Karnataka- Maharashtra border issue
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
A backgrounder
A
Sugata Srinivasaraju, Dec 1, 2022: The Times of India
A brief legal history
The Bombay government (became Maharashtra in 1960), still a bilingual state with Gujarati-speaking areas part of it, submitted a memorandum to the Union home ministry in July 1957 claiming 814 villages (revised claim is 865 villages) from Belgaum, Uttara Kannada, Bidar and Gulbarga districts in Karnataka.
This was immediately after the unification of Kannada speaking areas under the Mysore state (renamed Karnataka in 1973) in November 1956. As a result, in 1960, the chief ministers of the two states appointed a four-member panel, two from each state, to study the demand. Two reports were submitted in 1962 but nothing happened.
The Bombay government while claiming the areas from Mysore state evolved its own formula, which was not accepted by any commission that had dealt with the matter till then, including the States Reorganisation Commission (SRC). Their formula was to treat a village as a unit, consider relative majority, heed to the wishes of the people and ensure contiguity. This is what is often referred to as the Pataskar formula in the literature we read on the row. Anyway, in October 1966 the Congress Working Committee passed a resolution requesting the Union government to set up a commission that may give a final decision on the border row. That is how the Justice Mehr Chand Mahajan Commission came into being. Mahajan, pre-Partition, was a sitting judge of the Lahore High Court. After Partition was appointed prime minister of Kashmir and later became a judge of the Supreme Court of India. More interestingly, he worked with Cecil Radcliffe, who drew the boundary line between India and Pakistan.
Justice Mahajan Commission had 17 sittings between February 1967 and May 1967 at various places across the Mysore-Bombay border. It received 2,240 memoranda and interviewed 7,572 people. It submitted its final report in August 1967 to YB Chavan, the Union home minister at the time. Interestingly, the demand for 814 villages and to redraw the borders between the two states in 1957 was first made when Chavan was the chief minister of Bombay. Chavan decided to keep the report under wraps for a while, but finally released it in November 1967. The report largely upheld the claims of Karnataka. Expectedly, the Maharashtra assembly instantly rejected the Justice Mahajan Commission report by passing a resolution. The report, however, was placed in the Lok Sabha in December 1970 without an ‘action taken report’ and has since remained the property of the Parliament’s lower house. There is no clarity if the report, according to the rules of business of the House, is still alive or has lapsed. If it is alive then it has a possible implication for the 2004 suit filed by Maharashtra in the Supreme Court. This suit is central to all the discussion and debate currently happening on the row. The border dispute case filed by Maharashtra has been languishing at the Supreme Court for 18 years now (Representational image) The court case in focus
The suit was filed on the eve of the 2004 Maharashtra assembly elections 44 years after the linguistic reorganisation of states and 37 years after the Justice Mahajan Commission had filed its report. In the suit, Maharashtra made the Union of India defendant number one and Karnataka defendant number two.
The suit alleges that defendant one has given “step-motherly” treatment to Maharashtra but “pampered” defendant two. It also says the state approached the Supreme Court because defendant one “will never solve the dispute”. The entire suit was instituted under Article 131 of the Constitution. It challenged the provisions of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, and the Bombay Reorganisation Act, 1960.
The Maharashtra government based its suit on the ground of violation of Article 14 (equality before law), Article 29 (protection of interest of minorities with regard to their distinct language, script or culture) and Article 30 (pertains again to the rights of religious and linguistic minorities) of the Constitution.
Maharashtra’s claims can be classified under three sections: Claims pertaining to Belgaum (officially renamed Belagavi in 2014) district, where 359 villages are at stake; its claim on around 301 villages in Uttara Kannada district, and around 164 villages in Bidar district. The counter-argument
Karnataka has argued for the dismissal of the suit on multiple grounds. One of them argues that Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh (now would include Telangana) should have also been made party to the suit and not just Karnataka. The reason it offers is that Gujarat may now be a separate linguistic state but was part of Bombay state till 1960.
On claims over Belagavi district, Karnataka has argued that these areas were discussed by the SRC threadbare and later in Parliament. Seven amendments were moved with respect to areas being claimed and were either defeated or withdrawn. So, there is no need to revisit them again.
On Bidar district claims, Karnataka says it had been trifurcated by modifying the States Reorganisation Bill after it had originally been given to Hyderabad state (later Andhra Pradesh) — Bombay state had been given three taluks, two taluks went to Hyderabad and four to Mysore state, and Bidar was retained as a district in the Mysore state.
Justice Mahajan report had said on Bidar: “A provision was accordingly incorporated in the State Reorganisation Act to give effect to this decision. This was passed by Parliament without any opposition and without any reservations and limitations…that decision must be respected.” On the 301 villages claimed by Maharashtra in the Konkani-speaking areas of Uttara Kannada district, Karnataka has argued that it was done on the basis that Konkani was a dialect of the Marathi language, but Konkani was listed in the Schedule 8 of the Constitution in 1992 as an independent tongue. Justice Mahajan report clearly said: “If Konkani is not added to Marathi then there is no stable and sizeable majority of the Marathi speakers in these areas.” The central argument of Karnataka is that in the federal structure under the Constitution there is no concept of a property right or right to property of a constituent state. In other words, Maharashtra has no legal rights on territories that it is claiming but is only making a political case. Karnataka has argued that linguistic minorities live happily in the state. It has also argued that historically and culturally the ‘disputed’ areas have belonged to Karnataka. For all this it has stacked up its evidence. Most importantly, Karnataka has invoked the SRC’s basic principles governing the reorganisation of states. It points out that the SRC had rejected language criterion as the exclusive one. It called for a balanced approach having due regard for national security, geographical contiguity, economic development, welfare of the people, administrative convenience and financial viability. Since language cannot be the sole criterion and a village cannot be a basic unit, Maharashtra has to drop its claims.
