A year after an experts’ committee submitted a comprehensive cultural policy, the government is still dilly-dallying over its implementation.
The six-member Cultural Policy Committee, headed by Baragur Ramachandrappa, submitted its recommendations to the government on June 27, 2014. The committee was formed in August 2013 to draft a comprehensive cultural policy for the State.
Blame game
The Department of Kannada and Culture blames the Department of Finance for the delay. Minister of State for Kannada and Culture Umashree told The Hindu that her department had offered clarifications for the queries raised by the Finance Department.
The policy would be placed before the State Cabinet for clearance. The government was committed to implementing the policy, she said.
Recommendations
The two-part 68-page report has laid down a set of principles and made 44 recommendations, including decentralisation of the Department of Kannada and Culture, restricting ‘moral policing’, setting up three academies and a tribal university. The committee has also asked the government to not ban a literary work unilaterally, and suggested formation of search committees to select chairpersons to academies and authorities.
The policy, according to Dr. Ramachandrappa, was formulated keeping in mind the spirit of the Constitution and secular character of the land.
It represents cultural diversity of the State instead of a monolithic culture, he said. The committee interacted with a large number of experts from various cultural fields and elicited their opinion before formulating the policy. There was much curiosity in the cultural spectrum on the form of the policy, as culture is being viewed from both abstract and literal angles.
Cultural policy is the budgetary commitment of the govt. and it has moral responsibility to implement that. Despite Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s direction, there is an inordinate delay by the department to bring the policy to the Cabinet.
Baragur Ramachandrappa
Chairperson, Cultural Policy Committee
A majority of the recommendations has already been implemented. Some of the things need amendment of rules.
Umashree,
Minister of State for Kannada and Culture
