When the sound of silence is prized

New Indian Express

07-06-2025

The Kamal Haasan starrer Thug Life is in trouble in Karnataka because of the star's remark that Kannada came out of Tamil. The film industry in Karnataka has demanded an apology from him before clearing the film for release, but Kamal has refused to do so. A court in Bengaluru, too, has indicated in a statement that includes local language phrases that the sentiments of the masses cannot be hurt so casually and has thought that an apology would be required. Without that apology, the film may find it difficult to be released in Karnataka.
All South Indian languages came out of a common source that resembles them to different degrees. But if someone says that one of them came out of another, it is like equating a language as it is spoken today with that source. It has been found, for instance, that Proto-Dravidian, a reconstructed source for South Indian languages, has commonalities with a language spoken near the Zagros mountains in Iran—since the Harappans are supposed to have been a mixture of early Indians and migrants from that region. In any case, all these are academic exercises and cannot have much bearing on the controversy, because that stems from political loyalties and beliefs.
The creation of linguistic states was a rational decision, but it had major repercussions that were not anticipated. It created language loyalties in pockets where Hindi was not widely spoken, like South India. The Devanagari script is associated with Sanskrit, which has Brahminical associations, and language in South India has also become connected to caste issues.