Large gatherings have been banned in Belagavi as the border dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra touched its latest flashpoint after a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji in Bengaluru was smeared with ink last week.
The alleged desecration of the Maratha warrior king's statue in Bengaluru caused a snowball effect with vandals targeting freedom fighter Sangolli Rayanna's statue in Belagavi and Karnataka and Maharashtra locked horns yet again.
The latest trouble started a week ago, after a pro-Kannada organization blackened the face of a pro-Maharashtra organisation Maharashtra Ekikaran Samithi (MES) leader. The MES had organised a protest demanding the inclusion of Belgaum into Maharashtra.
While Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai condemned the untoward incidents and ordered action against culprits, his Maharashtra counterpart Uddhav Thackeray demanded Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intervention to stop "Kannada atrocities" and the "pervert mindset."
Also, Thackeray asked Karnataka to act immediately over the alleged incident. The ruling Shiv Sena and other organisations staged protests in Maharashtra.
Amid reports of attack and defacement of vehicles with Karnataka registration in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said it is the duty of the neighbouring state to maintain law and order and prevent such incidents.
Following the alleged desecration of the Maratha king's statue, miscreants in Belagavi shouted slogans and pelted government vehicles with stones and freedom fighter Sangolli Rayanna's statue was subsequently vandalised. Police sources said so far 27 people have been arrested in connection with the incidents.
With Belagavi playing host to the winter session of the Karnataka legislature, police promulgated prohibitory orders to prevent untoward incidents and maintain law and order. Karnataka’s legislative session is underway at Suvarna Soudha in Belagavi – a district embroiled in a border dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra.
The decades-old border dispute over Belagavi between the two states is seen as the undercurrent that connected the untoward incidents and their fallout.
Both states have been at loggerheads for decades over the border issues. Maharashtra claims the border district of Belagavi was part of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency, but is currently a district of Karnataka, on linguistic grounds.
On its part as an assertion that Belagavi is an integral part of the state, Karnataka has built the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha, modelled on the Vidhana Soudha, the state legislature building in Bengaluru, where legislature session is held once a year.
But when did this border dispute start and what is it all about? Let's take a look.
What is the genesis of the dispute?
In 1957, slighted by the implementation of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, Maharashtra demanded readjustment of its border with Karnataka. It invoked Section 21 (2) (b) of the Act and submitted a memorandum to the Ministry of Home Affairs stating its objection to Marathi- speaking areas being added to Karnataka.
The act divided states on linguistic lines and became effective from 1 November 1956.
Maharashtra staked a claim to over 7,000 sq km area along its border with Karnataka, comprising 814 villages in the districts of Belagavi (Belgaum), Uttara Kannada, Bidar, and Gulbarga, and the towns of Belagavi, Karwar, and Nippani. All these areas are predominantly Marathi-speaking, and Maharashtra wanted them to be merged with the state.
Disputes between Belgaum's Marathi-speaking leadership and the Karnataka government have been frequent. Matters came to a head in mid-2012, when the Karnataka government actually superseded the Belgaum City Municipal Corporation. The Maharashtra Legislature unanimously passed a resolution against the move and demanded that Belgaum and the surrounding area embroiled in a border dispute be placed under the rule of the Centre until resolution of the dispute in the Supreme Court. Only in late 2011, the Belgaum civic body was dismissed along with its Marathi-speaking mayor and deputy mayor.
The Marathi-speaking people in these areas have been protesting for inclusion in Maharashtra for five decades and have often alleged that the Karnataka government has been trying to suppress their agitation as well as imposing the Kannada language on them.
What is Maharashtra's claim?
According to The Hindu, Maharashtra’s claim to seek the readjustment of its border was on the basis of contiguity, relative linguistic majority and wishes of the people. If the claim over Belagavi and surrounding areas was based on Marathi-speaking people and linguistic homogeneity, it laid its claim over Karwar and Supa where Konkani is spoken by citing Konkani as a dialect of Marathi.
Since the 1960s when the border row first began, the Maharashtra legislature has passed at least 18 resolutions against the Karnataka government, calling its actions to crack down upon Marathi-speaking institutes and people in Belgaum illegal and unjust.
The recent incidents of an MES leader being smeared with ink, burning of Karnataka flag in Kolhapur in Maharashtra, and defacement of Shivaji Maharaj and Sangolli Rayanna statues had raised tempers in the border district of Belagavi, which Maharashtra claims should belong to it.
Late last year, the Maharashtra government asked all ministers to wear black bands on 1 November, which is celebrated in Karnataka as Rajyotsava or state Formation Day, to express support for Marathi-speaking people in Karnataka.
What is Karnataka's stand?
The government of Karnataka has maintained that the villages are an integral part of the state and argued that the settlement of boundaries as per the States Reorganisation Act is final. Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa in the last has criticised Uddhav Thackeray's statement in which he said that areas of Karnataka where Marathi-speaking people are in majority will be incorporated in Maharashtra.
Yediyurappa said it is painful that the chief minister of Maharashtra is trying to sabotage an amicable atmosphere. Karnataka has argued that the issue would reopen border issues that have not been contemplated under the Act, and that such a demand should not be permitted.
The Karnataka government has said that it considers the Mahajan Commission report to be final on the issue.
What is the Mahajan Commission report?
The Mahajan Commission was set up by the Government of India in October 1966 to look into the border dispute. In its report submitted in August 1967, the Commission, led by former Chief Justice of India Mehr Chand Mahajan.
The commission received more than 2,200 memoranda and met over 7,500 people. It submitted its report to the Union government in 1967 and recommended that 264 villages should be transferred to Maharashtra and that Belgaum and 247 villages should remain with Karnataka.
As per The Indian Express, Maharashtra rejected the report, calling it biased and illogical, while Karnataka welcomed it, pressing the Centre for its implementation.
To reiterate its stand on the border issue, Karnataka declared Belagavi its second capital, holds its winter session at the newly constructed Vidhan Soudha, changed the name of Belgaum to Belagavi.
Meanwhile, political parties in Maharashtra are united on the merger of the border areas with the state. The dispute features in every election manifesto of the Congress, NCP, Shiv Sena, and BJP.
Maharashtra continues to claim over 814 villages along the border, as well as Belgaum city, which is currently part of Karnataka. Successive governments in Maharashtra have demanded their inclusion within the state– a claim that Karnataka contests.
With inputs from agencies
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