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Action against firms not prioritising locals: says Karnataka minister
Karnataka minister for large and medium industries Murugesh Nirani on Tuesday said that action will be taken against companies if they fail to prioritise jobs for Kannadigas or those native to the southern state
Karnataka minister for large and medium industries Murugesh Nirani on Tuesday said that action will be taken against companies if they fail to prioritise jobs for Kannadigas or those native to the southern state.
“As per a clause in the 2020-25 Industrial Policy, the individual units must provide 100% jobs in D group and 70% of total jobs to Kannadigas. As per Dr Sarojini Mahishi’s report, 85% of jobs in the state must go to Kannadigas. We will take action if industries violate this,” Nirani said in the legislative council on Tuesday.
Speaking in the ongoing budget session of the Karnataka legislature, the minister continued to emphasise the jobs for locals in existing as well as upcoming industries.
The statements come when the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka has been accused of sidelining Kannada in favour of Hindi--a charge vehemently denied by the saffron outfit.
The political opposition--Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) or JD(S)--have often accused the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP and its state unit of favouring Hindi as the latter is alleged to be pushing for Hindi as the “national language” which has been resisted by several states, especially in southern India.
In October last year, former Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy lashed out at the Basavaraj Bommai-led BJP state government for neglecting Kannada as a standard practice.
“Hindi gets the first place in the 25th Convocation of National Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience (NIMHANS). English gets second place, and Kannada gets third place. There is no better instance of showing that Kannada is caught in the hands of butchers,” Kumaraswamy said on 11 October, HT reported.
He was referring to the stage set up at the 25th convocation of NIMHANS that took place on Sunday where Kannada was written in the last line of the board behind.
In August last year, pro-Kannada organisations and the political opposition tore into Bommai for putting up boards in Hindi and English only at the flagging-off of the Metro rail services between Nayandahalli and Kengeri.
The Kannada and Culture department issued a notice to Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) over allegations that the latter sidelined the regional language during the inauguration of the new stretch of the Metro.
Dinesh Gundu Rao, the former state Congress president and AICC in charge of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Goa, was the first to raise the issue in which he accused the state BJP of neglecting Kannada “to please the centre”.
“It is a shame for Karnataka to ignore Kannada in our Metro inauguration program on the Kengeri Purple route. It is impossible to tolerate the sidelining of Kannada in a government programme. Our Metro project is a central and state partnership project. So why should Kannada not be a priority?” Rao had said in a post on Twitter at the time.
The issue of language strikes an emotional chord in Karnataka and other non-Hindi speaking states, which nurse a feeling of neglect of their native tongue under the Modi government. There have been long struggles in places like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra among several other states across the country that have fought over language rights, which even though has limited political capital, has rich dividends in mobilising support.
The Metro had become the platform of choice for pro-Kannada politics to play out during the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government between 2013-2018, which had supported the cause as a tool to further criticise the union government for Hindi imposition.
The Congress and several other regional outfits have accused the union government of pursuing a ‘one-nation, one-language’ policy as a way to make Hindi a common tongue as part of its larger Hindutva agenda.
