Opinion - Editorials   

No room for chauvinism

For Karnataka, it is a historic event. The State legislature is holding its first session outside Bangalore, in the northern town of Belgaum that borders Maharashtra. The Kumaraswamy Government took the momentous decision to hold a joint session of the legislature in Belgaum, if only to assert the State's claim to the town that has been at the core of a five-decade-old border dispute with its neighbour. The Justice Meher Chand Mahajan Commission, set up in 1966 to go into the border-related issues, rejected Maharashtra's claim over Belgaum town and some parts of the district, while recommending transfer of a specific number of villages from Karnataka to that State and vice versa determined on the basis of their linguistic composition. Strangely enough, Maharashtra — the State that was instrumental in getting the Commission constituted — rejected the panel's report and Mysore State (now Karnataka) that was opposed to the move ended up swearing by its recommendations. The legislature, at its sitting on Monday, adopted a resolution — for the fifth time in its history — reiterating its position that Belgaum was an integral part of the State and opposing any move to reopen the Mahajan report submitted in 1967. Not to be left out in what has become a game of one-upmanship on the border dispute, the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samithi (MES) held a "parallel session" in Belgaum, to reassure the Marathi-speaking people that it would continue to fight for the integration of the region with Maharashtra. At hand in the MES rally was Maharashtra's Deputy Chief Minister R.R. Patil to boost their morale and express solidarity with them.

It is unfortunate that such inter-State disputes have been allowed to fester for so long. The Karnataka-Maharashtra border question has been hanging fire since the days of the Congress party's dominance in governments. The decades since independence when the party ruled at the Centre and in the States were probably the most propitious period for finding solutions to such disputes. With the growth of regional parties and consequently regional as well as linguistic chauvinism, things have turned very complicated, and it has become increasingly difficult to sell a compromise package in a spirit of give and take. Now, there is a Congress-led coalition government in Maharashtra and a non-Congress coalition in Karnataka. Neither by holding a session of the legislature every year in Belgaum, nor by making the town the second State headquarters or capital — on the lines of Jammu or Nagpur — can Karnataka hope to solve the problem. At the heart of the Belgaum issue is the harsh reality of a serious regional imbalance in social and economic development, with northern Karnataka getting short shrift at the hands of successive regimes. If only the Government concentrated on development issues and demonstrated that it indeed cared for the people in the northern districts, half the battle would have been won.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Course correction for Congress
No room for chauvinism
Nainital conclave: rediscovering the party
In Assam, the guns open up again
South Asia's most militarised society
Corrections and clarifications
The race to choose Annan's successor is hotting up
Curbing the film world's male bias
A boost for Osama
Joint mechanism
Out of the box?
Ban the book
Malady and medicine
A great loss

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu