Belgaum: A tale of 2 languages, 2 states

Nearby, just 10 km from Belgaum city, now swarming with 3,000 policemen, is Kangrali Khurd village. Below a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji atop a horse, the village—technically in Karnataka—proclaims its address: Maharashtra. Some unpaved kms ahead is another sign of defiance: Kandoli village, Maharashtra.

The large Marathi population in border villages complains, they were unfairly included in Karnataka when states were reorganised on linguistic basis in 1956. The issue is before the Supreme Court.

‘‘The boards are 40 years old. There is no point ordering their removal when tempers are high,’’ Belgaum’s Deputy Commissioner Shalini Rajneesh told The Indian Express.

Rajneesh holds the sensitive job of heading the Maratha-dominated Belgaum council dissolved by the Karnataka government on Monday for ‘‘‘abusing its powers’’ by passing a resolution for merging Marathi-speaking areas with Maharashtra. Dismay at the ‘‘insult’’ to Maratha pride has reached Yellur’s dusty streets that hold hidden shortcuts to the Maharashtra border 15 km away.

Yellur’s mutton shops and stores are named only in Marathi, not the Marathi and Kannada combination adapted by Belgaum 20 km away. Yellur’s sons and daughters grow up refusing to learn Kannada, address their letters in Marathi, study in Marathi-medium schools, which outnumber Kannada schools and head to Maharashtra for jobs or arranged marriages.

‘‘Every house has a picture of Chhatrapati Shivaji,’’ said Sridhar Birje, a store owner. ‘‘We even send job applications in Marathi, though we get replies in Kannada.’’

When leaders of the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti, which controlled the council, summon participation for protests at Belgaum, Marathi youth enthusiastically line up.

Locals nervously eye the heavy police presence at Yellur and its Maharashtra signboard, amid rumours that the Dharam Singh-led government wants to pull down such boards. No such orders have been passed.

‘‘We all want to join Maharashtra, here we are forced to learn Kannada,’’ said Sunil Ugade, a cashier with a credit society named after Shivaji, explaining local sentiment. ‘‘I learnt to read and write Kannada, but I won’t speak it.’’

‘‘Once a Maratha, always a Maratha,’’ said Sumitra Balekundri, a Kangrali Khurd resident. She says sentiments here won’t change. ‘‘Our children will never learn Kannada to destroy Marathi.’’

But the Kannadigas are bilingual. At Kangrali Khurd, a Kannada-speaking storeowner says he mastered Marathi to survive. ‘‘I studied in Marathi medium because villages here had no Kannada schools for several years,’’ said Sanjay Math. His medical store’s signboard is in Marathi, not his mother tongue Kannada.

Dharam defends dissolving of Belgaum corporation

BANGALORE: Defending the dissolving of the Belgaum corporation, CM N Dharam Singh said the government would take action against corporations which did not work for the people. He said the Belgaum corporation resolution for merger with Maharashtra was out of its purview, illegal, and nothing but ‘‘mischief’’. ‘‘There are a large number of Kannada speaking people living in districts bordering Maharashtra. The corporators were only interested in raking up emotional issues, ignoring development of the city,’’ Singh said.