New Delhi: Karnataka chief minister Basavaraj Bommai declared that his government plans to reserve 80% of the jobs in the state for Kannadigas, in an apparent bid to revive the Kannadiga identity politics ahead of the assembly elections later this year. Bommai spoke about his plan at the inauguration ceremony of the 86th Akhila Bharatha Kannada Sahitya Sammelana in Haveri on Friday, Deccan Herald reported.
The chief minister also said that the new system of reservation for Kannadigas will be introduced in industries in all categories of jobs, including in top positions. He proposed the idea on the heels of a discussion about a Bill on the comprehensive development of the Kannada language. The Kannada Language Comprehensive Development Bill, 2022, first tabled in the state assembly in September 2022, proposed to effectively implement Kannada as the official language of the state along with English. The Bill needs to be introduced in the assembly again but Bommai said that his government did not want to take a hasty decision in this regard and that he would look into the recommendations of the legal committee before introducing it again.
He also said that he wanted that the Bill about the Kannada language should also be discussed in various literary meets across the state.
Interestingly, it was the former Congress chief minister Siddaramaiah who first began discussions around Kannada and Kannadiga identity during his last term. His term also saw the introduction of a separate Karnataka flag. Such linguistic identity-centred politics was relatively new to Karnataka, even as neighbouring Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu have had intense language-based political assertions. The BJP at that point had pitched its Hindutva against Kannada-centred politics led by Siddarmaiah.
Bommai now appears to be following the Congress route in prioritising Kannadiga identity over Hindutva. At a time when the BJP stoked controversy over the alleged imposition of Hindi last year, the BJP-led Bommai government had brought in the Kannada language Bill in an entirely contrasting political move.
In the same vein, Bommai told reporters at Haveri that “no power in the world can threaten” Kannada and Karnataka. “There is a need for us Kannadigas to come out of the perception that Kannada language is under threat,” Deccan Herald reported the chief minister as saying.
He added that the Kannada language accommodates several dialects, all of which are “knit with an emotional thread” – a living example of unity in diversity. He said that his government was committed to protecting the “land, language, and culture of Karnataka”.
“Our government will also take measures to protect the interest of Kannadigas not just within Karnataka, but outside its physical borders,” he said, adding that he will soon allocate additional funds for border schools and deprived gram panchayats.