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