A costly status quo
This is where the argument stood in 1956, in 1957, 1962, 1967 and this is where it stands now in 2022. It is this status quo that has often led to physical violence, verbal duels and electoral battles in the border districts of the two states. In an identity debate both parties are unlikely to yield. As long as the linguistic states are around these claims and counterclaims are bound to last. No matter what the court or Parliament says, the popular opinion will be divided.
Karnataka CM Bommai has been in a particularly piquant situation because his own party is part of the governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra. Yet, he made a departure by saying what his party never says, “India was a Union of states and Karnataka’s rights were protected by the Constitution.” Karnataka, to deepen its claims on the territory that Maharashtra has eyed, some years ago even built a second Vidhana Soudha (legislative assembly building) in Belagavi.
B
Shubhangi Khapre, Dec 15, 2022: The Indian Express
What is the Maharashtra-Karnataka border dispute?
The Maharashtra and Karnataka boundary dispute has its origins in the reorganisation of states along linguistic lines via the State Reorganisation Act, 1956. Since its creation on May 1, 1960, Maharashtra has claimed that 865 villages, including Belagavi (then Belgaum), Carvar and Nipani, should be merged into Maharashtra. Karnataka, however, has refused to part with its territory.
On October 25, 1966, the Centre constituted the Mahajan Commission headed by the then Supreme Court Chief Justice Meher Chand Mahajan, at the insistence of Maharashtra. While rejecting Maharashtra’s claim over Belagavi (then Belgaum), the commission recommended 247 villages/places, including Jatt, Akkalkote and Solapur, to be made part of Karnataka. It also declared 264 villages /places, including Nippani, Khanapur and Nandagad, to be made part of Maharashtra.
However, the commission’s report was outrightly rejected by Maharashtra. While successive governments in Maharashtra maintained that the commission had not adequately addressed its concerns, Karnataka saw the commission ruling in its favour. Several attempts were subsequently made to resolve the row but in vain. In 2004, the Maharashtra government filed a petition in the Supreme Court, staking claim over Marathi-speaking villages in Karnataka, which contested the claim. Exploiting public sentiments, Karnataka changed the name of Belgaum to Belagavi and made it the second capital of the state.
What is the status of the border dispute now?
Both Karnataka and Maharashtra reckon that the complex issue will not be resolved politically, and requires a legal solution. The Maharashtra-Karnataka border row has been pending before the Supreme Court since 2004. Both states have refused to budge from their respective stands. Successive governments at the Centre too have exercised caution on the issue. In 2010, the Centre in its affidavit had stated that the transfer of certain areas to then Mysore (now Karnataka) was neither arbitrary nor wrong. It had also underlined that both Parliament and the Union Government had considered all relevant factors while considering the State Reorganisation Bill, 1956, and the Bombay Reorganisation Bill, 1960.
What are its political ramifications?
Both Maharashtra and Karnataka have used the border dispute to stoke regional sentiments during elections. In Maharashtra, the boundary dispute is part of every political party’s election manifesto. It even features in the governor’s annual address to the joint session of the state legislative assembly and council. Setting aside their ideological differences, political parties in Maharashtra have found a common cause in the Maharashtra-Karnataka boundary row. Whether it is the ruling BJP and Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena (led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde) or Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), Congress, NCP and MNS – all think that Marathi-speaking areas along the Karnataka border should merge with Maharashtra.
Why has the border dispute resurfaced?
Two weeks ago, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde convened a meeting in Mumbai to review the status of the border dispute. Shinde deputed two senior ministers, Chandrakant Patil and Shambhuraj Desai, to coordinate and pursue the border row, both on the legal front and politically. Apart from that, Shinde announced that freedom fighters in Belagavi and other Marathi-speaking areas in Karnataka would be eligible for pension and would also get free medical care under the Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya scheme.
A day later, in Bengaluru, Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai announced grants for all Kannada schools in Maharashtra. Bommai also said that the Karnataka government was thinking of staking claim over 40 villages in Jatt taluka in Maharashtra’s Sangli district. The next day, Bommai said the Karnataka government would claim rights over border villages in Maharashtra’s Solapur district.
This prompted Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to assert that the government would “not let a single village go to Karnataka”. On the contrary, “Maharashtra will reclaim 865 villages, including Belgavi, Nipani and Carvar,” Fadnavis said.
Maharashtra had decided to send ministers Patil and Desai to visit Belagavi on December 6 to hold discussions with various organisations and people. The proposed visit, however, was postponed after the Karnataka government urged them not to send the delegation.
