New Delhi, July 6, 2017: The language war in Karnataka doesn't seem to end very soon. What started as a social media campaign was quick to turn into a full-fledged protest. The anti-Hindi Twitter campaign, #NammaMetroHindiBeda ('Our Metro, We don't want Hindi') led to the veiling of Hindi words on two metro stations- Chickpete and Majestic. These metro boards were in Kannada, English, and Hindi.
After Hindi, now English is being subjected to the heat of The Karnataka Rakshana Vedika (KRV), a pro-Kannada organization. The KRV activists on Thursday defaced English and Hindi nameplates of a restaurant in a mall near Bengaluru's Eco tech park. Praveen Shetty, a KRV activist owned the action against the restaurant, mentioned ANI report.
"we have done this because industries and businesses use land, the electricity of Karnataka for profit but they don't want to use Kannada languages or give jobs to Kannadigas," Shetty said. "If you put Kannada signage in Delhi and other places then we will put your signage in Karnataka," He further demanded.
Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah has supported the anti-Hindi battalion and had asked the officials to find out what policy was followed in non-Hindi states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal.
A notice was issued to the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) seeking the explanation as to why it was using the three language policy. With the involvement of government in the matter, it is hard to guess the probability of when is it going to be settled.
– prepared by Samiksha Goel of NewsGram. Twitter: goel_samiksha