India: The politics language and identity in Karnataka

Johnson Language / The Economist

Language identity in India
One state, many worlds, now what?
Jun 25th 2013, 21:46 by S.A.P. | THE HAGUE

THE music video “Ek Sur”, more popularly known as “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara”, was released on India’s Independence Day in 1988. It was a small contribution to the country’s herculean post-independence task of building a unified national identity. The song’s lyrics were written in all 14 languages recognised by the constitution at the time. (The number has since increased to 22.) Playing off India’s many cultures, the performers sing: “When your song and my song meet, they become our song.” In typical Indian fashion, the video is both kitschy and irresistible. It has since attained legendary status, eclipsing even a hi-fi, star-studded 2010 remake. “Ek Sur” represents one piece of the ongoing effort to define who and what is “Indian”, one of modern India’s most pressing challenges.

On a smaller scale, the southwestern state of Karnataka struggles with some of the same issues. Karnataka was created in 1956 from adjoining, mostly Kannada-speaking districts in four different states. The three other southern Indian states were created using language-based distinctions around the same time. The reorganisations were meant to strengthen regional identities. But as with all things Indian, matters are never so clear-cut. Within Karnataka, there are major native linguistic minorities: Tulu and Kodava are spoken by some 8m and 200,000 people, respectively, all within Karnataka. Konkani is spoken by 8m people spread over four states. Urdu, found all over the subcontinent, is spoken by around 10% of Karnataka’s 62.5m people. Many people in border districts speak Marathi, Telugu, Malayalam and Tamil. Even discounting the recent influx of out-of-staters to Bangalore, Karnataka is hugely diverse. This all means that Kannada, the state’s only official language, is spoken natively by only about 65% of Karnataka residents. But the Ekikarana Movement, the group of politicians and academics who (successfully) demanded a unified Karnataka, was defined by language. To these protesters, Karnataka was meant to be a Kannada homeland. How inconvenient, then, that the districts they sewed together were so ethnically mixed.

Equating Karnataka with Kannada since unification has been controversial, but certainly not uncommon. Karnataka Rajyotsava, the holiday commemorating the birth of the state, is often used to celebrate Kannada culture. The bicolour Kannada flag is used on the holiday and other times during the year to unofficially represent the state, even though it originated as the symbol of a Kannada political party. To Tulu-speakers anxious for their own Tulu Nadu state, anchored by the huge coastal city Mangalore, or Kodava-speakers calling for a separate Coorg state, the holiday might seem sour. And to the many non-Kannada-speakers in Bangalore, the state’s diverse capital and India’s third-largest city (which we’ve written about before), the often deliberate, exclusionary focus on Kannada rankles.

All this is exacerbated by the conflation of language and religious identity. This is certainly not unique to Kannada or Karnataka. Hindi and Urdu, two dialects of the language Hindustani, are the most prominent example of this sort of partitioning of language based on religious identity. Hindi is associated with Hindus, and Urdu with Muslims. But language in Karnataka is instructive, too. Kannada cultural identity is often wrapped up in Hinduism. Most premodern Kannada cultural works, including writing, dance, sculpture, theatre and music, are religious—mostly Hindu, with significant Jain contributions, too. The area had been largely ruled by a succession of Hindu kingdoms. (Muslim rulers in the region, including Tipu, a prominent 18th-century sultan of Mysore, promoted Urdu and Persian cultural works instead.) The land is covered with old Hindu and Jain architecture. Sanskrit borrowings, so common in formal Kannada, are often suffused with religious connotations. But it is certainly not the case that only Hindus and Jains in Karnataka speak Kannada. And Muslims, Christians, atheists and others have contributed much to past and present culture in Karnataka. Still, it is hard to separate Kannada and religious identity, especially when the ways to celebrate the language’s cultural heritage are through the music, dance, and theatre mostly created by Hindus, under Hindu kingdoms, for Hindus, and in reference to Hinduism.

The knots created by this diversity raise uncomfortable questions. Is it possible to be a Muslim (or Christian, or atheist) Kannadiga, not just a fellow Karnatakan, when the language’s culture is so suffused with other religious identities? The very existence of Muslim native Kannada-speakers, of course, supports one conclusion. But the state’s many native Urdu-speakers, and the unavoidable saturation of Hindu religious culture into the Kannada language, lean toward another. More fundamentally, is it exclusionary to celebrate Kannada culture as a way to celebrate Karnataka? Many people would say yes, of course it is: a third of the state speaks other languages and have other cultures, so Karnataka must represent more than just Kannada. But perhaps that is too unkind to the majority group in a state created for them. If they can’t celebrate their heritage in their own homeland, where else? How, then, to draw these distinctions fairly?

I recently came across this music video, “Kannada Jeevaswara”, which was released last year to celebrate Karnataka Rajyotsava and the “cultural heritage of Karnataka”. It was sponsored by the Information and Publicity Department of Karnataka’s state government. Like its predecessor “Ek Sur” did for all India, this video uses catchy tunes and pretty scenery to propagandise a message of Karnataka unity. The main message, nominally like “Ek Sur”, is unity in diversity: we have many stories, but let us find common ground with Kannada.

Unlike many of these sorts of cheesy cultural features, “Kannada Jeevaswara” has high production value and well-written lyrics. Without my critical goggles on, I might have even enjoyed it. But a few things stood out to me. The song is meant to represent all of Karnataka: the images cover the state north to south, coast to hills. It’s written about Kannada, though. (Even non-Kannada speakers can hear how many times the language’s name is repeated in the song.) There’s not even a wink to the state’s other native languages, like Tulu, Kodava or Konkani, though they’ve taken video of the regions where they’re spoken. And Hindu imagery appears again and again. Fine; the state is home to incredible religious heritage, old and new. Still, apart from a few flashes here and there, Islam and other major religions are given short shrift even while the camera lingers on the state’s tiny Tibetan Buddhist community.

It would take some skilled mental gymnastics to claim that this video, expansive as it is, represents Karnataka. Perhaps it’s unfair to pick on a video that was probably made with the best of intentions. I don’t think that it was meant to be exclusionary. But I think it’s even more telling that the government of Karnataka could so unconsciously equate Karnataka with (only) Kannada and (mainly) Hindu identities. The current slogan of the state’s tourism board is “One State. Many Worlds.”, a rather accurate summary of Karnataka’s diversity. If only it were simple enough to leave it at that. As long as the state's minorities are stifled in favour of a facade of unity, the sentiment is empty: "many worlds", yes, but a splintered state. Karnataka's advocates must either avoid celebrating the state's cultural heritage at all (an impossibly sad result), or it must take its own tourism motto to heart.