Kannada Language Row: Woman Describes Disturbing Experience at Diljit Dosanjh’s Bengaluru Concert

A post from Diljit Dosanjh’s Bengaluru concert as part of his Dil-Luminati tour is one of the several posts generated, including a video of Deepika Padukone on stage. Tanisha Sabherwal was one of the attendees at the concert, posting on X about a troubling incident she had at the event. It started off with a language dispute.

Sabherwal expressed her frustration, writing, “I never thought I’ll be saying this, after having lived for so long but BANGALORE WILL COLLAPSE soon because of this language issue.” She went on to describe how a woman pushed her during the concert, and when she asked the woman to back off, the woman became hostile, demanding that Sabherwal speak in Kannada.

The matter went out of hand when the woman twisted Sabherwal’s friend’s arm in a bid to intervene. The woman then called the police. However, Sabherwal had recorded the whole thing, and thus no case was filed. Sabherwal remembered, “She left and comes back with a police saying my friend was teasing her. And again police had to speak in Kannada, of course.”. We showed the video, clearly it was opposite, and you know what the police said, ‘delete it.’

Bystanders rallied behind her when they saw the video, but the woman soon broke into tears and created a scene. The post, even though unverified by HT.com, set off a discussion about the ongoing language debate in Bengaluru. A commenter said, “The linguistic jingoism again. Any state that practices it will eventually go down the drain.

The incident draws attention to the rising tension in Bengaluru over language-related issues. While a section of locals wants the non-Kannada speaking citizens to learn the language as a mark of respect, others feel demands like these promote exclusion in a cosmopolitan city like Bengaluru.