From RCB to all the people of Karnataka: A very Happy Karnataka Rajyotsava

Following the revolutionary Karnataka Ekikarana movement and decades of protest, all the Kannada speaking religions outside the Mysore Princely state was assembled into one State on November 1st, 1956 after which was named as Mysore.

17 years after the momentous unification, the name finally changed to Karnataka and today marks the golden jubilee of that historic occasion. The name Karnataka has been used on several occasions by various poets, writers and historians across countless books and novels but the oldest mention of the name was found in the Sanskrit Mahabharata as mentioned by Purushottam Bilimale professor of language and culture studies at JNU.

He further explained the meaning of the term, stating, “The word Karṇaataah is used to refer to the place from where a battalion of soldiers had come to fight the Kurukshetra war.” There have also been references about how the name could have even come from geographic locations, thereby enhancing the ambit of meanings that the state could have been built upon. After all, at the end of the day, the name portrays the true identity of a place or a state.

Our state has also contributed handsomely in the cricketing fabric and the Royal Challengers Bangalore has been interweaved with Karnataka’s cricketing history. The franchise has starred big names from the state including legends Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble. KL Rahul, Robin Uthappa, Vinay Kumar, Mayank Agarwal, Manish Pandey, Stuart Binny, Abhimanyu Mithun and Sreenath Aravind are among the other top names from Karnataka to have donned the Red and Gold. 

There are other significant names from the state that donned the Red and Gold like Neravanda Aiyappa, Balachandra Akhil, KP Apanna, Jagadeesh Arunkumar, Bharat Chipli, Sunil Joshi, Devraj Patil, Raju Bhatkal, Chidambaram Gautam, Udit Patel, Abrar Kazi, Karun Nair, Praveen Dubey, Pavan Deshpande, and Aniruddha Joshi,

The current RCB squad features two exceptional young talents in Luvnith Sisodia and Aneeshwar Gautam. The current BCCI president, Roger Binny has always been an instrumental part of Indian cricket.

As Karnataka celebrates one of its most auspicious days in its history, the Karnataka Rajyotsava, it was announced that one of its dearest sons and a man who was an integral part of RCB, Puneeth Rajkumar aka Appu would be posthumously awarded the state’s highest civilian award, Karnataka Ratna, on the foresteps of Vidhan Soudha on Tuesday.

We at the Royal Challengers Bangalore, wish you all a very happy Karnataka Rajyotsava.