BIAL: the forgotten shame

Bengaluru's new airport will doubtless stop travelers from frowning if not go as far as bringing smiles to their faces. But hey, aren't we missing something amidst gigabytes after gigabytes of rant on the airport itself, its facilities, approach roads and traffic? With popular media devoting itself to the number of conveyor belts and plush interiors, the public is being gently escorted away from the shameful way in which Indian administration has suppressed The Kannadiga People, their right to employment, their language in regard to this airport.

We are being made to forget that Kannadigas were promised jobs in return for land and cheated in broad daylight. We are being made to forget that the airport continues to stink of Hindi and flushes Kannada - the language of the very land on which the airport stands - down microprocessor-controlled urinals. We are being made to forget how Hampi and the rest of Karnataka's proud history and culture have been considered too inferior for the ambience of our own airport. We are being made to forget how workers of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike - who were peacefully demonstrating against the injustice done to Kannadigas have been made to fill jails like criminals. Who are the real criminals? Those who ask for their own rights, or those who suppress others' rights like colonial masters?

Yes, all the hue and cry about material comforts at the new airport has buried the fact that the Kannadiga spirit together with everything that unites Kannadigas and makes us one has been given a death blow. Everything that we were, are, and want to be has been gloriously neglected. We are being told that what matters is what others were, are, and want to be.

Won't we get up? Won't we scratch the shining walls of the new airport and stand up for fellow Kannadigas? Won't we? Won't we? Won't we?

Also read: Airport: what ought to be and what shall be, Bengaluru should learn from Beijing

Industrialisation of Karnataka should mean employment for Kannadigas

With election aroma strong in the air, the fluttering sound of manifesto booklets thrown by political parties has started fading away. Among such manifestos is one peculiar intention to put efforts in ensuring more jobs for Kannadigas, especially in the IT sector. Although the immediately apparent intention of reserving jobs seems glaringly myopic, we need to understand as to why this type of a demand is there from Kannadigas and what the industries, not limited to IT mind you, need to do to allay the concerns of Kannadigas that they are not being benefitted in terms of the employment opportunities created by these industries.

Rewind a few decades and we notice that the industrial sector in Karnataka had been flourishing in those years as well as it is today - only difference being the nature and magnitude of industry. But one similarity that stands clear is the trend of indifference in the attitude of industries towards the employment needs of Kannadigas, even when the much needed support from the state government has always been there.

Although industries have created employment in lakhs, the number of Kannadigas benefited from this has been a meagre portion. And the primary reason for this glaring problem is the blatant nepotism of non-Kannadiga officials in employing people from their own state for jobs in Karnataka even when qualified and eligible Kannadigas have been available in Karnataka. We saw this happening in Central Government departments and PSUs in 60s and 70s; in the IT, ITES and other sectors in the 90s and 2000s. These two waves of industrialization in Karnataka have seen more than a million jobs generated but the number of Kannadigas who have gained employment because of this development is not encouraging in anyway.

The fact that employment is the cause for economic development of the masses, and hence of the land they inhabit is one of the main reasons for the state government to provide sops for increased industrialization. But if employment for Kannadigas in substantial proportions has not been one of the outcomes of this industrialization policy, Karnataka government needs to think about ways to set it right.