Bengaluru: The SAARC Literary Festival on South Asian poetry, which happened in Bengaluru over the weekend, left international contingents with a bad taste in their mouths, after a seemingly politically-motivated resolution did the rounds.
Jnanpith awardee Chandrashekhar Kambar, hailed as one of Karnataka's best known poets, Bengali poet Subodh Sarkar and Malayalam poet K. Sachidanandan framed a resolution asking the Indian government to give greater importance to regional languages.
Many participants, the Bangladeshi contingent in particular, took immediate offence to this proposal, which was not on the official agenda. They questioned the need for a resolution in a literary fest and did not appreciate the fact that there was no prior discussion.
The resolution itself, however, is part of a signature campaign that was presented to President Pranab Mukherjee earlier this year. “We gathered five lakh signatures from various regional language experts,” said Kambar.
“Some people said it had political implications, which is why they didn't want to have any part in it. We avoided it in the end, but it was never a formal resolution. It was a voluntary campaign." Regional languages are taking a hit because of English, said Kambar, who has been at the helm of the fight in favour of regional languages.
“The whole idea was to ask the central government to come up with a plan that would promote regional languages,” he said.
“Our demand was that the medium of instruction in schools should be the regional language concerned.” However, the petition deals with an issue that is currently relevant in India, mainly because the medium of instruction in schools was sub-judice till very recently.
