Bagepalli

Bagepalli ಬಾಗೇಪಲ್ಲಿ
city
Bagepalli Location in Karnataka, India
Coordinates:
Country	India
State	Karnataka
District	Chikballapur district
Elevation	707 m (2,320 ft)
Population (2001)
• Total	20,120
Languages
• Official	Kannada
Time zone	IST (UTC+5:30)
Vehicle registration	KA-40

Bagepalli is a town municipal council in Chikballapur district in the state of Karnataka, India. Bagepalli is situated 100 km north of Bangalore on the Bangalore-Hyderabad National Highway. The region is just below the southern border of the Rayalaseema in Andhra Pradesh, South India. It is semi-arid and drought prone with 535 mm of erratic and spatial rainfall.

Located in Chikballapur district of Karnataka state, and being so close to a fast-growing metropolis Bangalore city, the region also skirts the southern border of the Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh.

Geography

Bagepalli is located at . It has an average elevation of 707 metres (2319 ft).

The region is a semi arid drought prone one with low, erratic and spatial rainfall. The dust brown rocky terrain is severely undulating, with small hill ranges and outcrops that stud the topography. There is no mineral wealth and only a very thin and fragile soil cover.

An adverse land:person ratio creates a strong thirst for cultivable land since less than one-half of the total land is fit for cultivation, with the remaining taken over by the hills and rocky fields. Hardly 5% of the cropped lands are irrigated by an age old network of rain-fed tanks (small lakes), each irrigating 2 to 10 hectares of wet land. The low water table is tapped through bore-wells drilled to more than 100 meters depth. Even these dry up in the summer months, from April to September every year, when temperatures rise to a dry heat of 38 °C.

The average rainfall is 535 mm a year and this is, moreover, erratic and spatial. As a result there is only 1 rain-fed crop a year, whose stand is from late June till December. Groundnuts are grown on these dry lands, inter-cropped with red gram, cowpea, field beans, green gram, jowar, maize and castor on the field bunds. Irrigated groundnut, mulberry, onions and sunflower are the common bore-well irrigated crops. Ragi (golden millet) and a coarse variety of paddy are cultivated under irrigation tanks. Every fifth or sixth year is a drought, followed by near famine conditions.

Seasonal migration by agricultural labourers is an annual occurrence during the summer months. They come back every June/July to scratch a subsistence cultivation from small patches of scattered holdings, far away from the villages and hugging the hillsides, averaging 2.6 acres (11,000 m²) per Coolie family.

Demographics

As of 2001 India census, Bagepalli had a population of 1,69,689. Males constitute 50.7% of the population and females 49.3%. Bagepalli has an average literacy rate of 63%, higher than the national average of 59.5%; with 56% of the males and 44% of females literate. 12% of the population is under 6 years of age.

Places of Interest Nearby

Gummanayakana Palya - 20 km from Bagepalli

The palayapat of Gummanayakana Palya (also referred to as Gummanayakapalyam), to the northeast of Chikballapur, comprised the whole of the Bagepalli taluk in the far east of Mysore State and portions of the neighboring Hindupur and Kandukur taluks in the Presidency of Madras. It was founded in the second half of the 13th century by Khadripathi Nayak (ob. 1272), a scion of a royal family in Cuddappah, who gradually established his ascendancy over the zamindars and the people of Pathapalya. He built a new capital in Devarajapalli and extended his rule over a wide area. Chinama Nayak, his son (r. 1272-1296), named his principality after Gumma Reddy, one of the zamindars who had turned over his estates to Khadripathi Nayak. He is also credited with having established an administrative system. Gumma Nayak, the third ruler, (r. 1296-1314) had to submit to Anegundi and agree to pay tribute and provide military service. The sixth ruler, Kadarappa Nayak (r. 1363-1388) helped the empire of Vijayanagar establish its control over the local polegars; for two centuries thereafter the polegars of Gummanayakana Palya were counted among the most loyal and distinguished chiefs under the kings of Vijayanagar.

The battle of Talikota (1565) occurred during the rule of Viradasappa Nayak (r. 1548-1584), the 19th polegar. While other Vijayanagar feudatories took advantage of this signal defeat to break free, "the poligar of Gummanayakana Palya, true to his traditional loyalty, remained firm under the banner of the fallen House of Vijayanagar." During the succession wars of the early 1630s, Polegar Vasanta Nayaka refused to acknowledge Emperor Venkata Deva Raya III. Immadi Kempe Gauda of Bangalore, the emperor champion, laid waste the polegar's lands and forced him to submit. But after some time, even tribute stopped being collected by the increasingly ineffective rulers of Vijayanagar, and Gummanayakana Palya came under Moghul rule during the reign of Bangara Thimma Nayak (r. 1680-1728). His successor Kadarappa Nayak III (r. 1728-1740) had to switch allegiance to the Marathas and pay heavy tribute to the Peshwa. Narasimha Nayak V (r. 1740-1760) was forced to cede part of his territories to Murarirao Ghorpade of Gooty (q.v.) and was later brought under tribute to Hyder Ali of Mysore, who nevertheless befriended him against his own subordinates. Tippu Sultan, however, embarked on a systematic policy of extermination of the polegars. Several small principalities were annexed and, despite Polegar Narasimha Nayak VI's (r. 1765-1802) "protestations of loyalty for generations to the Sultan of Mysore," his palayapat was invaded, the polegar and his family fleeing the country ahead of Tippu's troops. Narasimha was briefly restored during the Third Mysore War, but when peace was concluded in 1793, he was again dispossessed by the vengeful Tippu. During the Fourth Mysore War (1799), Narasimha Nayak VI, with a large army of his own, joined the British in their final assault on Sringapatam. Promises made by the English commander to restore his palayapat after final victory over Tippu were not honored by Dewan Purneya of the restored Wadiyars of Mysore. Narasimha was forced to go into exile once more "where he, the last Poligar to rule the ancient Palayapat [of] Gummanayakana Palya, died of grief."