After Dumping Hindutva, Thackeray Tries To Revive ‘Marathi Manoos’ Image; Demands ‘Karnataka Occupied’ Belgaum For Maharashtra

A border dispute that has been simmering for over 60 years now has raised its ugly head yet again with Maharashtra staking claim over Belagavi, one of Karnataka’s largest districts.

In what is being called the Shiv Sena’s latest attempt to woo the original 60s ‘son of the soil’ vote bank, especially after its recent bitter estrangement with long-time coalition partner BJP, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray also raised the issue in the Assembly calling Belgaum ‘Karnataka Occupied Maharashtra’.

Observers also see Thackeray’s accusation that the ‘Centre is taking Karnataka’s side and ignoring his state in the legal battle’, as an attempt to spite the voters against its former and long-time coalition partner BJP, which will help it reclaim its position in the state’s polity.

This recent flare-up was triggered by a statement by a relatively unheard of Kannada organisation called the Karnataka Navanirman Sena, which attacked the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti (MES).

The MES has been at the forefront of agitations demanding that around 800 villages that have a sizeable Marathi-speaking population be merged with Maharashtra for over seven decades now.

Belagavi, which was a part of the Bombay Presidency, was made a part of Karnataka during the linguistic reorganisation of states and has been the bone of contention ever since.

But the recent unrest has led to stopping of bus services from Kolhapur to Karnataka, cancellation of shows of Kannada films in theatres across the border, burning of effigies of each other’s Chief Ministers, and a slew of reactive statements.

Responding to the unrest in Belagavi, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa said there was no question of giving even ‘a single inch of land’ to Maharashtra as the Mahajan report had sorted who gets what.

Yediyurappa has also accused Thackeray of ‘raking up the issue to reap political benefits’. Former CM Jagadish Shettar too said that Thackeray was inciting Kannadigas against Marathis, who have otherwise been living peacefully in the district and that Karnataka will fight the issue legally.

While Shettar has also dared the Karnataka faction of the Congress, which is the Shiv Sena’s coalition partner in Maharashtra, to spell out its stand, its own party leader and former CM Devendra Fadnavis, ‘warned’ the southern state that Maharashtra would not ‘tolerate any injustice done to Marathi brothers’.

Belagavi

Belagavi, formerly known as Belgaum, was part of Bombay Presidency at the time of Indian independence. But as explained by John Faithfull Fleet in his book The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency (1894), the region has historically been a Kannada-speaking region whose linguistic demography changed by the time of Independence owing to the remnants of the Maratha empire.

The Mahajan Committee Report

A commission headed by Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India, Meher Chand Mahajan was formed in 1966 which did not ‘recommend the inclusion of Belgaum in the state of Maharashtra’.

But the report was not accepted by the western state, which has continued its demand for the district. Karnataka, on the other hand, celebrated 50 years of its formation by constructing the ‘Suvarna Soudha’ — its second legislative house in Belagavi, unofficially announcing the district as its ‘second capital’.