Karnataka-Maharashtra dispute | Invisible boundaries, visible apathy

Parthenahalli village, located on the Karnataka-Maharashtra border, is the last large settlement on the Athani-Jath road before the crossover into Gugwad village in Maharashtra. The signboards of shops in these villages are in both Kannada and Marathi. Sadashiv Jadhav runs a plant nursery in a portion of his three-acre sugar cane farm. He has one board in Kannada on the Athani road and another in Marathi on the way to Jath. Most people in the region can easily switch between the two languages with ease.

When the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES), a linguistic sociopolitical committee based out of Belagavi city, demanded the merger of Belagavi and other Marathi-speaking areas with Maharashtra, it was Jath taluk that Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai spoke of, claiming that the residents of the taluk’s 40 villages had expressed their desire to join Karnataka as they were Kannada speakers.

Many people in the region, which has often seen Kannada-Marathi linguistic sentiments reaching a flash point, say they want to join Karnataka — not because they are Kannada speakers, but because of the lack of development in the region. They hope that a merger with Karnataka might change the region for the better.

Decades-old dispute

Maharashtra and Karnataka have locked horns in a legal fight over their boundaries for decades. Maharashtra claims that 865 villages and five urban areas in four districts of Karnataka are mostly Marathi-speaking and need to be merged with Maharashtra. Belagavi city is among the five urban areas sought by Maharashtra.

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Maharashtra objected to the recommendations of the second State Reorganisation Commission in 1956, headed by Justice Fazal Ali, which placed Belagavi in Karnataka and other surrounding towns in Maharashtra. It demanded the constitution of a commission to reconsider the recommendations. Ten years later, the Union government formed a commission headed by Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan, a former Supreme Court judge. The Mahajan Commission agreed with the principle that people speaking one language should be grouped together. It came up with a swap formula to trade some Kannada-speaking areas such as Solapur, Jath and Akkalkot in Maharashtra for some Marathi-speaking areas in Karnataka. The Commission said 262 villages in Karnataka had more Marathi speakers than Kannada speakers and 247 villages in Maharashtra had more Kannada speakers than Marathi speakers. It mandated that if Maharashtra got 262 villages and towns such as Nipani, Khanapur and Nandagad from Karnataka, then the State should hand over 247 villages and towns including Solapur to Karnataka. However, it did not agree with the demand that Belagavi city should be merged with Maharashtra. When the Commission report was published in 1967, Karnataka accepted it, but Maharashtra rejected it.

Over the years, this issue has been raised by Marathi groups and political parties, including the MES, every now and then. In 2004, the Maharashtra government approached the Supreme Court asking it to quash the States Reorganisation Act saying it was unconstitutional, and wanted the Union government to reject the Mahajan Commission recommendations.

In October 2022, a few months after the Shiv Sena (Shinde faction)-BJP government came to power in Maharashtra, some leaders from the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) faction raised the issue of merging Belagavi with Maharashtra. This led to some law-and-order disturbances in Kolhapur. Bommai responded to this demand saying Kannada-speaking areas including Jath and Akkalkot in Maharashtra should be merged with Karnataka. He even claimed that residents of 42 villages had contacted him seeking inclusion in Karnataka.

On December 19, the first day of the winter session of the Karnataka Assembly, the Belagavi district administration did not permit the MES rally. Officers have barred the entry of Maharashtra leaders such as MP Dhairyasheel Mane into Belagavi to stop them from participating in events organised by MES.

Larger livelihood issues

While politics continues to play out in multiple ways, livelihood issues far override linguistic ones on the ground in boundary areas.

At the government primary school in Gugawad village in Maharashtra, the medium of instruction is Kannada. The school lies within 20 kilometres of the border. It has 210 students, who are mostly children of workers or small farmers. The school has a large playground protected by a stone masonry compound wall, a separate kitchen and toilet blocks. The government has also sanctioned funds for a science centre and library.

Students at a government primary school where the medium of instruction is Kannada, in Gugawad in Jath taluk of Maharashtra.

Students at a government primary school where the medium of instruction is Kannada, in Gugawad in Jath taluk of Maharashtra.
| Photo Credit:
P.K. Badiger

“There are an adequate number of Kannada medium schools in the region, but parents who can afford to send their children to high school and college usually choose English medium or Marathi medium schools as it helps the students’ chances of employment,” says a teacher in the school. Out of 10 taluks in Sangli district of Maharashtra, Jath is the only taluk where the government runs Kannada medium schools. There were 55 such schools a decade ago, but many were forced to shut down because of the lack of students or rise in the number of private schools, another teacher says.

At the panchayat samiti hall in Jath town, Mahadev Huchagonda is holding a meeting of farmers and activists. He founded the Prahar Janshakti Association to fight for the rights of Jath residents, and cites several examples of the Maharashtra government’s alleged neglect of the taluk. “Jath is among the biggest taluks in Maharashtra with 140 villages. We are far away from the State capital and have suffered for long. There is no proper water supply or irrigation facility for the taluk. Extreme poverty forces farmers from half these villages to migrate to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh to work in the sugar cane fields there. Governments of various parties have promised to remedy the situation, but nothing has been done,” he says. Prahar members have held agitations and submitted memorandum to successive governments.

When asked what he does for a living, Huchagonda quotes lines from an Urdu ghazal that goes, “I am such a fool that I am trying to sell mirrors in an uninhabited lane.” He then explains the context: “I run a borewell-digging business in Jath, one of the driest taluks in Maharashtra. What can be more hopeless than that?” In the drought of 2016, he failed to strike water at two places, even after digging for 1,600 feet. A devout Lingayat, he has pasted images and Vachanas of Sri Basaveshwara, the 12th century saint-poet of Karnataka, on the walls of his office and home. They are all in Kannada, but written in Marathi script.

