Gokak agitation

The Gokak agitation (Kannada: ಗೋಕಾಕ್ ಚಳುವಳಿ) was a successful language right agitation in the 1980s that fought for the first-language status of the Kannada language in the South Indian state of Karnataka.

It was named after the committee headed by V. K. Gokak that had recommended giving primacy to Kannada in State schools. Actor Rajkumar led the campaign.

Karnataka had adopted the three language formula for education in schools since the linguistic reorganization of states in 1956. Strong opposition to Hindi was witnessed in the 1960s and '70s, leading to Kannada speakers leaning towards English. It was also felt that Kannada faced threat from Sanskrit, which was the dominant language in schools, leading to a situation where students could complete their high school education without having to study Kannada. This created a wide incompatibility between languages used for state administration and education.

This led to a linguistic movement against retaining Sanskrit as the first language in School education. The movement was initiated and supported by political parties, groups of Kannada teachers, students, college and university professors, literary critics, playwrights, and creative writers. This made the government rethink about the language policy for school education and a committee was constituted on 5 July 1980 with Professor V. K. Gokak as its Chairman.

V. K. Gokak, the former Vice-Chancellor of Karnataka University, and later a Jnanpith awardee, headed the committee appointed by the Government of Karnataka to analyse and study the linguistic issues that were raised regarding the importance of various languages, including the state language Kannada and other languages such as English, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil and Urdu. The report given by the committee recommended that the Government provide first language status to Kannada and also demanded the primary facilities that the language needed at the time.

...
Wikipedia