| Published on 09-10-2006 In National | | Viewed 1422 times | | Belgaum border dispute, blessing for North Karnataka |
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| Written by
K. S. Dakshina Murthy | 
Its finally looks like "rain" in North Karnataka. After a 50-year developmental "drought" fund-bearing clouds have gathered over the neglected region of the state, thanks to the fear of losing a north Karnataka town, Belgaum, to Maharashtra.
What Development Boards, opposition demands, protests, local lobby groups and common people could not do through their activism all these years has been achieved by politicians in Mumbai and Delhi. In other words, the people of Belgaum need to thank the Congress-led Maharashtra government and the Manmohan Singh-headed central dispensation for triggering off a fresh bout of heat and dust on the half-a-century old border dispute.
Sample the "rain": Belgaum is being actively considered as the second capital of Karnataka, a second Vidhana Soudha, to house the legislature, on the lines of the one in Bangalore is to be constructed in the town and a Rs. 5 billion grant to develop Belgaum's infrastructure has been granted. To top it, Rs. 7.5 billion has been earmarked to develop 750 villages in the state, most of them in north Karnataka.
Mahajan report
Since the reorganisation of states in 1956, Belgaum in Karnataka has been at the heart of a dispute between Maharashtra and Karnataka. In 1966, the then Chief Justice of India MehrChand Mahajan went into the issue and recommended that Belgaum would remain part of Karnataka. However, he ruled that 264 villages from Karnataka would have to be transferred to Maharashtra and in the reverse direction 247 villages.
Maharashtra had backed such a commission while Karnataka opposed it. But after its recommendation, the roles were reversed – Karnataka supported the Mahajan report and Maharashtra refused to recognise it. In 1970, the report was tabled in Parliament where it remains to this day, pending acceptance.
In March 2004, the then Sushilkumar Shinde government in Maharashtra moved the Supreme Court questioning the location of Belgaum in Karnataka. The court is in the process of hearing the petition. Recently, during the course of this hearing, the central government filed an affidavit stating that the issue was settled by the Mahajan commission. This warmed the hearts of Karnataka's ruling establishment.
At this point, party politics seems to have entered the picture. Maharashtra and the centre are ruled by Congress-led governments while the Bharatiya Janata Party-Janata Dal(Secular) parties, which are in opposition in Delhi, run the Karnataka government. The central government withdrew its affidavit to the Supreme Court, causing widespread consternation and anger in Karnataka, as it implied that the issue was still alive.
Special session
The establishment in Bangalore which is located in the comparatively well looked-after South Karnataka woke up to the possibility of Belgaum going to Maharashtra. And, the goodies started to pour on the hitherto neglected border town. First, a special legislature session was announced (and later held) in Belgaum, the first time such a session is has taken place outside Bangalore.
As if to cement its ties with Belgaum and strengthen its claim over it, the state government declared grand plans for the town, which is bound to spill over into the region as a whole.
Not a trifling matter considering that North Karnataka has remained the state's dark shadow with poor infrastructure, lack of industrial growth and signs of under-development everywhere. For instance, if state highways in the south are bad those in the northern parts are worse. Karnataka, to most outsiders, merely means Bangalore, Mysore or Mangalore. As for Hubli, Raichur, Gulbarga or Belgaum, they are mere names one passes through or blips on the map one encounters when travelling from Bangalore to Mumbai or Delhi.
In south Karnataka, while politicians were leading agitations to ensure that not a single "extra drop" of water in the Cauvery river went to Tamil Nadu, in the north the government unable to utilise the Krishna river waters allocated to the state by the Bachawat commission let a large quantum of it go to Andhra Pradesh, without a murmur.
Dependence
Irrigation was given top priority in south Karnataka while in the north, farmers continue to depend on the rain to cultivate their crops.
In an attempt to assuage anger and frustration, state-sponsored institutions were set up to develop the erstwhile Hyderabad-Karnataka region of which Raichur and Gulbarga were part and the Bombay-Karnataka region in which is located Belgaum. However, these institutions have achieved little to justify their existence.
So much so, a vocal section of the intelligentsia in north Karnataka over the years came to believe that the region would improve only if it split from the south and turned into a separate state. This movement has not made much progress but the anger behind such a sentiment is indicative of the long years of neglect and frustration.
Belgaum, meanwhile, has got intertwined with the larger issue of the state's "pride". Already a special legislative session and bandh have proved successful. What better way to further reassert Karnataka's ownership over the town than to make it a second capital, pour funds and develop it. In the process if the people benefit, well…so be it.
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