Gokak agitation

Karnataka had adopted the three language formula for education in schools since the linguistic reorganization of states in 1956. It also felt that Kannada faced threat from Hindi, which was the dominant language in schools, leading to a situation where students could complete their high school education without having to study Kannada. This created a wide incompatibility between languages used for state administration and education in Karnataka.[1]

This led to a linguistic movement against retaining Hindi as the first language in School education. The movement was initiated and supported by political parties, groups of Kannada teachers, students, college and university professors, literary critics, playwrights, and creative writers. This made the government rethink about the language policy for school education and a committee was constituted on 5 July 1980 with Professor V. K. Gokak as its Chairman.

V. K. Gokak, the former Vice-Chancellor of Karnataka University, and later a Jnanpith awardee, headed the committee appointed by the Government of Karnataka to analyse and study the linguistic issues that were raised regarding the importance of various languages, including the state language Kannada and other languages such as English, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil and Urdu. The report given by the committee recommended that the Government provide first language status to Kannada and also demanded the primary facilities that the language needed at the time.

There was opposition to the Gokak Report from several sectors of the public, which included minorities from various non-Kannada speaking groups. The Government did not pass any ruling or announcement, even after the report was officially submitted by the committee. This resulted in minor protests from various writers and pro-Kannada, pro-Karnataka organizations. The response from the public was moderate and there were no signs from the Government that it intended to implement the recommendations made by the Gokak committee.[2]

Various personalities from Kannada literature and cinema world including G. Narayankumar approached and requested Rajkumar of the Kannada film industry to participate in the agitation along with the other major artists from the industry. Rajkumar accepted to participate and, along with Narayankumar and his followers, supported the movement. Soon the entire Kannada film industry stopped its film-making activities, and participated in various statewide rallies. With Dr. Rajkumar's leadership the agitation gained a very strong momentum and there was a drastic change in the response from general public of Karnataka state. People from all over the state started participating in the rallies. The campaign was kick started from Krishnarajapuram Town in Bangalore[3]. Topics such as importance of Kannada as the mother-tongue language and importance of having primary education including learning Kannada were talked in detail in all the rallies.

The Government of Karnataka, headed by the then Chief Minister, R. Gundu Rao, responded to the seriousness of the agitation, which had gained significant momentum after Rajkumar had taken leadership of the agitation. It announced that it accepted the report submitted by the Gokak Committee and promised to ensure all the primary facilities that the language deserves as the mother tongue of the local people as well as the official language of the state of Karnataka.

• Kannada Rajyothsava

• B. Mallikarjun, "Language policy for education in Indian states: Karnataka", in Language in India, Vol.2: 9 December 2002 accessed at 20 February 2007
• Harikumar, K. N. "Language and Democracy". Deccan Herald. kannadasaahithya.com. Archived from the original on 15 March 2006.

• N.C. Gundu Rao, "Rewind and replay: Reflections on the Gokak agitation", Deccan Herald, 30 November 2004