The Karnataka-Maharashtra boundary conflict has not become political this time, despite being a contentious matter in the area. However, the locals scream for growth.
In the impacted area, there are 264 villages that speak Marathi. The Mahajan Commission suggested moving these villages to nearby Maharashtra in its 1967 report. These villages are part of the Karnataka assembly districts of Khanapur and Nippani.
The Khanapur assembly seat in northern Karnataka’s Belagavi county has been caught in a boundary dispute on linguistic grounds for the last 70 years, and its residents are banking their hopes on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a speedy settlement.
On May 10, elections are held in Karnataka. Voter tallies will be tallied on May 13.
Disputes over borders and politics
With bordering Maharashtra pressing its claim to additional territory, the argument over the transfer of the number of villages with linguistic majorities to both Karnataka and Maharashtra has increasingly become more politically contentious.
The Maharashtra Ekikaran Samithi (MES), a pro-Marathi socio-political group that works out of Belagavi and has support from Maharashtra across party lines, has been campaigning for this cause and has even run for office in the Karnataka Assembly.
“MES has always advocated for language preservation over development in its campaigns for the Khanapur assembly. According to Vittal Mahadev Karambalkar, vice president of the Mahalaxmi Group, which operates a sugar business in this area, three generations have suffered without seeing any improvement.
MES has won the Khanapur Assembly seat the most times since Karnataka’s assembly elections began in the 1960s, however no candidate has yet been re-elected. The seat was first won by the BJP in 2008, then by the Congress in 2018.
About Rs 450 crore in funds were received for the development of Khanapur during the BJP’s rule. Parushuram Nayak, General Secretary, BJP-Schedule Tribe Morcha, remarked in Khanapur, “We hope the BJP wins again and our present generation gets to experience progress.
The absence of development in the contested area
Khanapur has been neglected as a result of the State Reorganisation Act of 1956 being challenged by the Maharashtra government in the Supreme Court and the failure to implement the 1967 Mahajan Commission’s recommendations. Khanapur also lacks proper roads, bridges, and canals, as well as higher education facilities.
In Junjanwad village, a farmer named Baju Patil who owns two acres of land said, “I am unable to take two crops due to lack of irrigation. If a canal is constructed, we could easily solve the water issue since the Malaprabha river flows through this region.
Even getting high-quality agricultural inputs is a challenge for Patil, who also finds it challenging to sell his goods at the minimal support price.
According to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), many of them claimed that they only received 15 days of work each year and that it was difficult to obtain employment in areas with little to no commercial or industrial activity.
The region still lags behind in development when compared to the neighbouring constituencies, despite some eligible beneficiaries receiving benefits from state and federal programmes like free power for irrigation, financial aid through the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (gramin), and PM-KISAN.
Governments and the public are awaiting solutions.
Residents of several of the villages that the Mahajan Commission suggested be transferred to both states, in addition to Khanapur, are eager for an early settlement of this matter so that construction projects are not further delayed.
264 villages were to be relocated to Maharashtra, according to the Mahajan Commission’s 1967 report, while Belagavi and 247 villages were to stay in Karnataka. Karnataka hailed the study, but Maharashtra rejected it, calling it irrational and biassed.
The Centre never carried on the report’s recommendations, despite protests from Karnataka. Both states have maintained their positions since the beginning, regardless of the party in power.
Even though the Mahajan Commission report was presented to Parliament in 1970, no debate has yet taken place. However, the Maharashtra government requested 865 villages from five Karnataka districts in a 2004 petition to the Supreme Court that contested certain provisions of the State Reorganisation Act, 1956.
“It has been 19 years, and the Supreme Court has not yet considered arguments about the petition’s maintainability. We are claiming that the border problem falls within the jurisdiction of Parliament under Article 3 of the Constitution, contrary to what the Maharashtra government claims it may get from the court, Kannada activist Ashok Chandargi said.
The conflict has not been addressed due to a lack of “political will,” despite BJP-led administrations in both of the states as well as at the federal level. People are still suffering as a result of the impasse, he noted.
Unfortunately, in the Khanapur assembly district, where the BJP and Congress have respectively put forth strong Marathi candidates Vittal Rao Halgekar and Anjali Nimbalkar, the border dispute has not materialised into an election issue. Muralidhar Patil, a powerful politician, has also run for MES in an effort to keep the border conflict issue alive.
In addition, a lot of Marathi speakers believe that the little development that has been done in Khanapur so far is superior to that of Maharashtra and are aware that MES has been battling elections on linguistic lines in order to advance political objectives.
When asked whether Khanapur inhabitants would welcome joining Maharashtra if the matter was addressed soon, Laxmi Bajirao Nayak said, “We have better amenities here and don’t want to relocate. My father-in-law has so far got Rs 4,000 through the PM-KISAN, while I received Rs 1.50 lakh via the Awaas Yojana.
Why should I move to someone else’s house when I have everything in my own home? said Karambalkar.
Many people in Khanapur still want to be a part of Maharashtra because they find it difficult to conduct business in Kannada. For instance, real estate documents are written in Kannada, which many people cannot understand in this country.
Similar circumstances exist in areas in Maharashtra with a large Kannada-speaking population where the defenceless locals are caught in the crossfire of the ongoing conflict over the long-standing border issue.
