Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Wednesday said his government will bring a law to make Kannada language compulsory.
“On matters of land, water and language, we have been taking decisions beyond political considerations. In this background, I would like to make a statement that Kannada is the best of all languages and we are improving it further,” Bommai said.
“To make usage of Kannada language more and more, we are bringing a law. In this very session we will bring a law, making Kannada language mandatory for the very first time,” he said in reply to a point raised by former Chief Minister and JD-S leader H D Kumaraswamy in the assembly.
“There should not be anxiety among the people of the state,” he added.
He said the law will protect Kannada language and Kannada-speaking people. Not only this, the government will compel other language-speaking people to use more and more Kannada language in their communication, he said.
The government has been encouraging use of Kannada language in engineering colleges also, Bommai stated.
“For the first time professional college students have written their first semester engineering exams in Kannada language under the National Education Policy. Therefore we have encouraged the use of Kannada language in engineering colleges. This did not happen ever before,” he said.
Raising the issue in the House, Kumaraswamy said he had shot off a letter to Bommai urging him not to celebrate “Hindi Diwas” by using taxpayers’ money.
