GULBARGA: A three-day signature campaign will be launched in Gulbarga on February 25 to mobilise support for demanding classical language status to Kannada by "Sankalana", a non-governmental organisation (NGO) dedicated to social and literary activities in the district.

Sankalana convener and Congress leader Chandrasekhar Hiremath told presspersons here on Thursday that the signature campaign will be launched at the Vallabhbhai Patel Chowk in the city. On the next two days, volunteers of Sankalana will reach out to different colleges, universities and schools in the city to collect signatures of writers, professors, lecturers and teachers and persons from other walks of life.

On February 27, the collected signatures will be submitted along with a memorandum addressed to President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding classical language status to Kannada.

Mr. Hiremath said Kannada has a history of over 2,000 years. It is an independent language and not an offshoot of any other language as required by the Centre to declare it as a classical language.

So far, Sanskrit, Pali and Tamil have been accorded the classical language status. While the Centre has acknowledged that Sanskrit was a language popular in 1500 BC, Tamil was in use in 500 BC. There were records to prove that Kannada is more than 2000 years old.

History of language

Records

He said the State Government submitted the records to prove that Kannada was the administrative language of the Kadamba dynasty having its headquarters at Vyajyanthi (known as Banavasi) and the scriptures of that period had proved that Kannada was very popular for several centuries prior to that period. The "Kavi Rajamarga" written in the 9th Century showed that Kannada was a popular language more than 1,000 years ago.

Mr. Hiremath said the language had a rich cultural and literary heritage. The Centre should reverse its decision to change the norms for languages to get the classical status recently after the status was accorded to Tamil.

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