Prakash Raj, Darshan Thoogudeepa Speak Against Imposition of Hindi

The t-shirt campaign also follows Tamilians including actors sporting t-shirts with similar slogans – “Hindi theriyaathu poda” and “I am Tamil speaking Indian” that also extended to the political space.

Also, with increasing job losses locally, language protectionism campaigns have gained further ground in Karnataka – fuelled by groups that have a problem with the language of communication used by banks. The use of Hindi and English in rural areas has angered many. And now, with heavy job losses in many sectors over the last three months, it has given rise to a demand for reserving customer service jobs for Kannadigas.

“Other than usual thing is all the workers has to be Kannadigas because they are daily conversing with people around. Because what happens is for example in banks, rural banks we are getting lot of complaints that they are not talking in the rural langauge. Because of that there is lot of problem arising. How can we have a customer relationship without knowing the local language?,” said TS Nagabharana, chairperson, Kannada Development Authority.

With the lockdown, many returned to their native places. But locally, jobs are not that easy to come by.