42 highlights
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Deep inside, in the oldest part of the fort, is what is generally thought to be the remnants of the 12th century Kalachuri king Bijjala II’s court in which Basava was the prime minister, and under whose rule, for a brief while, the “ideal” Lingayat society flourished.
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Basavakalyan is a popular place of pilgrimage. By the time of his elevation as prime minister, Basava had gathered a scintillating set of radical thinkers around him from all castes, including what were the untouchable castes at the time. He had also established his reputation as a revolutionary thinker whose message was well ahead of his time.
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His followers and peers, who were called sharanas, developed a society which had as its main tenets gender, caste and class equality and the repudiation of rituals. For Basava, Siva (God) was within.
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While Basava himself came from a Brahmin family, the society in which he lived saw a boom in vachana literature written by “lower caste” writers.
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In a revolutionary act of sorts, the sharanas blessed the marriage between the son of a cobbler called Samagara Haraliah and the daughter of a Brahmin named Madhuvarasa, egregiously breaching the social norm. “The Brahmins were wild about it and complained to Bijjala that this was not dharma. The king accepted this, and his soldiers started attacking the sharanas,”
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Basava was affected by the violence and left the city for Kudalasangama (around 300 kilometres away in the south-west) where he had spent some part of his youth. In the melee that ensued, Bijjala was murdered in the fort and the sharanas were killed or chased out of the kingdom.
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Accounts vary as to whether Basava himself was murdered or he died a natural death in Kudalasangama, but it is recorded that his life ended here.
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The fall of Kalyana, as Basavakalyan was known then, thus occupies a poignant spot in the collective memory of Lingayats.
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Things are vastly different now. Lingayats are a numerically large group in Karnataka and form a dominant community with tremendous influence in the political, economic and social arenas.
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The turnaround started in the 15th century when a few Lingayats got the patronage of Deva Raya II of Vijayanagara and, subsequently, from other rulers in the region.
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This led to two things that happened simultaneously over the next few centuries. First, there was a massive expansion in the power and influence of the community as its members became part of the landed gentry and accumulated wealth and social privileges.
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The second development was that as the community became part of the state apparatus, its distinct identity got diluted as it was appropriated into the larger Hindu fold. “This is also the time when Veerashaivas entered the scene and created their mathas,” said Darga. The lines between the separate Lingayat identity and mainstream Brahminical Hinduism got blurred.
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The usage of Siva in the vachanas provided an entry point to Brahmins during the 15th century
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In a profound irony, Basava’s movement, which originally started out against the Vedic caste system, became a “caste” next only to Brahmins in the ritual hierarchy of the region of modern Karnataka.
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The argument for a separate Lingayat religion, which reached its critical phase over the past year, is premised on the fact that Basava rebelled against Vedic rituals and caste hierarchy.
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Kalburgi, especially, was a crusader for the cause, and some of his intellectual comrades feel that he was assassinated because of his aggressive reiteration that Lingayats were not Hindus.
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This argument becomes complicated as Veerashaivas also claim to be part of the Lingayat community although the basis of their faith is the Vedas. What complicates the demand further is that while a separate Lingayat religion can probably be justified historically and theologically, there is a vast difference between its principles and its actual practice, which has been influenced by mainstream Hinduism.
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Considering that the Vedas and caste are the basis of Brahminical Hinduism, how could Lingayats be part of Hinduism?
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The few who claim to follow the principles of Basava truly do not go to temples or practise idol worship; instead, they use the “ishta linga” (a marble-sized stone in a casing that they wear on their body) to focus their meditative energies.
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The agitation for separate religious status for Lingayats has been going on for a few decades now, but it received a fillip over the last year when the community mobilised lakhs of its members in five massive rallies in Karnataka. Finally, in a notification in March, the State government recommended that Lingayats and Veerashaiva-Lingayats who follow the principles of Basava be recognised as a separate religious group.
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Until a few years ago, it was estimated that Lingayats formed between 15 and 17 per cent of the State’s population on the basis of the reports of four backward classes commissions
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In the early part of his regime, the Siddaramaiah government also undertook a comprehensive socio-economic survey that covered caste. These data have not been revealed, but according to leaks Lingayats constitute only around 59 lakh, or 9.8 per cent, of the State’s population.
