New Delhi: Union minister Pralhad Joshi on Wednesday backed the demand by a pro-Kannada outfit that all business establishments in Karnataka should have signages in the local language while maintaining that he doesn’t approve of the violence.
Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV), had organised an awareness protest rally about the 60% Kannada on signboard rule, which is a government law. The pro-Kannada outfit, who have been demanding vernacular signages for long, vandalised more than 20 shops in the city on Wednesday.
Hours after the outfit went on a rampage in the state capital Bengaluru, the MP from Dharwad questioned why shopkeepers insist on writing signages only in English.
"Everybody should be able to read the signs and not everyone can read English. What is the harm in writing in Kannada as well as in English or another language, like Hindi? This is not England," he said when asked if the sub-nationalism invoked by the Congress has worried the BJP, reports NDTV.
"If there has been violence that cannot be approved but these people (shopkeepers) should also understand the sentiment and the necessity," he added.
According to the civic rules in Bengaluru, 60 per cent of signage has to be written in Kannada. However, with many shops, especially in malls, bypassing the rule, the pro-Kannada groups vandalised the shops in the city.
Several videos of their rampage on Bengaluru streets, in front of Phoenix Mall of Asia, went viral. Besides shopping centres in MG Road, Brigade Road, Lavelle Road and St Marks Road, protests were also held along the Kempegowda International Airport.
The Bengaluru police today arrested Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) president T A Narayana Gowda and 28 others in connection with the matter. The protests escalated into violence as KRV workers destroyed signboards written in at several places.
Following the violence, the police had lodged FIRs and detained more than 500 KRV workers on Wednesday. The KRV demands that all establishments in Bengaluru implement a Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) order mandating 60 per cent Kannada in signage across the city.
The BBMP order states that all commercial establishments will have to put up 60% signage in Kannada. More than half of a signboard should read in Kannada, according to this guideline.
A deadline of February 28 has been given, failing which the shops will be closed and their trade licenses cancelled. The 2019 order is based on the civic body’s Outdoor Signage and Public Messaging Bye-Laws of 2018.
KRV president Narayan Gowda had earlier said if establishments do not want Kannada names on their signboards, they should move out of Karnataka.
"People from various states are doing business in Bangalore. But they don't put Kannada nameplates on their shops. They are only putting up the nameplates of their shops in English. If they want to stay back in Bangalore then they have to put nameplates on their shops in Kannada or else they have to move from Karnataka to other states, "he said.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who brought the language row in October remarking that "everyone living in this state should learn to speak Kannada", said he was aware of today's developments.
"We will take action against those who took the law into their own hands and went against the law," Siddaramaiah said.