From the 16th January the Belgaum issue has taken a rebirth, till then it would just erupt on a couple of days in a year and all would be good and calm later on. But this time, as I had mentioned in my previous posts this time it won’t be, the same is happening & I am not all happy with it, in fact no Belgaumite can be, be he Kannada or Marathi he will never have thought of this.
A KSRTC bus was yesterday burnt down in Maharashtra today 2 trucks with goods were burnt down in Tumkur as they had MH (Maharashtra) registration numbers. In Bangalore, some Kannada activists burnt effigies of MES and Maharashtra politicians. In Kolhapur there were protests by cancelling the Corporation meeting.
Who is suffering, the locals. All buses are plying only in state, i.e Maharsahtra busses are going up to Maharashtra border only and Karnataka busses are only going up to Nippani. All busses to Konkan have been cancelled as a precaution. The private bus operators might also follow this, which will cause huge inconvenience to the public at large. All border lying areas like Bijapur, Solapur, belgaum, Kolhapur have been badly affected. A report stated that many are stuck up in Pandharpur after the buses were cancelled the same situation is everywhere in the border prone areas.
Thankfully, nothing is happening in Belgaum other than the heated debate in the assembly and a host of press conferences.
I urge and appeal to all, keep your calm; an issue of 52 years can’t be settled in a day and at least not by burning down. I would request all to maintain peace and harmony in the city and don’t believe on rumors as they spread like fire they can cause a lot of trouble.
In all it’s a tough time for all of us. As the busses are not going into Maharsahtra and their busses not coming in Karnataka, many would now take cars for travelling, but that too could be dangerous for a day or two till all settles down. I would request anyone with plans to go into Maharashtra or someone coming into Karnataka, be careful.
Lets pray to God, that all goes well from tomorrow & we get back to normal life. Life in the city is very normal, but the fact that you can’t be travelling can cause some hardships.
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Comments
Why does it get to this point?
Unless there are serious votes involved here, why would politics get to such ugly situations January of every year. Or is it about shortages? Many times, such problems have their roots in shortage of some form - jobs, opportunity, land, water or whatever?
On the other hand, we constantly hear about all of North Karnataka feeling the neglect, but then, why is only Belgaum over the boil? What is the perspective from the ground belgaumblog (am I allowed to address you by your real name)?
situation is all political
Shinkansen therapy?
reasoning it out
It is understandable from the MNS/SS's perspective because it is good not to encourage a significant growth of an alien culture (not meaning any defamation here, but frankly Bihari traditions are indeed alien to MH, and so are Marathi traditions to Bihar) in MH which could make them minority banks of either votes, or social inequality. But what grossly misses reason in Karnataka is the stance of MH's MES w.r.t another similar public function that Marathi speaking people are being given support to perform in Karnataka. Two representations of the same (marathi) people having two very different outlooks is indeed sending out a confusing message to our Marathi brethren in Karnataka.
This is fundamentally the reason for this kind of upsurge of people from the MH side of the border. Otherwise for the rest of the year Marathis in Belgaavi are pretty much settled Kannadigas in Karnataka. Finding people of different tastes & languages is commonplace across borders of any two states in India. The Karnataka-Mah border has been solemnified long ago, and there's no point disturbing this sleeping lake now! People would have certainly migrated into Karnataka and Maharashtra over the ages. Owing to this, we can't afford to repeatedly re-draw our borders. There are several villages on MH side near the border which have high percentages of Kannada speaking people. Likewise for Marathi on Karnataka side too. If life needs to go on, MH's MES has to stop organizing such controversial functions across the border, and mind more impending businesses on their side. These functions could however carry on in pomp when a voluntary Marathi body of Belagaavi gets explicit permission from the state govt.
-Nijavaada