Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) activists on Sunday held a protest march and demonstration at KR Circle, Mysore, condemning Bhyrappa’s remarks.
Renowned author SL Bhyrappa’s description of the people of Karnataka as tarlegalu (a bunch of good-for-nothing whiners) has stirred a hornets’ nest.
Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) activists on Sunday held a protest march and demonstration at KR Circle, Mysore, condemning Bhyrappa’s remarks.
Speaking at a function in Mysore on Saturday, Bhyrappa had said “our people are lost in internecine quarrels. There is a need for them to reform”. Praising Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi for his efforts in convincing farmers to get Tatas relocate their Nano plant, Bhyrappa said Gujaratis managed their everyday economics excellently and hence turned entrepreneurs. “Our people know only how to spend, not to save,” he had lamented.
“He has called Kannadigas tarlegalu, a statement that disparages the image of the state in the public eye. He must apologise for his utterances, or the Vedike will intensify the stir against him not just in Mysore but also in Bangalore and other parts of the state. We have already given a call to many of our units to brace themselves for the stir in Mysore and Mandya,” said Chandrappa Bannur, a KRV leader.
“I fully agree with SL Bhyrappa if he used the word tarlegalu to describe BS Yeddyurappa’s government and the mining lords of Bellary. I am sure Bhyrappa did not use this word to describe millions of common Kannadigas,” Jnanpith award laureate Prof UR Ananthamurthy told DNA from Goa.
In Mangalore, Union law minister M Veerappa Moily said that the comments were an apt description of politicians in the BJP in Karnataka. “I am sure he did not refer any Kannadiga or other political leaders (besides BJP leaders) in his comment,” Moily said, adding, “Eminent writers and intellectuals like Bhyrappa would have been under tremendous frustration, looking at the happenings in the party in power in Karnataka, and the reign of corruption. I can perfectly understand Byrappa’s sentiments.”
But Bhyrappa’s praise for Modi goes against the secular tradition of Kannada literature, Moily said.
“Bhyrappa has always been a pro-Hindutva writer. If he was referring to the Yeddyurappa government as tarlegalu, then he has taken an opportunity to chide them, which is very apt. But I won’t venture into any opinion if he was using the term as a blanket reference to Kannadigas. That will be unjust,” writer Sara Aboobackar said.
Aviation entrepreneur Capt GR Gopinath and Infosys director and head (HR) TV Mohandas Pai declined to comment.
An immensely popular Kannada writer, Bhyrappa, 79, has 22 novels to his credit and most of them have been translated into other Indian languages.
Movies based on his novels like Vamshavriksha, Tabbaliyu Neenade Magane, Matadana and Nayi Neralu have won huge critical acclaim.
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