The ekikarana , which came to pass on November 1, 1956, was the culmination of a decades-long struggle for unification pioneered by Kannada litterateurs. Never mind how fraught the world seems at the moment, come November and Kannadiga thoughts turn inevitably to Kannada Rajyotsava, the emotionally charged anniversary of the creation of a Kannada homeland carved out of the former Madras Presidency, Bombay Presidency and the princely state of Hyderabad, and incorporated, along with other smaller princely states, into the glorious Kingdom of Mysore, the custodian of Kannada culture since the 13th century.
It is no wonder, then, that even as far back as the early 20th century, when the idea of a culturally and linguistically homogeneous land for Kannadigas was still incipient, Kannada writers, taking inspiration from Vande Mataram (the current political hot potato), which, after the Partition of Bengal in 1905, had served as the rallying cry of the Bengali resistance, began to write paeans to an as yet imaginary but much longed-for ‘motherland’. An early poem / song in this vein, extolling the glories of Kannada Nadu, was written in 1924 by a 20-year-old called KV Puttappa, then a student at Maharaja College, Mysore. In 1930, it appeared in print as part of Puttappa’s first collection of poetry, Kolalu (flute in Kannada). In 1956, Puttappa, then the Principal of Maharaja’s College, was appointed Vice Chancellor of Mysore University. A decade later, in 1967, he would become the first Kannada writer to win the Jnanpith Award for the same work. In 1960, acclaimed musician Mysore Ananthaswamy picked 23 lines of Kuvempu’s 44-line ‘Jaya He Karnataka Maate’ and set it to music, making both the truncated version of the poem, and the tune, wildly popular.
By this time, he had won the Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award for his magnum opus, Sri Ramayana Darshanam, a radical take on the original poem, and had taken his place among the shining stars in the galaxy of Kannada writers and poets. Even before that happened, Kannada music composers had begun setting written poetry to music, bringing great literature to common people. Meanwhile, each Rajyotsava Day, unperturbed by such supercharged goings-on, schoolchildren across Karnataka lustily sing whichever version of Kuvempu’s beloved song their teachers have taught them.
