The chorus for special status for Lingayat community as a separate religion is growing louder. The Siddaramaiah government has assured the Lingayats that it would support them in their pursuit of a separate identity. Also, a team of five cabinet ministers from the community—Basavaraj Rayaraddi, Vinay Kulkarni, Eshwar Khandre, Sharan Prakash Patil and SS Mallikarjun—decided to tour the state to gather opinion of the religious heads of the community.
The state BJP led by Lingayat strongman and former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa has vehemently opposed the move and asserted that 'Lingayats' or 'Veerashaivas' were an integral part of the Hindu religion.
The growing support for the demand from academics and religious heads, now being steered forward by the Congress ministers, has irked the BJP.
The Siddaramaiah government which openly admits its Ahinda (Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and dalits) appeasement, calling it their commitment to “social justice”, is hoping to garner the support of the majority and dominant communities too in order to retain power in the 2018 polls.
The BJP suspects it is a ploy from the part of the Congress party to break the Lingayat community ahead of the 2018 assembly polls. Lingayats are known to be traditional votebanks of the BJP and it is one of the larger and politically stronger communities in the state. Amid the demand for recognition as a separate religion, the community seeking a minority community tag is being read as a Congress-engineered move to absorb Lingayats into the Ahinda fold.
A day after the BJP leaders and Sri Vishvesha Tirtha Swami of Pejawar Math asserted that Lingayats were integral part of Hindu community, Lingayat ministers launched a verbal attack against the BJP and the RSS, stating the Sangh Parivar's Hindutva agenda was in contrary to the teaching of Basavanna.
Rayaraddi argued that Lingayat was an independent religion founded by 12th century social reformer Basavanna, which is opposed to the Hindu's vedic culture and varna system. While it might have its origins in Hinduism, it does not subscribe to the Hindtva ideology propagated by Sangh Parivar.
Water resources minister M.B. Patil seconded Rayaraddi and said, “We don't want non-Lingayats to interfere in this matter. Yeddyurappa is in the clutches of the RSS and is not behaving like a Lingayat leader. The Lingayat philosophy is scientific and progressive and based on equality for all. If only we had popularised the Basava philosophy, it would have emerged as a globally recognised religion. The community remained under the shadows of the Hindu religion till now but not any more.”
The movement to delink Lingayats from Hindu religion is not new.
Karnataka, which is estimated to have 60 lakh Lingayats, belonging to more than 60-odd subsects; they were accorded backward caste status.
During the 2011 Census, the community leaders had made an appeal to its members to reject their classification under Hindu and opt for others.
Says Mate Mahadevi, head of Basava Dharma Peeta, “Lingayats are not Hindus, as we have a separate guru (Basavanna) and follow his vachanas and not the Vedic scriptures followed by the Hindus. Ours is a secular cult that is based on social equality.”
The massive rally held at Bidar last week saw Lingayats from Karnataka, Telangana and Maharashtra gather at Nehru Maidan to demand for a separate 'religious minority' status. But the political twist to the agitation has caught the BJP unawares. Meanwhile, Yeddyurappa is said to have asked his partymen to abstain from jumping into the debate. The BJP is buying time to consult its MLAs and leaders from the community before countering the latest salvo of the Congress party.
