AP, Karnataka to unitedly fight for Classical tag

MYSORE: In a bid to intensify the protest for classical status for Kannada and Telugu, intellectuals from Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have decided to join hands. As the first step, they will form a joint committee comprising of intellectuals and politicians from both the states by next month.

Announcing this in a press meet on Thursday, Andhra Pradesh Language Committee president A B K Prasad and noted writer D Javare Gowda said that both the states had decided to fight against the injustice done to them.

The duo said that the Centre was dilly-dallying to award classical tag to Kannada and Telugu, two prominent Dravidian languages which have long history.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has also favoured Tamil for awarding classical tag as Tamil Nadu MPs were more dominant in the UPA government, they said.

Prasad said Central Minister Maran had written to the Centre and National Committee of the Linguistics to revive the antiquity criteria to award classical tag.

Maran pressurised the Centre to consider at least 1500-2000 years of history of any language while awarding the status in the future.

They said Kannada and Telugu have the similar oral tradition, folklore, culture, scripts and antiquity par with Tamil.

Writer H S Krishnaswami Iyyengar, linguist Lingadevaru Halemane were present at the press meet.

Courtesy: NewIndPress