Prakash Mali, a writer, says some gram panchayats had passed resolutions to join Karnataka in 1995 and 2013. “But the Maharashtra government tried to silence them. Show-cause notices were issued to the gram panchayat secretaries. They were also asked to prevent such activities in future,” he says. Mali had accompanied a delegation of Jath residents to Mumbai in 2013 and met the then Chief Minister Prithvijraj Chavan and Opposition leader Uddhav Thackeray. But no such resolutions were passed in 2022, he says.

“Every party that came to power in Maharashtra promised to bring Krishna waters to the taluk through the Mashyal lift irrigation project that is within 40 km from Jath. But no party has kept its word,” says Manohar Pawar, a journalist who has covered Jath for over three decades.

Sadashiv Jadhav, farmer and an office bearer of a local Maratha association, raises other issues which he believes will be addressed if the region becomes a part of Karnataka. “There may be effective e-governance at the village levels for issue of land documents like Bhoomi kiosks, free power for irrigation pump sets, distribution of old age pension and other social security benefits, and free grain for the poor. If such facilities are available here, why would anyone want to go anywhere else,” he asks.

Mahesh Karaganikar, a Shiv Sena leader, admits that the region is underdeveloped. “If anyone is saying they want to join Karnataka, it may be because they have heard from their relatives and friends in that State about welfare programmes that do not exist or are differently implemented here. Of course, they have some genuine concerns about water supply and unemployment. If these issues are addressed, people will continue to live where they live,” he says. After the recent row, Maharashtra Industries Minister Uday Samant visited Jath and promised to provide water and set up industries that could provide employment.

Shops in Gugawad in Maharashtra have sign boards in both Kannada and Marathi.

Shops in Gugawad in Maharashtra have sign boards in both Kannada and Marathi.
| Photo Credit:
P.K. Badiger

On the Karnataka side of the border, Channabasayya Itnalmath, an Athani-based writer, points out that people do not attach a lot of significance to the language they speak. “Their life is not as dependent on which side of the border they live in as the politician wants us to believe. Every family has a daughter-in-law who speaks a language other than her marital home. Lakhs of devotees from Belagavi visit the Guddapura Danamma Devi temple in Maharashtra and an even larger number of people walk to the Saundatti Yallamma temple in Belagavi district in Karnataka thrice a year. Their conduct will not change even if the boundaries are redrawn,” he says.

Everyday transactions, some disruptions

Many in the region believe that some leaders have instilled a false pride of language among the youth, which has led to hatred against other languages. Rayanagouda K. Desai, senior advocate who has been practising in the Athani court for over 44 years, recalls the language riots in Athani that claimed the lives of three people in December 1973. “I am a proud Kannadiga. But many of my clients are Marathi speakers from both sides of the boundary. Their trust in me remains language-neutral,” he says. He is among the few senior lawyers who use Kannada for drafting documents and making arguments in court. “Early in my career, I began using Kannada as I felt I could be clearer and more elaborate in my pleading,” he explains. Desai also speaks fluent Marathi.

People who have lived on both sides of the boundary say while the issue does not bother the residents of the two taluks much, it disrupts their lives when there is violence or blockade. R.R. Patil, a retired teacher who is based in Kagwad, has served in Karnataka as well as in Maharashtra. “Thousands of people need to cross the border daily for education, employment, healthcare or for business. They suffer in such circumstances. Recently, public transport was stopped after some people defaced buses and trucks in Kolhapur and Hirebagewadi. This caused great inconvenience to the people who cross the border everyday. We had to pay up to ₹200 to travel 17 km from Kagwad to Sangli in autos or private vans,” he says.

Bhairoba Sawant rides his bike to his fields, located 6 km from his house. He crosses the bridge over the Krishna river three-four times every day. So do the labourers who work on his field. While the fields are in Rajapur in Kolhapur district in Maharashtra, his house is located in Mangawati in Karnataka’s Belagavi district. But this does not seem to matter to the farmer or his workers.

Mangawati is among the scores of villages on the banks of the Krishna river, which forms the natural boundary between the two States for around 20 km. Sawant had a difficult time finding workers during the recent harvest as there was heavy police presence at the border.

Srimant Patil, former minister and MLA, has been elected from Kagwad, a small town in Athani taluk. But he chooses to live in Sangli in Maharashtra, 28 km away from his constituency. “Sitting here, it is easier for me to focus on my sugar factory and my businesses. I visit my constituency once every day. In fact, sometimes more than once. My work as a legislator is not affected at all,” he says.

At Siddhanath village near Jath, which made the headlines after some youth tried to hoist a Kannada flag demanding that they want to join Karnataka, the same post now has a Marathi film poster tied to it. The flag, tied to a bamboo pole outside the gram panchayat office, was removed by the police in a few hours. “I was in the group that hoisted the flag that day,” recalls Birju Sindhe, the Sarpanch. He is no longer keen on merging his village with Karnataka. Suresh Kashinath Kutre, Sarpanch of the Tilyal gram panchayat, says Sindhe had assured a delegation of leaders from Jath that ₹2,000 crore would be released for irrigation projects in Jath. He has also assured them that a tender document would be released.

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“We are hopeful that the Chief Minister will keep his word. If that happens, no one will ever speak of joining Karnataka. The movement may be politically motivated or issue-based, but it has turned the attention of the government in Mumbai and Sangli towards us. And that happened because the Karnataka Chief Minister raised our issue at the national level. We are happy and thankful for that,” says Kutre, whose family members live in the villages of Karnataka. “We will, however, continue to speak both the languages. That is for sure.”



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