The funny part of Bidar to me professionally is that it seems like a light place to work, not much of a Law and order burden, hardly any political pressure being out of the radar of the powers at Bangalore and a relatively challenging place as far as getting people to work is concerned coz of the laid back attitude of the general populace and my own subordinates. The reason perhaps is because of its historical connection with the Nizams administration. Being away from the state capital has also led to rampant corruption which is silently taken as apart of everyday life by the people. Not that there is any less corruption in the rest of the country, but i guess theres atleast some resistance in most places. Two thirds of my energies are wasted in trying to monitor my own men rather than any real policing job. Its almost a year now since we've been here, but little did i realise that the quality time we got for ourselves despite this situation was hardly anything compared to the earlier places we stayed... untill Deepu really started complaining that she was getting bored. We just realised that apart from our regular visits to the Bidar fort and the Gurudwara along with guests who visited us sometime, we hardly took time out explore either the district or even the nearby places. We almost started to beleive that this is all about Bidar and resigned to our fate till perhaps the next transfer.
On 14th of this month I had a mojor police deployment in Basavakalyan town in view of the Ganesh procession. For those who haven't heard of this place, its a small town on the south-western part of the district and is about 75 kms from the district headquarter Bidar. Bsavakalyan being a communally sensitive place ( like almost all towns in this country and getting to be ) and also had a history of a small communal skirmish last year during the same procession, I decided i'll camp at that place for this year so that I am available within minutes, if theres really some trouble again. As all these processions go all through the night I had to stay overnight at Basavakalyan and when I broke this to Deepu, she said she would come along too. So we left for Basavakalyan that evening and halted at the Inspection bungalow for that night. One funny thing about Government Inspection Bungalows here (or anywhere perhaps) is that all of them look so much similar. Once you are inside the room, you tend to forget the place where you are except for the fact that you are in an IB. They are all panelled with wood saving only the roof, no natural ventilation and atleast two split airconditioners chilling you to death. You could really get claustrophobic if your alone. So here we were two of us wondering about plans for the rest of the evening. After having dinner at the guest house itself we decided to watch a movie on Deepu's laptop. As usual, halfway through this movie called "Get Smart" I was lost into deep sleep. I should definitely thank the people of Basavakalyan now that I didnt have to really bother about the rest of the procession and had an undisturbed sleep for the rest of the night.
I was woken up by a call from my Officer at 5 a.m. telling me that the procession concluded peacefully. Now we had the whole morning to explore to ourselves. Deepu woke up by 7 and both of us quickly got ready to leave after a short walk aroung the inspection bunglow. Our destination was the Basavakalyan fort which we decided to visit 10 months back.
To recollect a little bit of history, Basavakalyan earlier known as Kalyani was the capital of the Western Chalukyas between1050 to 1195 A.D. It is now known as Basavakalyan after the great Saint Basaweshwara or Basavanna. He was a great revolutionary who is known to have established a spiritual democracy called "Anubhava Mantapa" in 12th Century. The Anubhava Mantapa is also known as the worlds first Parliament. Basavanna's main aim was to establish a society where there is dignity of labour, spirituality, creativity, free thinking, no caste or creed. In the process Basavanna founded a new Relegion called " Lingayata". Today the Lingayats form a separate caste within the Hindu fold. Basaweshwara served as a minister in the court of Bijjala, the Chalukyan ruler.There are a number of relics relating to this period all around Bsavakalyan town. In 1270 AD Basavakalyan fell to the Kakathiyas and in 1322 AD it was taken over by the Thuglaqs by Mahammed Bin Thuglaq. Between 1347 AD and 1619 the rule of Basavakalyan passed on from the Bahamanis to the Barid Shahis and finally in 1656 AD it was taken over by the Mughals. In 1724 AD the Mughal rule was succeeded by the Asif Jahi Nizams of Hyderabad till the momentous day of 17th September 1948 when the Nizams districts were releived from the Nizams rule by resorting to Police action of Independent India.
So now you can expect what a treasure this place must be for a history seeker. Unfortunately we just had time for the Basavakalyan fort that morning. Even more unfortunate was the news that, being a general holiday the fort would be closed to tourists. I then had to get in touch with the Archaeology authorities and get it opened for a brief visit. What we encountered after we entered though those massive fort gates was nothing short of treasure. All that history that I had written here about Basavakalyan was unfolding like the pages of a history book by every step we took. The massive fort walls with remnants of the Hindu rule embeded all over, the Palaces, courtyards, the dancing halls, the ramparts with beautifully carved cannons all telling us the tales this place has gone through. To top it all it was nice cool and cloudy morning. We finished our short walk through by 10 AM and left for breakfast at a nice Kamat Restaurant on the national Highway. Returned back to Bidar by noon.
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