Linguistic Pluralism, Migration and the many forms of Disenfranchisement in Bengaluru
Linguistic Pluralism, Disenfranchisement, Electoral Rolls, Bengaluru, language
In many ways, language and culture are bounded not by the virtue of their nature but by socio-political intents (Horner and Weber 2017, 44). Bengaluru has historically been at the intersection of kingdoms and states in the south, thus allowing its citizens to speak in multiple languages (one person, many languages; in contrast to many persons, many languages), contrasting with current majoritarian views on how cities correlate to the linguistic identity of the administrative state. The fear of the death of a language, the fear of migrant and emerging languages and cultural practices gaining dominance, are core postionalities that create inertia to overcoming and accepting new identities and cultures.
With growing internal migration to urban areas across state boundaries, the identities involved in this conflict between the state, the neighbourhoods within the city and the intermix will continue to grow. In such a context, the state and political need to have an identifiable people 1 will conflict with the nature of the then city (the city of the future).
This paper will outline cultural markers that represent and indicate the presence of identities across the city historically and in the present. It will explore the current geographic spread of diversity in the city and its electoral representation. Language is chosen here as it is a marker of a diverse set of cultural identities that can be tracked. This allows us to understand the spatial nature of settlement after in-migration across time. This will also allow us to understand the spatial nature of disenfranchisement as upcoming neighbourhoods continue to have minorities who do not register to vote.
Cultural markers of linguistic identity
Linguistic identities and Cultural identities are very often mixed Venn diagrams and cannot be represented without the other in the context of India. The plurality exists in India’s rich history of migration and mixed boundaries. Cultures often share similar rituals and habits that reflect the transference between lingua-cultural categories. It is better represented as an intersectional spectrum. (Horner and Weber 2017) makes an argument to see languages that are not bounded but position themselves in a spectrum. In addition, I posit that cultural practices across geographic and religious boundaries are intersectionally present in the very same lingual spectrum.
Bengaluru’s position at the corner of 4 states, makes it a melting pot, but what forces sway the push from pluralism to a singular identity? (Willford 2018) Bengaluru was only 33% Kannada and 44% in 2011 according to the Census. Kannada is the fastest-growing language in Bengaluru. However, the identity of Karnataka and the Kannada language paints over what has been historically a secular, and plural city. That is why this paper will attempt to outline the history of plurality in the city and then proceed to understand the current state of linguistic communities.
A short walkthrough on historical pluralism in the specific context of what existed before “Bengaluru”
A succession of South Indian dynasties, the Western Gangas, the Cholas and the Hoysalas, ruled the present region of Bangalore until in 1537 CE, Kempé Gowdā – a feudal ruler under the Vijayanagara Empire – established a mud fort considered to be the foundation of modern Bangalore.
So read the history section of the official Bengaluru Urban District’s website. The consideration of Kempegowda as the founder of what is considered “modern Bangalore” in speech online and in the establishments of statues across the city is telling of a certain retelling, ironically.
The understanding of “Modern” Bengaluru as a “Kannada” city comes from what has mostly been history written post Kempegowda. The city is a monolithic entity that was “founded” by Kempegowda. This narrative removes from those who have lived and placed their culture in this region before him.
A more explicit conflict between linguistic identities is seen in the context of the long-standing Kavery conflict, which has been longstanding since the 90’s.
The small fourth wall of cultural sway
From the perspective of the post-90s decades, Kannada pop culture (read popular cinema) has been situated in Bengaluru. How was it before Sandalwood moved to Bengaluru from erstwhile Madras? To see the rise of the Kannada regional identity in relation to the Kannada Film Industry and consequently make the argument that strong regionalities ignore the diversity that urban centres might attract is the core of this section.
Those who might have moved to Bengaluru in that era (around the time of the linguistic division of states) from within Bengaluru might have identified as a migrant within their state when Tamil popular culture dominated the cantonment area, the then-only core part of Bengaluru (Nair, n.d.). From 1941 through 1951, the city’s population grew by 100%, then a further 71% in 71-81, this era marking an increase in internal migration from the newly formed Karnataka state. Rajkumar’s move to Bengaluru and his fan club’s backing of the Gokak movement 2 are crucial movements as we examine the change in the profile of the city. (“Rajkumar and Kannada Nationalism” 2006)
It is evident from Rajkumar and other superstardom-level actors like Rajinikanth that their statements hold an immense say in political movements. However, the Gokak movement reached its peak when the Kannada population in Bengaluru was even smaller than what it is now. Bengaluru’s fastest-growing language is Kannada and as internal migration increases as a result of a lack of prominent Urban employment centres, the presence of Kannada in the city will likely grow and find an even more fractured and segregated minority group of linguistic identities.
With growing populist narratives around who Bengaluru is for and the growing diversity in Bengaluru with the recent decades revolving around IT and PSUs bringing in a novel wave of non-south Indian Identities, how do these migrant identities represent themselves electorally and culturally?
Who is represented, enfranchized, registered?
The 2011 census counted 96 Lakh people in Bengaluru. Out of those, over 46% were migrants by the definition of the Census: that they had moved to Benglauru at some point in their lives. Out of those 46%, around 57% had moved from within Karnataka.
What percentage of recent migrants register to vote here in Bengaluru? How does that affect the MLAs that cater to us? (“Culture Marker Versus Authority Marker: How Do Language Attitudes Affect Political Trust?” n.d.). This is a recognised issue and does not seem to be accounted for in election planning and campaigning. (“How EC Plans to Let Migrants Vote Outside Their Home State” 2023) (Singh 2019). This is a critical question that is leading this method. Considering the rate of internal movement in India, there are a lot of disenfranchised migrants in India who cannot go back to vote, nor do they re-register at their place of residence. This affects polling percentages at both the state of origin, due to the inability of migrants to vote. It affects the place of residence as voting and campaigning are not inclusive of these un-tracked identities.
The ideal method to understand this would be to spatially identify census data patterns and contrast that with the electoral roll data. Since recent census data and ward-level migration data are unavailable this cannot be answered directly. However, a district-level analysis contrasting current electoral roll demographic distribution with mother-tongue distribution in the city from Census 2011 is possible, once the inference of the electoral data can be validated. A sample analysis is presented here.
Methodology
Over 87 lakh names from the Electoral Rolls of the 2023 Assembly Election were parsed. Each sample held the Father/Husband/Mother’s name, the name of the person, the age and the sex of the person. The last name was extracted from each sample, if it was not available, the father’s last name was used. If all else fails, the father’s first name or the person’s first name is used. These details are grouped under the Assembly Constituency the Elector belongs to.
At first attempt, the last name was parsed through In-State Dhingra and Sood (2023) which returned the probable state of origin based on a corpus of Electoral Rolls that the authors used. However, the model was incomplete and notably could not place Tamil or Bengali names. As a last resort, a proprietary database “OnoGraph by Forebears” (n.d.) was used to identify the regional distribution of these names. Their methodology is undocumented, however it seemed to place most names well.
The API gave incidence scores corresponding to each name occurring in the ten highest concentrated states. These were then used to develop a probability score that was used a weight for that particular state. The weights are then grouped by state and then summed to arrive at a final score.
Representations by States
Tracing the new wave of migration through Internet data
While the context of Bengaluru as a historical migration destination pre and during colonial rule is established, it is important to note the wider field of migrant identities that Bengaluru now attracts, in contrast to what has historically been geographically closer migration from Tamil Nadu, AP, MH and so on. Considering that this wave of migration is more culturally distant, this may affect their enfranchisement rates, thus justifying a closer look into the diversity in these demographics.