01The Ratta fort and its basadi
Belagavi, Venugrama in its old inscriptions, the village of bamboo, was a seat of the Ratta chiefs, feudatories first of the Chalukyas of Kalyana. The oval stone fort with its moat is traditionally dated to 1204 and credited to Jaya Raya, an officer of the Rattas. Inside it stands the Kamal Basti, a Jain temple of the same age with a ceiling carved as a great lotus, and a group of Shaiva and Jain shrines. The fort passed through the hands of the Seunas, Vijayanagara, Bijapur, the Mughals and the Marathas, and was held by the Peshwa’s men in the early 19th century.
02Kittur, the siege and the Congress
Chennamma was born in 1778 at Kakati, a few kilometres north of the town. In 1818, after the fall of the Peshwa, a British force under Thomas Munro besieged Belgaum fort from late March and took it in April; it became the seat of a Company district, and the officers who moved against Kittur in 1824 came from Dharwad and Belgaum. A century later, on 26–27 December 1924, the 39th session of the Indian National Congress met at Belagavi under Gandhiji’s presidency, the only one he ever chaired. The city’s main square carries Chennamma’s statue.
The life of this place
- c. 1204The fort and the Kamal Basti are built under the Ratta chiefs.
- 1778Kittur Chennamma is born at Kakati, north of Belagavi.
- March–April 1818The British besiege and take Belgaum fort from the Peshwa’s garrison.
- 26–27 December 1924Gandhiji presides over the Belgaum session of the Congress.