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Veerashaivism, a Saivite order, pervaded the Lingayat faith sometime in the 15th century. For a long time, the terms Veerashaiva and Lingayat were used synonymously, but over the past year several scholars have made the distinction between the two clear.
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Veerashaivas do not follow the principles of Basava but are the followers of Renukacharya. They are also the followers of the pancha (five) peethas, Vedic rituals and the Brahminical caste system.
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Seen strictly, there is no theological basis for Veerashaivism to be recognised as a separate religion as its adherents do not follow the principles of Basava. This is the bone of contention between the two groups.
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We are different from Veerashaivas as we believe in one God, not 33 crore gods. Our worship is in Kannada and not Sanskrit and we do not believe in any Vedic rituals or idol worship. Our Siva is the ‘Ishta linga’, their Siva is different. We do not have any caste and gender distinctions as well.
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The seer then explained the six steps to follow in the Lingayat faith: Bhakta (devotion), Mahesha (unquestionable devotion), pranaligi (soul), prasadi (god in everything), sharana (god is everywhere), and aikya (unification).
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An important point concerns the manner of mobilisation of ordinary Lingayats. There is a vast gulf between the leadership and the ordinary Lingayats in whom Hindu rituals are ingrained. The influence of caste has pervaded Lingayats to the point that they even have subcastes (some say 90) among them
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There is also a priestly class among Lingayats called the jangamas, who are mostly identified as Veerashaivas. They preside over rituals relating to birth, marriage and death.
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Organisations such as the Basava Dala and the Basava Kendra have been working relentlessly over the past few decades to bring awareness among Lingayats, but the question is whether the move to grant separate religion status means that ordinary Lingayats will move closer to Basava’s credo in the future.
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Significantly, a point that has not been highlighted sufficiently is that a large number of Lingayats have also been mobilised on the basis of benefits that will accrue to their community.
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If Lingayats are recognised as a separate religious group, it is deemed that they will also be recognised as a religious minority and have certain privileges in running educational institutions under Articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution. This seems ironic considering that Lingayats are a dominant community already.
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Lingayats of Mahagaon constituted dominance as defined by the sociologist M.N. Srinivas, with numerical, economic and political dominance
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So even if the community is relatively prosperous, the talk of benefits dominates all conversations in Mahagaon.
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Though unsure of what benefits they would actually get if they were designated as a minority, they were clear that they were endorsing the demand for a separate religion as it would ensure benefits. The subcastes among Lingayats are already granted reservation in a number of categories for recruitment to government jobs and for selection in government-run educational institutions, but the demand seems to be that the community should be given even more benefits as a bloc.
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In caste atrocities against Dalits, Lingayats lead in north Karnataka where vestiges of feudalism still prevail in rural agrarian relations because of inefficient land reforms that have taken place here compared with southern and coastal Karnataka.
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Politically, Lingayats, along with Vokkaligas, have a disproportionately high representation in the Legislative Assembly. There are 47 Lingayat MLAs in the 224-member Assembly. Since the formation of the State of Karnataka, eight Chief Ministers have been Lingayats.
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Conversations with journalists from north Karnataka reiterate the general notion that Lingayats are strong supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
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After the exit of Congress Chief Minister S. Nijalingappa, who was a Lingayat, the community shifted its political support to the opposition. Ramakrishna Hegde, who was in the Janata Party at the time, became their favourite leader even though he was a Brahmin. When Hegde allied himself with the BJP in the 1990s, Lingayats moved to the BJP and began to see B.S. Yeddyurappa as their leader.
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The logical beneficiary of the move by Siddaramaiah to recognise Lingayats as a separate religious group is the Congress. Even if the party gets support from a part of the community, and if these votes are added to its traditional support base of Muslims, Dalits and Other Backward Classes, the Congress stands to gain a large number of seats all over north Karnataka. But the Congress cannot afford to be complacent as there is simmering anger among ordinary Lingayats that Siddaramaiah has divided them. It is also clear that staunch Veerashaivas will not be voting for the Congress and are ideologically more aligned with the BJP.
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The ideological aim of Hindutva in uniting all Hindu castes under the monolith of Hinduism will be considerably weakened if communities that have been brought into the broad Hindu fold start seeking an escape from it. Because of the amorphous nature of Hinduism, any caste can seek independent religion status. This does not bode well for the BJP in the long run.
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“The followers of the Basava who wears a crown and sits astride a horse are more than the followers of the Basava of the vachanas,”