The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : ‘Thackeray’s rhetoric is idiosyncratic’

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Wednesday, Feb 20, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

‘Thackeray’s rhetoric is idiosyncratic’

Special Correspondent

Chandrashekar Patil says he supports the issue in principle

Bangalore: What had been happening in Maharashtra under Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena was only a part of regional and national politics and was not an isolated event. The “rhetoric” employed by Mr. Thackeray was “idiosyncratic” and debatable. But he had raised “pertinent and inevitable” questions that were relevant to Karnataka also, said Chandrashekhar Patil, president of Kannada Sahitya Parishat.

Prof. Patil was speaking at a meet-the-press organised by the Press Club of Bangalore and Bangalore Reporters’ Guild here on Monday.

Support for MNS

In that context he would “support the issue in principle” as his “Marathi brethren” were also like Kannadigas who are “facing an identity crisis in their own land at the cost of their cultural rights,” he said.

Asserting that national political parties had failed to address the plaguing regional issues, Prof. Patil said that the future would belong to the regional parties that could respond to the aspirations of the respective region, with a focus on language and culture.

Asked why Maharashtra had been passing through hard times on the cultural front despite the imposing presence of the regional party Shiv Sena, Prof. Patil said that it was obvious as Shiv Sena had split and lost its public credence. However, any party could regain its public credibility if it were to respond to the regional needs with commitment, he said

Admitting that there were some coordination problems between the Sahitya Parishat and Kannada organisations, he said that all like-minded organisations which believed that “a defined movement would chose its own leader,” were making concerted efforts for launching a regional party, he said.

On his achievements as the president of the parishat since November 2004, Prof. Patil said though he had a long list of achievements, he regretted that he could not launch programmes that he cherished.

Proposal

He made a proposal to the Government that all the academies — Kannada Book Authority, Kannada Development Authority and the parishat — should work in collaboration for three years in the larger interest of Kannada. He urged the Government to set up a permanent dictionary compiling machinery.

He said he made efforts to give an authentically all-India character to the parishat’s annual sammelan by inviting a non-Kannada writer to chair the event, and by holding such an event outside the State. But bureaucracy and vested interests came in the way, Prof. Patil said.

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