G N Devy writes: The Karnataka-Maharashtra border tensions are a fallout of aggressive politics

The state of affairs has been so all via the historical past of Kannada in addition to Marathi. A number of of probably the most outstanding Kannada writers have been pure audio system of Marathi. They embody the good poet D R Bendre, dramatist Girish Karnad, novelist Shantinath Desai, lyricist Jayant Kaikini and singer Bhimsen Joshi, to call just a few. However, Marathi’s most iconic fiction author G A Kulkarni spent all his working life in Karnataka and drew upon its panorama for shaping his surreal plots.

Equally, Kannada theatre influenced the beginning of the twentieth century Marathi theatre. All the harmoniums and sitars performed by the best amongst Karnataka’s singers have been made in Maharashtra’s Miraj city for the final 120 years. Previously, the bhajans of Tukaram have made their manner into the hearts of the Kannada audio system with as a lot ease as did the vachanas of Basaveshwar’s saint-followers into the minds of Marathi audio system. 1000’s of Marathi phrases are of Kannada origin and the same variety of phrases in Kannada have assimilated the Indo-Aryan roots via Marathi. The most well-liked deity of Maharashtra is Vithoba of Pandharpur. A well-liked proverb in Marathi speaks of his origin as being of Karnataka. The Karnatak “quashida” (embroidered saris) has at all times loved a spot of delight in the very best wardrobes of Maharashtra’s beauties; and girls in Karnataka have for ages aspired to have a Paithani from Maharashtra as their wedding ceremony garb.

If such is the amity and cultural entanglement between the 2 languages, cultures and states, what’s the supply of anger that has exploded now?

If it’s not language, is it the sudden reminiscence of a badly mangled territorial border that has irked folks? One could so suppose until one appears to be like on the iterations via which the border definition has handed over the past six a long time. It isn’t needed to say that the japanese and the southern borders of Maharashtra have shifted numerous occasions in historical past for the reason that occasions of the Satavahana, Vakataka, Rashtrakuta, Chalukya and Yadava kings and likewise throughout the Maratha, Peshawa and the Colonial guidelines. Simply earlier than the formation of states in impartial India, a big a part of north Karnataka was included within the Bombay Presidency, collectively extra with Maharashtra than with southern Karnataka.

State formation in post-Independence India was alongside the linguistic majorities. On the northern and north-eastern sides of Maharashtra, the starkness of the linguistic divide was diluted by the presence of quite a few Adivasi communities that talk languages that aren’t strikingly totally different from Marathi or Gujarati, Hindi or Telugu. They play the position of buffer languages. There isn’t any such buffer language between Marathi and Kannada. Therefore, regardless of the bilingualism alongside the territorial border between the 2, the distinction stands out and appears starker than it’s. Nevertheless, that is no new discovery.

The virtually not possible process of defining the boundary with out giving scope for disagreement has gone via many phases of the dispute. Numerous committees have tried their would possibly to resolve the dispute. Courtroom circumstances have been filed and fought. Each states have appointed their very own commissions to reach on the most extent to which their respective claims may be pushed with the assistance of logic and argument. Demographic counts have been made for arriving at bilateral decision and experiments with governance buildings and sub-regional recasting of taluks and their illustration within the Karnataka Meeting have been tried. Individuals within the space are used to this and, reconciled, have gone on with their lives. By now, the hardliners have develop into a factor of the previous. The dispute is within the title of language, however it’s not linguistic in essence. It’s within the title of a border, however it’s not territorial in essence. Individuals know that the realm will see disturbance when politicians need to unleash it.

Elections in Karnataka are not far away. In latest occasions, there was loads of information about elevated corruption. Roads in Karnataka have caved in over the last monsoon and industries have began migrating to different southern states. Makes an attempt are made to divert consideration from these actual points by mobilising the bulk towards the minority by producing financial blockade, by making hijab and love-jihad as points. The elections to native our bodies didn’t deliver a lot excellent news to the ruling celebration. The ruling mix in Maharashtra too faces an unsure future. The state of affairs on either side of the border has lots for the BJP to get nervous about. On this context, interesting to language chauvinism acquires an instrumentalist-political demand. Fairly strikingly, when the Union Residence Minister made a recent transfer to impose Hindi on your entire India, neither the BJP advocates of Kannada in Karnataka nor the BJP advocates of Marathi in Maharashtra felt the necessity to protest.

The reality is, neither the language nor the folks alongside the state border are a problem for them, as they need to be. What issues to the political war-lords is to discover a manner of diverting the discontent, it doesn’t matter what hurt it brings to the concord of communities within the space.

The author is Chairperson, The Individuals’s Linguistic Survey of India