Udupi: Differences can be witnessed while defining culture in India said Dinesh Amin Mattu, media advisor to Chief Minister of Karnataka. He was speaking after conferring the Bannanje Babu Amin Folklore Award on Dr Purushotam Bilimale and Guruva at Hotel Durga International here on February 26.
The result of these cultural differences can be witnessed in educational institutions, where people claiming to be cultural ambassadors ruin the institutions. It is not the political battle affecting our educational institutions but the cultural battle seems to be haunting them. The people who preach nationalism don’t intend to send their children to armed forces but today people from the backward classes join the military to support their country and families. The youth are also from the same families who are used to fulfil blatant political intentions by indulging them in communal incidents.
The boothaaradhane is the prominent culture of Tulunadu, the deities of boothaaradhane can be called as the social activists of olden times. The question prevails as to who will work towards retaining our culture, forcing others to retain it by suppressing them cannot be called as a move to retain our culture. Our biggest quality is hypocrisy and while we stop being hypocrites and try to understand the happenings we grow and flourish, he added.
“An artist is the essence our culture and not the scriptures and lengthy speeches” said Dr Purushotama Bilimale, Head of Kannada Studies Chair, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Efforts were made to include Tulu in the 8th schedule of our Indian constitution but the efforts were in vain. The central government in the 10th five year plan has proposed for the development of languages. Government had allocated rupees 560 crore for the development of Sanskrit followed with Hindi and Pali. A priest who was producing the certificate of knowing Sanskrit was paid rupees 5000 while the efforts to develop other languages went in vain.
It can be witnessed that Koraga language is now only known to 10-15 people of Koraga community, efforts should be made to retain the languages which today are in the verge of endangering. The central government should propose a new model for the development of languages.
We should build our nation on the basis of the constitution and not on the basis of religion, if so it will only lead to destruction. If we continue to build the nation on the basis of religion then we are doing injustice to our nation. Let us not give Tulu language the tag of communal language, he added.
Guruva a traditional artist playing dollu and also weaving basket was also conferred with Bannanje Babu Amin Folklore Award.
Bannanje Babu Amin, Dr Gananath Ekkar, Arun Kumar, Rughunath Mabiyan and others were present.
