The sessions will run daily from 10.30 am to 1.30 pm featuring a range of speakers. These include journalist and writer Ganesh Amingad, who will discuss Ranga Chikitse; Prof Morbad Mallikarjun, who will cover Kannada poetry; writer Deepthi Bhadravathi, who will focus on prose; and Prof HT Venkatesh Murthy, who will speak on Kannada novels.
Published May 07, 2025 | 3:24 PM ⚊ Updated May 10, 2025 | 12:45 PM
Writer Deepthi Bhadravathi and writer-journalist Ganesh Amingad
Synopsis: The Karnataka Sahitya Academy will hold its first Kannada literature workshop for inmates at Mysuru Central Jail from 7 to 9 May. The workshop aims to engage inmates with literature and spark curiosity about the language’s literary heritage. It will include sessions on poetry, prose and novels, along with poetry readings by inmates.
For the first time, the Karnataka Sahitya Academy will hold a Kannada literature workshop for prison inmates. The Kannada Sahitya Kammata will be conducted at Mysuru Central Jail from 7 to 9 May.
Designed to engage inmates with Kannada literature and spark curiosity about the language’s literary heritage, the workshop marks a new direction for the Academy’s outreach.
The sessions will run daily from 10.30 am to 1.30 pm featuring a range of speakers.
These include journalist and writer Ganesh Amingad, who will discuss Ranga Chikitse; Prof Morbad Mallikarjun, who will cover Kannada poetry; writer Deepthi Bhadravathi, who will focus on prose; and Prof HT Venkatesh Murthy, who will speak on Kannada novels.
“The motto of Karnataka Sahitya Academy is to take literature across all the places in Karnataka including jail. People assume that the Karnataka Sahitya Academy always looks into the academic part of the literature. That is not true,” President of the Karnataka Sahitya Academy LN Mukundraj, told South First.
“I always tell people, especially youngsters, that we should normalise talking Pampa everywhere, make it more accessible. Our Academy runs on the tax money. I firmly believe that we must give back to society in this form.”
Mukundraj believes that literature has long served as a wellspring of philosophical, ethical and social values.
“There are a lot of ideas and facts worth knowing and learning in Kannada literature. For instance, Dr Ambedkar always spoke and enshrined ideas like secularism, fraternity, democracy and scientific temperament in the Indian Constitution. But all these ideas were already in Kannada literature 1,000 years ago,” he said.
“Some of the lines in Kavirajamarga talk about having a golden mindset. We get this mindset only when we tolerate people’s thoughts and religion and respect them equally. This was already written in Kavirajamarga before it was written in the Constitution. I believe literature can help the inmates of jail and bring a change in their mindset over a period of time.”
Mukundraj emphasised that this is a first-of-its-kind programme by the Academy.
“This is the first time we are doing a workshop for jail inmates. Earlier, also, different groups and individuals have visited Mysuru prison to teach theatre, terracotta art and much more,” he said.
“For now, we are doing it only in Mysuru. After the response we get in the Mysuru jail, we will conduct more such workshops in Bengaluru’s Parappana Agrahara jail, Belagavi’s Hindalga jail and other places.”
A highlight of the event will be poetry readings by two inmates.
“Two jail inmates, R Ramu and TM Venkatesh, will be reading out poetry written by them. The event will begin with the inmates reading out to others what they have written,” Mukundraj said.
“Based on what they have written, we will decide in the next phase whether to publish it or not. If the poems are worth publishing, then we will go ahead and publish them. It is to encourage them and create curiosity in them to know more about Kannada literature.”
Mukundraj expects to discover more inmates with an interest in writing once the workshop begins.
“For now, we know only these two people involved in Kannada literature. Once we go there tomorrow, we will get to know more of the other inmates who are also involved in literature reading and writing,” he said.
Among the speakers is journalist and author Ganesh Amingad, who has long engaged with the lives of prisoners. His 2008 Kannada book Kaidigala Kathana was based on interviews with inmates and was reprinted in 2011.
“I have interviewed a lot of these jail inmates to know and understand why they committed crimes, what their life is like in jail and how they have changed over a period of time and try to build their life when they come back to society,” Amingad told South First.
“Since I have had a connection with them for a long time now, I thought to take this workshop to the prison.”
He also pointed to the role of prison libraries in rehabilitation.
“There are good libraries in the prisons,” he said. “I have donated a lot of books to these libraries so that inmates can read them.”
Challenging stereotypes, Amingad added, “We cannot call every person in the jail a bad person. They might have committed the crime due to anger or their thoughts at that particular time.”
He noted that literature may not lead to instant transformation but can influence gradual change.
“People reading literature do not change all of a sudden. But they improve, change their way of thinking and turn out to be good human beings. That is the only intention behind conducting this workshop.”
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
