Samyukta Maharashtra Movement

Samyukta Maharashtra Movement (or Sanyukta Maharashtra Andolan) (Marathi: संयुक्त महाराष्ट्र आंदोलन) was an organisation that, starting in 1956, demanded the creation of a separate Marathi-speaking state out of the (then-bilingual) State of Bombay in western India, with the city of Bombay as its capital. Similarly, in 1956 the Mahagujarat Movement started agitation for creation of separate Gujarati-speaking State out of Bombay State, which became the state of Gujarat.

The Samyukta Maharashtra Movement achieved its aim when the present state of Maharashtra was created on May 1, 1960. The state reorganization left Marathi-speaking areas in Northern Karnataka, such as Belgaon, outside of Maharashtra. The newly liberated people of Goa in a 1967 referendum rejected merger with Maharashtra.

The organisation was founded on February 6, 1956, under the leadership of Keshavrao Jedhe in Pune. Many of the Prominent activists of Samyukta Maharashtra Samiti were leftists such as S. M. Joshi, SA Dange, Nanasaheb Gore, and Bhai Uddhavrao Patil. Other leaders included Maina Gawankar, Walchand Kothari, Acharya Atre, Prabodhankar Thackeray, Senapati Bapat, Bhausaheb Raut, and Shahir Amar Shaikh. As a part of the campaign, Acharya Atre used his Maratha newspaper to criticise Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Morarji Desai (then chief minister of Bombay state) and S.K. Patil, the Mumbai Congress party politician who favored separation of Mumbai city from a linguistically reconstituted Maharashtra or Gujarat

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