The rise of Kannada as a prominent language and the movement for unification of Karnataka.
The old political slogan, ‘From the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea,’ which defines a geography for the Palestinian nation, is back in the world’s consciousness – and on its conscience. With Karnataka’s birthday around the corner, this is a good time to wonder – if we were to define Karnataka’s extent similarly, which geographic markers would we use? One possible answer is proposed by the 9th century ‘Kavirajamarga,’ a treatise on grammar and poetry that is hailed as the earliest literary work in Kannada. Composed during the rule of Amoghavarsha, the greatest king of the Rashtrakutas, Kavirajamarga states unequivocally that ‘Kaveri-indama Godavari-varam-irda nadada Kannada’ – ‘The land that lies between the Kaveri and Godavari rivers is Kannada Nadu.’
It has been some centuries since Kannada speakers occupied such a large swathe of the Deccan, but they certainly did in Amoghavarsha’s time. At its height, the Rashtrakuta Empire extended well beyond the Godavari basin, to the Ganga-Yamuna doab! But Kannada’s rise to prominence had begun even earlier, in the 4 th century CE, with early Kannada dynasties like the Kadambas of Banavasi and the Gangas of Talakad establishing Kannada as the language of administration. There was even a Kannada script by then – the 5 th century Halmidi Inscription, the earliest of its kind, is written in what is known as the Kadamba script (a version of the much older Brahmi script that was devised specifically to write Kannada and Telugu).
A century after Amoghavarsha, ‘Adikavi’ (‘The First Poet’) Pampa would write his Kannada classics Adi Purana (on the life of the first Jain Tirthankara, Rishabhanatha) and Pampa Bharata (a retelling of the Mahabharata), setting a literary benchmark that future generations of Kannada writers would strive relentlessly to live up to.
The Hoysalas, who ruled most of today’s Karnataka in the 11 th and 12 th centuries, also patronized Kannada, but their sphere of influence was much smaller than the Rashtrakutas’ had been. In the courts of the last great southern empire, Vijayanagara, which lasted well into the 16 th century, Kannada was on equal footing with Telugu, which had flourished between the 12 th and 14 th centuries under the Kakatiyas of Warangal.
In the face of the southern expansion of the Mughals and the Marathas in the 17 th and 18 th centuries, and with the Asaf Jahis of Hyderabad crowding in from the east following Mughal decline, it was left to the Wadiyars of Mysore to keep the Kannada flag flying. The British takeover of Mysore following the death of Tipu Sultan in 1799 changed the dynamics – and the borders – once again. By the end of the 19 th century, the anguish of the Kannada people, separated for too long by arbitrary lines drawn across a region that had been, for millennia, united by culture and language, could no longer be borne.
Appropriately, it was Kannada writers, articulate and aesthetic in their longing, who kickstarted the movement for Ekikarana (unification). In Dharwad, the epicentre of the movement, journalist Aluru Venkata Rao made fiery speeches, and wrote his magnum opus, ‘Karnataka Gatha Vaibhava’ – The Glory That Was Karnataka – to remind Kannadigas of their storied past. In Bangalore, the legendary novelist Anakru (AN Krishna Rao) wrote spirited editorials in the magazine Kannada Nudi to galvanize Kannadigas from all over. In 1924, at the Belgaum session of the Indian National Congress, playwright-poet Huilgol Narayana Rao composed and sang, for the first time, what would become the rousing state anthem for many years – ‘Udayavaagali Namma Cheluva Kannada Nadu’ (May our beautiful Kannada Nadu rise!). Finally, on November 1, 1956, the long-held aspirations of the Kannadigas were realised when the new, unified Mysore State was born.
Happy 67th , Karnataka! Shine on!
Disclaimer: This Article is auto-generated from the HT news service.
