Dial 'S'ilence for death!

The Kannadiga consumer has been stuck in strange circumstances in a market, which in reality exists only because of him. While the consumer's language and hence the consumer himself are being neglected in business, a language alien to them is receiving red-carpet welcome as the medium for all business activities. This has led to a situation that is inconvenient and insulting to the Kannadiga consumer. There is an urgent necessity for awareness among Kannadiga consumers. The consumer needs to be educated of his stance in the market, and the finer details of the market's economics. This awareness will help turn the situation in the consumer's favour and get them the very much deserved reverence in the market.

Unfavourable environment around consumer
There are several occasions in the market around Kannadiga consumers wherein products and services in business are either offered in a limited fashion or not offered at all in the consumer's language, while its importance in any business activity is commonplace among businessmen. Let us dive a little deeper and find out some such occasions where the Kannadiga consumer is being belittled:

1. Certain products which are of critical value to consumer's health like medicines have none of the important information in Kannada, thereby making English learning compulsory for activities which could be performed in Kannada more conveniently.
   
2. Products on sale in commercial establishments have name tags in one or two languages, but not in Kannada - the language consumers of this land speak. This has projected a false image of Kannada as a language incapable of helping consumers in making their choice.
   
3. Information about medical examinations that are an important first step for a doctor's decisions are all found provided in English but not in Kannada. Owing to such setup patients unaware of English have to run the risks posed by some investigative tests. Safety of these consumers is being compromised as an outcome of linguistic neglect.
   

If these are just a few examples of market situations where a consumer's priorities are being sidelined because of neglect displayed towards his language, there are other cases where the consumer's identity in the market is being injured because of forced domination of other languages in the market.

Consumer's rights and responsibilities in the market
In the wake of such incidents in the market that are subjecting the consumer to unfair treatment, the consumer needs to become aware of his rights and responsibilities in the market scenario:

1. Expecting the market to provide products and services in a way that he likes is not wrong on the part of the consumer. In fact not meeting these expectations is a mistake on the businessman's side.
2. The market will simply cease to exist without the consumer, and the existence of the market is hinged around the consumer himself.
3. The Kannadiga consumer has to expect to be served in Kannada, and this is not at all a crime. It is definitely not a matter of insult to expect local language presence in one's market.
4. The denial of products or services in Kannada to a Kannadiga consumer is but denial of service, and is a violation of consumer's basic rights in a business.
5. As a duty on the Kannadiga consumer's side, one needs to encourage and congratulate efforts in making products and services available in Kannada. This way the market will consequently allot more space to Kannada in the market, and hence encourage more Kannada presence around us.

The inclination of any developing market to adopt foreign languages that have already found widespread use in business, is an automatic development. This needs to be opposed for sustainable development to take place in our market too. Achieving market goals without involving our language in it is a short-lived experience, and the consequences of such growth can be disastrous to the cultural richness that Kannadiga consumers currently possess.

Consumer "how-to"s
Quite often nowadays a Kannadiga is subject to neglect in the market, and gradually Kannada is being subdued by the dominance of other languages as medium of business conduct. While this is a widespread experience, it calls for planned opposition and demand for correction in business practices. Approaching this problem according to its magnitude opens the following avenues to oppose this linguistic oppression in the market, and demand deserving respect to Kannada and Kannadiga in business:

1. Firstly, every consumer should press for service to be rendered in Kannada, and no other language in the Karnataka market. Presence of any other language in Kannada's absence is an insult no Kannadiga consumer should withstand.
   
• Nearly 60% of such cases of Kannada neglect will bend to these demands itself.
2. In cases where this simplest form of protest doesn't fetch desirable results, seek to complain to the dealer's higher-ups and authorities monitoring the business at a higher level.
• While in some cases (10%) a mention of higher authorities may yield results, in some other cases (20%), with continued pressure, the higher authorities in business will be forced to put efforts to resolve our problems, eventually.
3. The rest 10% of cases are where the consumer is really being troubled and denied service in a way he desires. This being a violation of the rights bestowed upon a consumer, can be contested in a consumer court of powers.
• The consumer court is aware of the linguistic angle of consumer's rights and will be the right platform to provide justice.

Reflecting upon success stories such as Radio Mirchi, Petrol bunks in Bengaluru, ICICI ATMs across Karnataka help reveal the real power of collective consumer demands and protests against unfavourable practices.

As a final note, the Kannadiga consumer needs to wake up to these three potential damages owing to Kannada's absence in businesses around him:

• Difficulty he is subject to because of Kannada missing from businesses around him
• Insult to his language, and projection of an inferior image that Kannada is incapable of being a good business language, which is untrue.
• The consequent economic degradation Kannadigas will notice in them, and an eventual shortage of jobs for Kannadigas with declining usage of Kannada and thereby Kannadigas in businesses.

It is time the Kannadiga consumer woke up to all this and raised his voice to protect his own interests in the market.