India’s diversity should be maintained at all costs: Kasaravalli
BENGALURU: India is known for its diversity and that has to be maintained at all costs, said noted filmmaker and Padma Shri awardee Girish Kasaravalli.The new government should focus on “invisible India”, which is larger than “visible India”. “Invisible India is that of the voiceless people who might speak in their native regional languages. The less heard should be heard in Parliament,” he said.
The government should not make an attempt to impose Hindi, he said. Opposing the ‘One nation, one language’ theory, Kasaravalli said Hindi has become the ‘’eligibility criteria”. If you don’t know Hindi, you cannot become a national leader.
“When Lal Bahadur Shastri made such an attempt, South Indian states revolted. Similar things will happen,’’ he said. He also said the government should have a holistic approach on any issue.“This election crossed all limits, especially during campaigning. This was more like a streetfight among goons who use foul language in the middle of the road. This election campaign was a new low,’’ 68-year-old Kasaravalli said.
One of the pioneers of parallel cinema and known internationally for his work, Kasaravalli said this election campaign was neither about vision nor was it issue-based. “Their talk crossed all limits. There was no control on their tongues. Filthy language, right from seniors to ground-level netas, across party lines, was just not acceptable. Unfortunately, we had to vote for one among these. It is giving way to a bad tradition -- whoever speaks louder and filthier is considered a good orator,’’ he said.
“Netas should develop a practice where if they have committed a mistake, they should apologize, but they don’t have that mindset, and pretend as if they have committed no mistake. They are dumping their thoughts on us, which is not democracy. It is a feudal mindset,” he said.He said the campaigns were full of lies. “In the era of social media, sharing lies and making an attempt to garb lies as facts is a dangerous trend. It is true that we need a strong ruling party, but it is also true that we need a good and capable opposition party too.”
In the earlier governments, there were many voices who had many visions. But now we don’t see it. “The high command has some vision and the entire party accepts it as it is. When (Jawaharlal) Nehru was Prime Minister, there was Pant, Krishna Menon, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Ambedkar — all of them unique in their own way. There were differences among them, but those differences were not to dismantle the government,” he said.
Referring to horse-trading, Kasaravalli said that political parties want to be in power by hook or crook. “In a democratic setup, the minute a party gets a majority, it should be allowed to sit in the ruling chair. But now, parties with no majority are looking for backdoor entry in the name of horse-trading. Earlier, this was considered an insult, but now they are doing it as if it is their right. They contest from one party ticket, and after results are declared, take money and jump to another party. This shows the low level of today’s politics. The sadder fact is that people are accepting it,’’ he said.