Educators turn protestors: Sharma addresses fellow teachers and members of KUSMA at a meeting

SEPTEMBER 23-24, 2006
4 p.m., V.V. Puram, Bangalore

For the most part, G.S. Sharma, the 82-year-old President of the Karnataka Unaided School Management Association (KUSMA) and founder of the five-decade-old SSVM Group, is a fairly placid and soft-spoken person, who rarely finds reason to raise his voice or lose his temper. However, the last week has given him plenty of opportunity to throw a tantrum and harangue state government officials. His main grouse: the Karnataka Government's plan to shutter 1,416 schools statewide for not sticking to Kannada as the medium of instruction (up to class 5), which Education Minister Basavaraj Horatti says has been mandated by a Government Order passed in 1994. Sharma says that the ruling contravenes a Supreme Court (sc) judgment that allows instruction in any medium, and schools that are compelled to close will take refuge behind this ruling. "The government can't decide language of instruction of schools and force them to use only Kannada. This is not followed anywhere else in the country," he tells this writer in his first-floor office in old Bangalore.

At various stages over the last few decades, pro-Kannada agitations have rocked Karnataka and its cosmopolitan capital Bangalore. These protests have been of various intensities and against different languages (first Hindi, later Tamil, and now English), and by maverick agitators such as Kannada Chaluvali leader Vatal Nagaraj, who have led the vitriolic attack on the state administration for its purportedly anti-Kannada stance. This time around, however, ministers themselves seem to have become votaries of the language chauvinism, with Horatti, the state's Primary Education Minister, ordering the closures. His colleague and Higher Education Minister D.H. Shankaramurthy causes a storm of his own by declaring that the warrior Tipu Sultan, who until recently was considered an icon for fighting the British, is anti-Kannada for purportedly using Persian as his administrative language. This remark is met with much derision, with noted littérateur Girish Karnad launching a scathing attack on the statement stating, "Everyone has the right to say something stupid, but I don't think the Education Minister should exercise that right."

Just let us study: Village children at the Kannada Primary School near Hennur in Bangalore

Karnad, however, is not alone in launching a stinging attack on the state government, with education experts too queuing up to take pot shots at its "ridiculous" plans. "The government has its priorities misplaced and shouldn't be interfering with the medium of instruction, but look at issues such as teacher training and frame rules on areas such as infrastructure in schools," argues Padma Sarangapani, Visiting Fellow at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. "The government's decision is unwarranted since it puts thousands of children's academic year in jeopardy," says Sharma. Horatti, however, tells BT from Belgaum in North Karnataka (where the government had organised a special legislature session to prove the city is an "integral" part of Karnataka and not Maharashtra, as some see it), that the government is firm on its plan to shutter these schools and effectively leave 250,000 students without a school to attend once the Dussehra holidays end in early October.

The next day, a horde of school principals, teachers and parents address a press conference at the Bangalore Press Club and claim they will run their institutions as private tutorials if they are forced to shut. After the boisterous press conference, everyone walks across to the verdant Cubbon Park to hold a public meeting and then walk in procession to meet the Chief Minister H.D. Kumaaraswaamy, to try to press their case. "We are confident that the government will listen to our plea," says Sharma, waiting in the corridors for the cm to emerge from a meeting.

In an anteroom barely 10 metres away from where we speak to Sharma, the maverick pro-Kannada legislator Nagaraj is in no mood to budge. "These schools broke the law in the first place and should therefore be punished immediately," the long-time activist-politician, who has been associated with the movement for over two decades, tells an expectant group of scribes outside the Committee Room in the Vidhana Soudha. He even sneaks a quick meeting with Horatti, where (besides discussing his plans for the Belgaum session) he presses upon the minister the need for quick action against erring schools. "We must protect the integrity of Kannada and Kannadigas," says Nagaraj.

The key players: Kannada Chaluvali's Nagaraj (top), and (bottom) Primary Education Minister Horatti (left) with CM Kumaaraswaamy

As expected, India Inc. has reacted with trepidation over the latest rounds of language chauvinism, with the it industry and beer baron Vijay Mallya attacking the pro-Kannada lobby. Mallya leads the charge at the UB AGM, telling reporters on the sidelines that the move is "a retrograde step" and that English education needs to be encouraged. N.R. Narayana Murthy, Infosys' non-executive Chairman, says the demand for English is widespread, with even children of Infosys support staff demanding an English education to work in a globalised world.

Despite these words, it appears that the hardline Karnataka Government is unwilling to back down over the schools' imbroglio. "These schools will be closed as they have violated the government order... there is no two ways about this," Horatti says after a chat with Nagaraj, as he strolls towards a meeting with the cm. The school management, meanwhile, forced with imminent closure backs off a little, but then comes back swinging at the Government, by taking refuge under an sc judgment allowing instruction in any medium. "We are teaching in English based on popular demand... even the poorest people want their children to learn English so that they can get jobs in software," says Shameem Haseeb, who runs the Globe School in North Bangalore. With a day-long bandh called for by the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike on October 4, the latest round of language chauvinism seems to have just begun.