Why Karnataka wants a separate flag
Karnataka’s move to set up a panel to look into the legality of having an official state flag has behind it a history of conflicts — both within the state and with other states.
At the moment, the state is fighting legal cases with all of its neighbours over sharing water from various rivers. Apart from the legal battle over Cauvery, the state is locked in similar battles over the Krishna, Godavari and Mahadayi rivers. There is also a longstanding dispute over Belagavi district, which some want to be integrated with Maharashtra.
Crucially, one of the petitions submitted in 2014 for an official state flag comes from Belagavi. Speaking to HT, Bheemappa Gadad, an RTI activist, said some people in the district felt there was a need to assert that the region belonged to Karnataka.
“There are some here, who want the district to be a part of Maharashtra. So, we wanted a flag that would show that Belagavi is a part of Karnataka.”
The district has a large number of Marathi speakers and a local party, the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti, has been at the forefront with the demand to make the district part of Maharashtra. “The MES even hoists its own flag atop the corporation building in Belagavi city,” Gadad said.
The proposal for a flag is not new. In his Budget speech in 2012, then chief minister DV Sadananda Gowda had said that the Kannada flag, which is made up of stripes of red and yellow, would be hoisted atop all government buildings next to the national flag on November 1, which is the state formation day.
However, later that year, while replying to a PIL calling for a flag code for the Kannada flag, the BJP retracted its decision saying a separate state flag would undermine the sanctity of the national flag.
Film critic MK Raghavendra, who has written extensively about Kannada identity, says the recent developments are merely attempts to build a broader identity base for the Congress.
“Even the anti-Hindi sentiment is part of this,” he said, referring to the recent controversy over the use of Hindi in the signboards at metro stations in Bengaluru.
“The state is dominated by regions that are part of the princely state of Mysore, which is why the state seems to be obsessed with the Cauvery issue,” Raghavendra said.
“The chief minister (Siddaramaiah) is trying to appeal to these areas on the basis of a politics of patronage. But people in these border districts have always felt that they have lost out because of the prominence given to the Old Mysore area,” Raghavendra said.