Karnataka: a 50-year-old name, centuries of legacy

Today marks the golden jubilee of renaming the state Karnataka from erstwhile Mysore

Propelled by the Karnataka Ekikarana movement and decades of protests, all Kannada-speaking regions outside the Mysore Princely State were unified into one State on November 1, 1956. However, the newly-banded State was named Mysore, and not Karnataka, the journey to which would take almost another decade-and-a-half. 

“Even after the Karnataka Ekikarana movement, it continued to be called Mysore. Those of us in the Opposition, including leaders like A.J. Doddameti, K.H. Patil, Gopal Gowda, and myself, put up a vociferous fight for renaming the State,” says former MLA and Kannada activist Vatal Nagaraj, reminiscing about the day when a unanimous resolution was passed in the Legislative Assembly of Mysore on 27 July, 1972. 

“Before D. Devaraj Urs became the Chief Minister, he was strongly opposed to the renaming and resisted any such proposal. But when he came to power, we tried to persuade him. We told him that he was no longer a mere politician, but the Chief Minister of a State, the elected representative of a people, who want the Mysore State to be renamed Karnataka, and he agreed,” Mr. Nagaraj recalled. 

During the Legislative Assembly debate between July 25 and 27, 1972, Mr. Urs put forth the proposal in the Legislature.

The resolution was enacted by Parliament a year later on 21 August, 1973, through the Mysore State (Alteration of Name) Act, 1973. 

Thus it was that 17 years after the unification, the Mysore State became Karnataka on November 1, 1973. Today marks 50 years since that historic decision.

Even before the Karnataka Ekikarana movement gained steam towards the end of the 19th century, the words ‘Karṇaata’, ‘Karnataka’ and ‘Kannada’ had been used on several occasions by poets, writers, and historians to address this region.