Fluid boundaries – Territorial Disputes between Maharashtra and Karnataka | 21st December 2022 | UPSC Daily Editorial Analysis

December, 2022 UPSC
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What's the article about?

  • It talks about the ongoing territorial disputes between Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Relevance:

  • GS2: Functions and Responsibilities of the Union and the States, Issues and Challenges Pertaining to the Federal Structure;
  • Prelims

Context:

  • The dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra over areas that both States claim to be theirs has become nasty and noisy in recent weeks, even leading to violence.
  • Karnataka’s practice, since 2006, of holding the winter session of the Assembly in Belgaum, is itself an assertion of its authority over the place.
  • Recently, Mr. Bommai reiterated Karnataka’s claim over 48 villages of Sangli in Maharashtra, drawing a sharp rebuttal.
  • With exchanges getting increasingly provocative, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has told the Chief Ministers to dial down the rhetoric and wait for the Supreme Court to adjudicate the matter.
  • The Court is seized of the matter, but it can only do so much as the underlying factors that originated along with the 1956 linguistic reorganisation of Indian States are not easily amenable to technical and legal solutions.

Historical Background of the Dispute:

  • The territorial dispute between the two states has continued for six decades.
  • At the time of India’s independence, Belagavi – then “Belgaum” – was part of the expansive Bombay state than included parts of both present-day Maharashtra as well as Karnataka.
  • The city and the eponymous district and the administrative division were widely called “Belgaum” by both Marathi and Kannada-speaking people (pronounced “Belgaon” in some cases). But the named was officially changed to “Belagavi” in 2014.
  • The current dispute over the inter-state border between Karnataka and Maharashtra over Belagavi can be traced back to the States Reorganisation Act of 1956.
  • The Act redrew boundaries of Indian states and Union territories along linguistic lines.
  • The Maharashtra government claims that hundreds of villages where the dominant language was supposedly Marathi – the language on which Maharashtra was formed – were wrongly handed over to the Mysore state, where Kannada was the dominant language. Mysore was subsequently renamed as Karnataka in 1973.
  • Maharashtra challenged the exclusion of Belagavi as well as hundreds of villages in some other border areas such as Karwar and Nipani. However, Karnataka refused to give up any of these areas.
  • At Maharashtra’s insistence, the Union government constituted the Mahajan Commission in 1966.
  • The commission, headed by former Chief Justice of India Meher Chand Mahajan, recommended that Belagavi should remain in Karnataka.
  • Faced with an adverse recommendation, the Maharashtra government rejected the commission’s report and continued to demand Belagavi’s integration.

 

Reasons for unsettled territorial disputes:

  • Carving out political units that neatly correspond with various linguistic groups is impossible in India.
  • As a result, almost all States have linguistic minorities that are accorded special rights.
  • The Maharashtra-Karnataka row fundamentally arises out of a lack of appreciation of that reality.
  • In 1957, Maharashtra claimed 814 villages and the three urban settlements of Belagavi, Karwar and Nippani in Karnataka; Karnataka not only rebuffed Maharashtra’s claims but also began to claim areas in Kolhapur, Solapur and Sangli districts in Maharashtra.

Way Forward:

  • In the Northeast, some boundary disputes between States have cost lives.
  • It is wise to defer to the Court’s decision on any dispute, but harmony can be achieved only through embracing and promoting a political culture that is respectful of diversity that cannot be neatly demarcated. Fluid political and cultural boundaries criss-cross the landscape of India.

Read a comprehensive note on Inter-State Border Disputes in India.



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