Tensions on the border of Karnataka and Maharashtra are back again, this time with Kannada and Marathi groups targeting vehicles and shops belonging to other language groups.
There have been attempts by Marathi and Kannada groups at blackening of boards and stoning of vehicles in Belagavi and Kolhapur.
The problem got complicated with the Shiv Sena openly supporting Marathi groups in Belagavi, while Kannada groups in Belagavi like Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, who are leading the protest, do not have any political party backing them directly.
On Sunday, State transport undertakings in Karnataka and Maharashtra stopped bus services between the States, as they were apprehensive of damage to vehicles if violence escalated.
Sometime ago, hoisting of Kannada flag on the premises of Belagavi civic body office had led to skirmishes between the two groups.
Kannada organisations are now accusing the Sena of trying to utilise the border dispute for political purposes of strengthening the party in Belagavi and Karnataka.
The Shiv Sena-led government in Maharashtra recently released a book on the border dispute and re-released a 50-year-old video documentary on the subject. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray made statements that raked up the old border controversy.
Sena’s dominance
Kannada activists suspect this stems from Maharashtra’s politics where the Sena is trying to strengthen the party and its linguistic identity at the cost of other Marathi parties like the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti in Belagavi.
Ashok Chandaragi, convener of Kannada organisations in the district, argued that Mr. Thackeray was sending out signals that the Sena wants to be in Belagavi politics directly. “All these years, they were acting through outfits like the MES. But now they want to enter the fray directly,” he argued. Not very long ago, Mr. Thackeray had chided the MES leaders for infighting and accused them of being responsible for Marathi interests being harmed in Belagavi. “Mr. Thackeray wants to strengthen his party here, by directly backing the border issue,” Mr. Chandaragi said.
Mehboob Makandar, another activist, held that the Sena was timing its activities just before the Belagavi City Corporation elections. However, the focus is not welfare of Marathi people, he said. “I have been part of Kannada agitations since the 1980s. But I have never seen any Maharashtra leader raise issues like education, health or employment or problems of farmers across the border. They speak only of a transfer of some land to Maharashtra,” Mr. Makandar said.
Maharashtra leadership was quiet about the large number of government Marathi medium schools in Karnataka and welfare measures like setting up of the Maratha development corporation, he pointed out.
