Hate Thy Neighbour

Kannada belligerence over the Cauvery water verdict spoils business and emotional ties between the southern states

PICTURE SPEAK

ROADBLOCKS: Trucks at the inter-state border; (below) attacks on theatres

Last month, Kannada Rakshana Vedike (KRV) activists tore down posters of a Tamil film at the Sampige cinema hall in Malleswaram. KRV supporters, who also pelted stones at the building while the Bangalore police watched, have come to symbolise the increasingly militant pro-Kannada demonstrations sparked by the Cauvery tribunal verdict.

Retribution has been swift. Last week, DMK activists asked a Kannada film unit shooting a song sequence starring Tamil actress Suhasini and Kannada veteran Vishnuvardhan at the Ooty botanical gardens to pack up. Less than a week after the Ooty episode, Kannada groups retaliated by disrupting the filming of a song sequence by a Tamil film unit in Coorg.

If these recent incidents are any indication, the dispute over sharing of the Cauvery’s water is not going to die down overnight. And this is not the first time the dispute has brought to the fore the underlying linguistic chauvinism prevalent on both sides of the border. Karnataka Tamil Peravai president A.P. Shanmugasundaram notes that the ongoing retaliatory attacks will only hamper good relations between the two states.

Pro-Kannada activists have targeted theatres screening Tamil movies earlier also. On an average, two to three non-Kannada films are released in Bangalore every week. Last year, such films contributed nearly Rs 40 crore to the state exchequer in taxes. Kannada belligerence was also on display when a section of its film industry demanded a three-week moratorium on films produced outside the state (read non-Kannada films). Around the same time, Hindi film producer Yash Chopra had obtained a Supreme Court order seeking protection for theatres screening his film Veer Zaara.

What the pro-Kannada groups are perhaps not aware of is that demonstrating against the screening of Tamil films or threatening to oust the Tamils from the state is not going to alter the demographic deficit. “Every time these groups pelt stones, it is money down the drain for Karnataka,” rues the owner of a cinema theatre that was attacked recently. “With activists like them in the state, it does not make business sense for us to be around.”

It is also about business. Even today, hundreds of tons of cargo, including essential food items, is transported across the border. But from time to time, Tamil Nadu trucks—nearly 1,000 ply through the borders everyday—are targeted, especially in the old Mysore districts.

Moreover, the biggest chunk of labour at India’s deepest gold mine in Kolar gold fields, 90 km north of Bangalore, comes from Tamil Nadu. So is the case with the state capital’s numerous public sector units, defence and scientific establishments. Another huge chunk of workforce drives across to the automobile and watch factories in Hosur in Tamil Nadu, just 40 km away from Bangalore. Given the current scenario, the Karnataka protesters quite evidently don’t realise that their actions can only harm their own interests and that of the state.

-By Stephen David

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