Kannada and Culture Minister Shivaraj Tangadagi said the demand to declare Tulu as a second official language in Karnataka was under examination (PTI File Photo)
The Karnataka Government will examine a demand to declare Tulu, spoken in the coastal district of Dakshina Kannada, as the state’s second official language, after reviewing a report submitted by a committee headed by the director of the Department of Kannada and Culture on similar policies in other states.
Kannada and Culture Minister Shivaraj Tangadagi told the legislature this week that the demand to declare Tulu as a second official language in the state, after Kannada, was under examination and that the report of a committee studying the process of declaring more than one official language in other states was awaited.
The minister’s reply was in response to a question raised by Ashok Kumar Rai, the Congress MLA for Puttur in Dakshina Kannada, on whether the Government was considering a proposal to declare Tulu the second official language of the state.
The minister said that a study team constituted under the leadership of the director of the department recently visited Andhra Pradesh to study the process of declaring Urdu as a second official language in that state.
“The study team visited Andhra Pradesh on 19.01.2026 and 20.01.2026 to review the criteria followed for declaring Urdu as the second official language in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The report of the study team will be reviewed after it is submitted,” the minister said.
The study team was constituted by the Government on the opinion of the law department last year that a thorough study had to be conducted on the criteria followed in various states for declaring a second official language before embarking on declaring Tulu as a second language of Karnataka.
The Government has indicated that previously, a committee formed under the chairmanship of Dr Mohan Alva conducted a study on the nature and history of the Tulu language, Tulu literary heritage, Tulu script, ancient Tulu literature, modern Tulu literary culture, and Tulu inscriptions, and submitted a report to the Government on February 14, 2023.
Following the receipt of the Dr Mohan Alva report, the Government had sought the opinion of the law department on declaring Tulu as a second official language. The law department opined that in Karnataka, the official administrative language is Kannada, with English being an additional administrative language.
“Article 345 of the Constitution of India allows any state government to declare a language as the official language of that state. Before taking action, the states can form committees and obtain a report and then proceed,” the law department said in its opinion.
“Similarly, the administration can take action under Article 345 of the Constitution of India to declare Tulu as the official language of the state and before taking such action, a committee can be formed to conduct a suitable study regarding the said language, and a study can also be conducted on the declaration of second languages in various states, and on the basis of the report of the said committee appropriate action can be taken,” the law department said.
Curated by Shiv Shakti Mishra
