A man for many causes

A senior journalist who was visiting Bangalore last week was surprised to find that the Karnataka government had declared a holiday and ordered the national flag to be flown at half-mast atop to show its respect to writer UR Ananthamurthy who passed away on August 22. To be fair, the scribe was aware of Ananthamurthy’s stature as a great writer, but he thought it was disproportionate for a government to extend that extraordinary privilege normally reserved for national or State leaders.

All that the journalist should have done was visit Ravindra Kalakshetra where Ananthamurthy’s body lay in state for people to pay their respects. Even those who knew about Ananthamurthy’s contribution to Kannada literature and to social causes were surprised to see the multitudes who lined up to get a last glimpse of the writer. For once, traffic woes did not exist through the entire 12-km route from Ravindra Kalakshetra to Kalagrama, where he was cremated.

The outpouring of sorrow at his passing away, at age 82, was not just an expression of affection because they enjoyed his writings. It meant much more.

To many, Ananthamurthy came to symbolise the one man whose support could be sought for any issue that he had, or had not, reflected upon in his writings or public utterances.

He was a writer who took the life of an Indian village to the outside world not to describe its poverty but to show its richness and the depth of its cultural identity. It was a richness that only he could portray with incisiveness. That was because he looked at society through a unique prism. Few people could comprehend the issues until they were delivered in a language that could be understood even by a lay person.

Ananthamurthy excelled in socio-political commentary through lyricism. But, as in his most famous novel, Samskara , he saw several layers between Brahminical rigidity and sexuality. That is what made him stand notches above others; he did not hesitate to publicly voice the inequalities in society.

There were many issues he championed. Not just by issuing a statement but carrying on the struggle, like a Ram Manohar Lohia or a Mahatma Gandhi, to its logical end. Of course, subject to the changing times. He did not hesitate to become a petitioner in court cases as in saving the Kudremukh environment against the indiscriminate mining of iron ore.

But his best came on the question of languages. Thirty years ago, when Karnataka was marred by agitations demanding primacy for Kannada as the medium of instruction from the primary school level, he got brickbats for committing a blasphemy of sorts.

He was for Kannada but he also made the point that English should be taught because that “will expand the horizon of children”.

To him, it was not a language that could be ignored. It was a language that would be necessary, along with Hindi, as a link to the outside world.

Nearly eight years ago when Karnataka was celebrating its 50th year of existence, Ananthamurthy raised a lot of eyebrows with his suggestion that colonial Bangalore should be called Bengaluru.

To many, his proposal was chauvinistic. His defence was that it was not a difficult task for anyone to learn Kannada. All that anybody coming from outside Karnataka to do was to add a ‘u’ to the English word.

For instance, table became ‘tableu’ or chair became ‘chairu’. That, he explained was “the beauty of our language.” So, Bangalore became Bengaluru.

It is a different matter that the government’s decision is yet to be officially cleared by the Centre. But the fact remains that the simplicity with which he explained a regional language to the large number of migrants, who had descended from all parts of the country in the wake of the IT boom, was encouraging enough for many to learn to converse in the local language and assimilate the local culture.

To him, it was far more meaningful to find identity in our languages because they were the repositories of our culture. The exercise to re-brand Bangalore as Bengaluru was inconsequential to him because it was “quality that makes the brand”.

At the same time, he did make the critical point that many would not even think of making: “We should make the city more hospitable and civilised”. The simplicity of this message to those who had championed the cause of Kannada was much more than anyone talking from a pulpit with political power behind him. This is the critical difference — the power from sheer simplicity — that Ananthamurthy brought to social well-being which made a larger societal impact than anybody else could have.

His arguments were, like in his novels, well reasoned. For one, his criticism of Narendra Modi was largely misconstrued as personal, leading to activists of the Bajrang Dal and Hindu Jagrana Vedike even bursting crackers on his passing away, when he had, indeed, used Modi only as a metaphor.

But he seriously believed that India was not a country which could work like China. Total efficiency is quite different from maximum efficiency. Indians had different capacities. “If you are human, you will not expect total efficiency but maximum efficiency. Modi will go for maximum efficiency. India is a strange country. So, don’t dabble in such a way that in order to make it efficient, it becomes cruel,” he told this writer three months ago.

But then how does anybody meet the aspirations of the young who want everything at the touch of the smartphone? His answer was: “God — or nature — created this body. It has a capacity to do everything. Too much sex will disgust you, so will too much food, but too much knowledge will not get you disgusted. The body itself will teach you. They will get disgusted one day. They would want to be simple. Man by nature has a great desire for simplicity.”

People may agree or disagree with Ananthamurthy. But the fact remains that he was a truly moral voice, a kind of conscience-keeper of society, who was bade farewell to by thousands on Saturday.

That is why the national flag flew at half-mast for three days in Karnataka. Because there is no one like him.

The writer is a senior journalist

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