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.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful write up I must say !

Everyone wants our karnataka to progress and achieve a developed state status and an important part of becoming a developed state is addressing the employment concerns of the people.

We all feel about giving something back to the society, want to do something to help one of our brother or sister to get a job and a very simple thing, we can do to help a kannadiga get a job is talking in kannada in all the business we come across daily. It might sound awkward..

I'll explain..

A famous bank calls people in bengaluru for credit card sales and the sales calls come in 2 languages, namely Tamil and English. Know the reason why?

Coz, the same bank does a review of the sales calls made every month and their findings are as follows:

Calls made in a particular month: 1000
Calls which fetched Business: 100
Language which fetched business:
Tamil : 50
English:80
Hindi:20

and the bank knows that it must call people either in Tamil or English to make sure it gets business.

Now, out of that 80 calls in English, atleast 50 were answered by Kannadigas, who used English with the agents.

Now, imagine, if all those 50 kannadiga calls insist on services to be rendered in Kannada, failing they will reject the business with the bank, what will happen?

Bank will come on it's toes and will immidiately recruit graduates who know can speak fluent Kannada.

So,
If we all get together and ask for services to be rendered in Kannada, it will create a lot of jobs for our brothers and sisters who know only Kannada.

You are not doing anything but talking in kannada to get these jobs created for your brothers and sisters.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I appreciate your thoughts and concerns towards kannada. However it seems hypocritical form the fact that the entire blog is in English. Gandhiji said that we need to be the change we wish to see in the world. Would appreciate efforts by bloggers to bring out the articles in kannada.

Anonymous said...

The article is an eye opener for Kannadigas to become aware of the fact how their purchasing power could help Kannadigas get jobs and promote Kannada in all walks of life. I suggest the writer to write the article in Kannada and publish it in a mass circulated Kannada newspaper for wide publicity. In fact only after reading a similar article in this blog I understood why Radio Mirchi is playing only Kannada songs. (Even Fever 104 is having Kannada speaking jockey’s and plays Kannada songs, which was not so earlier)

Unknown said...

This is the best article i have read recently...
As well Avinash rao- You have pointed a right thing..

Just couldnt stop myself thinking what about talking to those telecallers (Might be related to bank or clubs or telecom) in kannada.. If they doesnt know kannada just reminding them that we are in karnataka and we like to communicate in kannada rather than other languages..
Thanks for the nice article.. Need to be adopted in daily life..

Thanks & Regards,
Ravikanth Gore
htt://ravikanth-gore.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

One thing I dont get...Why cant we understand the problems in a multi lingual country? The medicines etc which the blog talks about are coming from all over India and hence carry the two "official languages" of india - english and hindi.

"Presence of any other language in Kannada's absence is an insult no Kannadiga consumer should withstand.".......so now we are intolerant to other languages of our own country??
What a shame, but i hope you realize that you are writting in english!
Certain languages have become communication norms - accepting that and doing something to keep up regional languages is one thing-- trying to say other language presence is an insult is cheap.

Ubiquitos said...

Anonymous Quote --
I appreciate your thoughts and concerns towards kannada. However it seems hypocritical form the fact that the entire blog is in English. Gandhiji said that we need to be the change we wish to see in the world. Would appreciate efforts by bloggers to bring out the articles in kannada.
-----
Nimma mathu nijja. bahushaa nivuu e gumpina vardhigallanu modalla bariggi oddu thirabahuddu.
E gumpinna udesha kannada, Karnataka mattu kannadigana eligge.
ivarra vichara achara haggu baraha kannada vanne bhimbhisuthee.
nimma vadha kannada dalle iraa bekku embuduu sari, ivarraa modalla blog adda Engurublogspot.com/ nalli kannada dalle lekhani gallu muddi baruthidavvu. hechhu odhugaranna akarshishallu ondu chikka samashya eduur ayithuu ; ennun andre kannada fonts sputta vaggi kanisuthira lilla. ofcourse Technical reasons igge. odhugarra e font gondakalla dindaggi English nalle barahagallu muddi baruthivee.

Inthi,
Subrahmanya C.N
(Karnatique blog abimani)

Harish Kumar said...

Gandhiji said that we need to be the change we wish to see in the world. Would appreciate efforts by bloggers to bring out the articles in kannada.

Thanks to the neglect of kannada many kannadigas now are more comfortable in English than Kannada. Yet they feel for their mother tongue and so it is necessary blogs are published in both English adn kannada. What about kannadigas outside the state who are interested in their motherland who don't know kannada very well ? Plus handsome kannadigas like me are always spoken to in hindi and so I never get an opportunity to learn kannada.

So please use both languages.

Harish Kumar said...

Gandhiji said that we need to be the change we wish to see in the world.

How exactly does the threat from Al-Qaeda vanish if we renounce violence ? Can criminals be eradicated from a society just by the rest of us being good ? Just because Gandhi said something it does not become true. Everything must pass the test of experience and scientific validation.

Harish Kumar said...

so now we are intolerant to other languages of our own country??

Asking people to communicate in the language of my country does not make me intolerant. Do you want kannadigas to spend all their time learning English and Hindi instead of upgrading skills in science and technology and commerce ? And how many of them are going to go outside the state to get jobs ? This guy is what I call a Kolonised Kanndiga. His love of Hindi blinds him to the plight of poor kannadigas in need of medicine.

Rohith B R said...

@ Anon quoting Gandhi,
Be the change you want. So your comment in came in English. Okay! But Karnatique's authors havent been like that. They have shaken the entire Kannada blog world from its root at http://enguru.blogspot.com
If you're unaware of this, its high time you started making this change in yourself :)

@ Anon talking about official languages:
"Just because the medicines are coming from somewhere in India and going to all states, it is in English and Hindi - the official languages!" - what crap! What do official languages and language used on medicine covers have to do with one another dude! You are getting confused about the purpose of an official language!
Moreover, there are some medicines that come from France and Germany. They'll send it to you with written matter on it in French and Deutsch. I am sure you'll have a nice time accepting these medicines, one day!
Of course, that day, will not be cheap to you, it may prove to be very costly indeed!!

Anonymous said...

Anon reg: medicines -

If people taking medicines can't read what's written, it beats the purpose. Don;t tell me that many can - most of the revenue is from millions of people who can;t read what's written on the medicines. I know - I work in the medical profession.

Anonymous said...

Its heartening to see very little use of Kannada in the products which we use it regularly. I haven't seen any kannada word in User manuals or labels on most of the items from wellknown Indian and MNC brands..even our own MTR prints only in English on its products. I don't know the reason..may be becoz we are just 2% of the total population of India...and going by the rule of democracy..we are minority in India's retail market..

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