Bangalore, Mar 12: Hundreds of Catholic Christians belonging to 17 Konkani Catholics organizations staged demonstration in front of Rev. Kittel's Statue, on M G Road in Bangalore, demanding the government to name union government's proposed university for minorities in Srirangapatna after Reverend Ferdinand Kittel.
A German by birth, Kittel was a priest with the Basel Mission and is responsible for producing the first Kannada-English Dictionary.
The protest held under the banner of Konkani Catholic Sangh was the first public demonstration by the Catholics opposing proposed Tippu Sultan University.
The demonstrators were holding banners criticizing the stance of Kannada literary giants like Prof. U.R. Ananthmurthy, Dr. Girish Karnad, Prof. G.K.Govinda Rao and Sri.Bargur Ramachandrappa, who had voiced their support to name the university after Tipu Sultan, who fought against British occupation and laid down his life in the battlefield.
The agitation was led by politician and Catholic activist T J Abraham.
The anti-Tipu activists have also planned to exert pressure on the union government by holding a massive public demonstration in New Delhi on March 18 and 19 and present a memorandum to the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and AICC leader Rahul Gandhi, seeking the withdrawal of the proposal of naming of the University after Tipu.
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