linguistic movement against retaining Sanskrit as the first language in School education. The movement was initiated and supported by political parties, groups of Kannada teachers, students, college and university professors, literary critics, playwrights, and creative writers. This made the government rethink about the language policy for school education and constituted a committee on July 5, 1980 with Prof. V.K. Gokak as the Chairman.

Gokak Report

V.K. Gokak, the former Vice-Chancellor of Karnataka University , also now one of the Jnanpith awardees, headed the committee appointed by the Government of Karnataka to analyse and study the linguistic issues that were raised regarding the importance of various languages, including the state language Kannada and other languages such as English

English language

, Marathi

Marathi language

Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...

, Telugu

Telugu language

Telugu is a Central Dravidian language primarily spoken in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, where it is an official language. It is also spoken in the neighbouring states of Chattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu...

, Tamil

Tamil language

Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...

and Urdu

Urdu

Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...

.
The report given by the committee recommended that the Government provide first language status to Kannada and also demanded the primary facilities that the language needed at the time.

The agitation and campaign

There was opposition to the Gokak Report from several sectors of the public, which included minorities from various non-Kannada speaking groups.
The Government had not passed any ruling or announcement, even after the report was officially submitted by the committee. This resulted in minor protests from various men of letters, writers, and some pro-Kannada, pro-Karnataka organizations. The response from the public was moderate and there were no signs from the Government that it intended to implement the recommendations made by the Gokak committee.

Dr. Rajkumar's leadership

Various personalities from Kannada literature and cinema world including G. Narayankumar, approached and requested Rajkumar

Rajkumar

Rajkumar , born as Singanalluru Puttaswamayya Muthuraju was a popular actor and singer in the Kannada film industry...

of the Kannada film industry, to participate in the agitation along with the other major artists from the industry. Rajkumar accepted to participate, and soon the entire Kannada film industry stopped its film-making activity, and started in state-wide rallies and speeches. With Dr. Rajkumar's leadership, the agitation gained a very strong momentum and there was a drastic change in the response from the general public of Karnataka

Karnataka

state. People from all over the state, started participating in the various gatherings, and speeches. The topics such as, importance of the Kannada as the mother-tongue, and importance of having the primary education including the learning of Kannada language were talked in detail in all those speeches.

Government's response to the agitation

The Government of Karnataka

Government of Karnataka

The Government of Karnataka is a democratically elected body with the Governor as the constitutional head. The Governor who is appointed for a period of five years appoints the Chief Minister and his council of ministers...

, headed by the then Chief Minister, R. Gundu Rao

R. Gundu Rao

R. Gundu Rao was Chief Minister of Karnataka state, India from 1980 to 1983.Rao was born in Kushalnagar, Kodagu, India. His parents were K. Rama Rao and Chinamma. His father was a local Headmaster. He studied in Ammathi High school for a while. He was Town Municipal President of Kushalanagar...

, responded to the seriousness of the agitation, which had gained significant momentum after Rajkumar had taken leadership of the agitation. It announced that it accepted the report submitted by the Gokak Committee and would ensure all the primary facilities that the language Kannada deserves as the mother tongue of the local people as well as the official language of the state of Karnataka.

External links

N.C. Gundu Rao, Rewind and replay: Reflections on the Gokak agitation, Deccan Herald, Nov 30, 2004