Development has to be critiqued: Ananthamurthy

Srinivas R and Majnu Babu

BANGALORE: The violent farewell to Kannada film star Dr Rajkumar, who passed

away here on April 12, has surprised Jnanpith Award winning Kannada writer and

thinker Dr U.R. Ananthamurthy, for he anticipated more widespread violence

following the insensitiveness of those who now matters in the city.

The mob's rage, which left eight people including a policeman dead, was not

out of mere grief, but against this insensitiveness.

“I observed that there was not as much violence it could have been there.

Government handled it insensitively. Somebody who gave joy for so many years is

dead. They have to take him where everyone has to see him. But TV cameras showed

that only VIPs were taken in to see him a last time and not others. Suddenly

people were angry,” he said.

The septuagenarian thinker is apprehensive about more violence in future. The

IT boom and the development it brought along, is also insensitive towards the

common man in Bangalore and his needs. He pointed at instances where violence

has made the higher-ups sensitive to the needs of the common man.

He opined that all development should be critiqued. “Development should be

good by itself,” he said warning, “lot of these development works are sold

to us by the first worlds because they wanted to dispense lot of materials.

Basically they want a dumping ground.”

Such a development is happening in Bangalore also, he said adding, “Not

merely the IT industry.”

With these kind of development, Ananthamurthy considers, “We are dividing

the Indian population into two -- Bharat and India.”

He cited the example of school education in Bangalore, which creates two

different sets of citizens in the same country. “All good schools are for the

rich. You have to spend a lakh of rupees per child in some private school. There

is not a single good school, where you can learn Kannada,” he lamented while

questioning the lopsided development in the city.

Ananthamurthy advocated that all multi-national corporations (MNCs) should

use the language of the state. “If Narayana Murthy wants to go to Saudi

Arabia, he will have to use Arabic. He cannot say that he cannot use Kannada

here (in Bangalore), which is very unreasonable.”

He considered merchants were more broadminded because to sell their goods,

they need to know every language. “When I suggested this to Mr. (Kiran) Karnik,

he said it is chauvinistic. Can you say that the French are chauvinistic because

they love the French language? Are we chauvinistic because we love Kannada,”

he asked.

“India is not a country where one language can run everywhere. India is a

sub-continent. Hence all these companies should come here with sensitivity to

languages and cultures,” Ananthamurthy suggested.

The lopsided development in many parts of India including Bangalore has made

those ignored seethe with anger. “I think they have some kind of anger against

every one,” he said referring to the violence and arson in Bangalore.

Responding to a query on the IT industry's demand for better infrastructure

in Bangalore, Ananthamurthy said, “When you say that there are not enough

facility for the IT industry, I wish they had spoken about not enough roads in

Bangalore. Rather, they were saying, there are not enough good roads for us to

go to our own offices. This shows some kind of insensitivity.”

He cited the example of the development of Hyderabad during the Chandrababu

Naidu government, which turned a blind eye towards the common man. “Naidu made

roads for vehicles to go fast. I was in Hyderabad sometime back. I find that we

(pedestrians) cannot cross those roads easily.”

Such anger and violent repercussions are not confined to India. It has

happened all over the world where there was a blatant exhibition of money and

power. Ananthamurthy drew an example from the U.K of 1960s, where middleclass

women used to curse at American made cars that passed them by.

“If England could be jealous in the `60s, imagine how our people could

behave when they see the visible wealth,” he said.

Coming back at the visible symbols of development in the city, he asked

whether it could be sustained in a long term without developing other industries

such as hardware. “If IT companies leave Bangalore and go, is this a growth,

which can be sustained for a long time,” he asked.

© CyberMedia News