The Local Fix

THE KARNATAKA GOVERNMENT recently tabled a bill that makes it compulsory for shops and establish­ments to have 60 per cent of their signboards in Kannada. Some years back, the Maharashtra govern­ment had made a similar law and periodically one heard of it being made stricter with drives to enforce it. The Karnataka bill follows a protest by a local group in December that turned violent with vandalising of establish­ments that didn’t have Kannada on their signages. Much of street politics in India is fuzzy territory; sometimes it is spontaneous, sometimes engi­neered, and sometimes it is planned and then takes on a momentum that no one foresees. Often, such agitations are deliberately launched because such a law is sought to be made. Cause and effect run in both directions when votes are involved.

But Karnataka might go one up on even Maharashtra. Its minister for culture also stated recently that mul­tinational companies must display on notice boards how many local Kannadi­gas they employ, and there was already a committee formed which would make rules to enforce it. When ‘local’ promo­tion measures—signboards, notice boards and whatever will follow in future—are made, they are applicable for all of the state, but are in fact targeted at the big cities because that is where the admixture with migrants happen. It is tapping into the vein of that ancient fear of the land being lost to outsiders, of that illusory good old time when everyone spoke, dressed, drank and ate in the same way and life was plentiful and joyful. Except that such a past has never existed anywhere in the world.

The feeling however exists, some­times dormant, sometimes overt, and locals are the ones who count when it comes to winning elections. It is not a coincidence that this issue is being raked up now when the General Elec­tion is round the corner. A policy like this does not make the life of a single citizen better materially. He might feel a sense of vindication but it adds not a paisa to the sum of his well-being. The language on a signboard is entirely a function of demand, supply, conve­nience and mimicking what others are doing. In villages, no shopkeeper needs to be told to have a sign in the local lan­guage, they have it anyway. Laws like these fall under the basket of tokenism, much like the changing of names of railway stations or districts to compen­sate for history.

On the other hand, these laws come at no cost at all because most people don’t really care. That is why there is no objection from anywhere when such a measure is mulled. Politicians bank on it. What is lost is just time and energy that could have been better spent on something that makes a real differ­ence. Or perhaps, it is because the effort needed to make real changes is too much that the low-hanging fruits come calling. And nothing is as easy to pick as identity politics—choose one aspect of an identity, conjure a threat and become the answer to that threat.

KarnatakalanguagesMaharashtrapoliticsregionalsignboards