Bengaluru: A day after the Kodagu District Administration announced enforcement of prohibitory orders (Aug. 24 to 27) in Kodagu district in the wake of Congress party’s call for Madikeri Chalo, in protest against egg pelting at the car of Opposition Leader Siddharamaiah during his visit to Kodagu on Aug. 18, the Congress has called off the rally.
Announcing this in Bengaluru this morning, Siddharamaiah said that the party has decided to call off the rally as a mark of respect to the rule of Law.
Recalling that he visited Kodagu on Aug. 18 to have first-hand information about rescue and relief operations in the district following heavy rains and landslides, the former CM charged the BJP Government of lapses and irregularities in relief works.
Reiterating that as a responsible Opposition Leader he cannot violate the Law, Siddharamaiah said that the party will decide on the next course of action soon. He also warned of launching a massive movement if the BJP Government failed to take up relief works on a war-footing.
The neglect of Kodagu dates back to 1950s, when Nijalingappa and other zealots were demanding for Karnataka unification following the disastrous policy of the Nehru government on the formation of linguistic states.
Kodagu was a very prosperous tiny state with people with a unique culture and the state had also unique geography recognised by the British and hence it was a separate state. Egged on by that Lingayat toadie Nijalingappa and his cabal of zealots, Kodagu CM, CM Poonacha opted for Karnataka unification putting Kodagu in the pile, which was unnecessary. Except bordering the then Mysore state-the Old Mysore, Kodagu had nothing in common with the Old Mysore in terms of language or culture. The so called Kannada-speaking territories of Maharashtra and Hyderabad, the former particularly were arid regions, with people speaking a strange Kannada dialect which Old Mysoreans laughed at. But yet, the merger of these arid regions into Old Mysore State took place, because the majority of people there were Lingayats, and Nijalingappa wanted more Lingayat MLA, to counter the Old Mysore State’s Gowdas population.
As a result, Lingayat MLAs from those regions relocated to Bangalore, and they did not care for Bangalore getting industrialised in a way it was not sustainable. CMs like BD Jatti and Veerendra Patil destroyed the Old Mysore State region, by diverting resources to their constituencies of the North-like Belgavi, Bijapur, Kalburgi and the like -arid regions, which were uninhabitable with burning Sun above!
Kodagu was subsumed by the Karnataka thus formed, and its neglect began. It had no prominent Lingayat politician who could become the CM of Karnataka. This beautiful region of wonderful nature’s gift with citrus fruits, became the victim of the massive neglect.
While we all sang listening to P KalingaRao’s : ” Udayavagali Namma Chekuva Kannada Nadu”, lyrics by a poet in the former Maharashtra region,
we knew then , even as as middle school students, from our parents, how Kodagu was going to be destroyed by the Karnataka unification.
I was born , brought up, studied and worked in Mysore city, I am not a Kodava, but some one who liked Kodagu , when visiting there on holidays, savouring its unique beauty.
The whole Karnataka unification policy was a political con game. It is proved to be destructive.
Time to regain the Old Mysore State, giving statehoods to former Maharashtra and Hyderabad regions which joined in 1950s, as well as Kodagu.
Kodagu as a state with its own CM and government has a chance of at least partly restoring the destruction the Karnataka unification hoisted on it.
The SOM Ganapathy should lead this political issue. Old Mysore State was a wonderful state to live in. It is not too late to to get it back.