What is 60% kannada rule siddaramaiah warns after protest turns violent in bengaluru

What is 60% kannada rule siddaramaiah warns after protest turns violent in bengaluru

Karnataka Rakshana Vedika president Narayan Gowda said business establishments should go out of Karnataka if they don't want 60% Kannada in signboards.

Members of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedika, a pro-Kannada activist group, were detained on Wednesday after they vandalised some stores in Bengaluru demanding Kannada nameplates to be put up abiding by the guidelines of the civic authority. Several videos of their rampage on Bengaluru streets, in front of Phoenix Mall of Asia, went viral. Karnataka Rakshana Vedika president TN Narayan Gowda said his organisation organised an awareness protest rally about the 60% Kannada on signboard rule which is a government law. Some social media accounts claimed nameplates which had Kannada apart from English were also vandalised.

What is the 60% Kannada rule?

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike has come up with a rule that all commercial establishments will have to put up 60% signage in Kannada. More than half of a signboard should read in Kannada, according to this guideline. A deadline of February 28 has been given, failing which the shops will be closed and their trade licenses cancelled.

The Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday said the authorities should not take action before the deadline. The federation said it will ask all its members to follow the rule but the government should not take any action against establishments before the deadline. Many establishments were not aware that the 60% Kannada was a BBMP rule and not the demand of some fringe organisations.

Karnataka Rakshana Vedika president TN Narayan Gowda said if establishments do not want Kannada names on their signboards, they should move out of Karnataka. ‘People from various states are doing business in Bangalore. But they don't put Kannada nameplates on their shops. They are only putting up the nameplates of their shops in English. If they want to stay back in Bangalore then they have to put nameplates on their shops in Kannada or else they have to move from Karnataka to other states.’

‘We told them to put a Kannada nameplate but Mall of Asia (Bangalore) did not bother and has not put a Kannada nameplate so we will fight against this. Today police are providing full protection to the Mall of Asia (Bengaluru), but tomorrow who will provide protection? Tomorrow again our activists will protest, till our demand is fulfilled,’ Narayan Gowda said.

After the rampage of the pro-Kannada protestors, chief minister Siddaramaiah said, ‘I don't know what they (the protestors) are doing. I have got information that Narayana Gowda is protesting about having Kannada name boards. We will take action against those who took the law into their own hands and went against the law.’

While the Karnataka BJP leaders blamed the Congress government for creating the Kannadiga versus non-Kannadiga row in Bengaluru, Union minister and Karnataka MP Pralhad Joshi backed the demand of 60% Kannada and asked why the establishments don't want Kannada signage. ‘Everybody should be able to read the signs and not everyone can read English. What is the harm in writing in Kannada as well as in English or another language, like Hindi? This is not England,’ he said.