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THE boundary dispute between Karnataka (then called Mysore) and Maharashtra arose over the demarcation of the boundary between the two States by the States Reorganisation Act, 1956.
The boundary was so demarcated that large and predominantly Marathi-speaking areas contiguous to Maharashtra were left in Karnataka and some predominantly Kannada-speaking areas were included in Maharashtra.
In 1957, the Government of Bombay requested the Zonal Council to recommend re-demarcation of the boundaries on uniform principles, but this was not formally considered.
Discussions and protracted correspondence between the Chief Ministers of the two States also failed to reach a consensus, forcing the appointment of a four-member committee in 1960. But it failed to reach an agreement.
With attempts to reach an amicable solution failing, the Government of India had to intervene. But nothing happened until 1966, when Senapathy Bapat, a freedom fighter, and three other Maharashtrian leaders went on a fast unto death demanding the resolution of the dispute. In October 1966, the Government of India appointed the third Chief Justice of India, Mehr Chand Mahajan, to make recommendations to solve the dispute.
With the Government of India providing Mahajan with no principles on which to base his solution, he evolved his own. While Maharashtra had insisted that the dispute should be solved on the basis of a uniform application of equitable and rational principles, the view of the Commission was that "no formulae could be rigidly implemented and there can be no scientific approach in such matters".
And while the Government of Maharashtra had made a representation to the Government of India to include in Maharashtra 865 villages and towns (comprising 3,000 square miles or 7,770 sq km) that were in Karnataka but had a relative majority of Marathi-speaking population, the Commission, which submitted its report in August 1967, recommended that 264 villages (covering an area of 656.3 sq km) be transferred. Of the 516 villages claimed by Karnataka, the Commission recommended the transfer of 247 from Maharashtra.
Crucially, the Mahajan Commission did not recommend the transfer of Belgaum to Maharashtra, on "administrative grounds" and holding that there was "lack of linguistic gravity". The Mahajan Commission, which rejected the principle of relative majority, followed instead the principle of linguistic percentage of "over and above 50 and ordinarily 60", on the grounds that it would ensure stability, the difference in the percentage of the two contending groups helping to stabilise the linguistic composition of a unit (place). With the villages of Kanabargi and Kudachi (on the eastern side of Belgaum) being shown, as per the 1951 Census, as Kannada-speaking villages, Belgaum lost its contiguity with Maharashtra. Curiously, post-Reorganisation of States, 1956, both villages are shown as Marathi-speaking villages.
While initially Karnataka was not keen on a commission - insisting instead on the status quo - at the end of the exercise it was Maharashtra that refused to accept the Mahajan Commission Report, wanting Parliament to reconsider the recommendations. Ironically, Karnataka accepted the report in toto and has since sworn by it.
The commission also went into the Karnataka-Kerala border dispute over Kasargod taluk. It recommended the transfer of 71 villages where Kannada was predominant to Karnataka.
The Mahajan Commission Report was finally placed in Parliament in December 1970, were it still lies, yet to be implemented. Alternative proposals, including the bifurcation of Belgaum, have since been put forward, but the border issue is yet to be solved.
In March 2004, the Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government of Sushilkumar Shinde in Maharashtra filed a suit under Article 131 of the Constitution in the Supreme Court on the question of the transfer of Belgaum to Maharashtra, where the matter currently lies.
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