In a rare and historic moment, a member of Parliament of the Canada Parliament addressed the house in his mother tongue Kannada language. The MP is identified as Chandrakanth Arya and yes he hails from Karnataka state.
The historic event is claimed to be the first time that Kannada is spoken in any parliament in the world outside of India. Sharing the video of his speech in his Twitter handle, Chandra Arya was immensely proud.
“I spoke in my mother tongue (first language) Kannada in Canadian parliament. This beautiful language has long history and is spoken by about 50 million people. This is the first time Kannada is spoken in any parliament in the world outside of India,” wrote Chandra Arya.
Chandra Arya concluded his speech with a poem “Elladaru iru enthadaru iru endendigu nee Kannadavaagiru,” which means wherever you are, however you are, be a Kannadiga forever.
This video clip of Chandra Arya has gone viral and netizens were high praise of Canada Parliament for allowing the MP to address in his preferred language.
At a time when the BJP government in New Delhi is trying to impose Hindi all over the country, a regional Indian language made it to the Canada Parliament. After Chandra Arya ended his speech his fellow MPs congratulated him and that shows the Parliament has embraced the language with all due respect.
Tags Chandrakanth Arya Kannada