Politics over Lingayats

Ramakrishna Upadhya
Senior Bengaluru-based journalist

The teachings and vachanas of Basavanna or Basaveshwara, the 12th century philosopher and social reformer, are known to Kannadigas for a long time. Perhaps, there is not a single home in Karnataka that does not have a few books of his vachanas. 

In April 2017, on its golden jubilee, Bengaluru-based Basava Samithi brought out 23 volumes of vachanas in 23 Indian languages and requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to release them in New Delhi to ensure wider publicity. Having unveiled a statue of Basavanna on the banks of River Thames in London in November 2015, Prime Minister Modi is aware of Basavanna's revolutionary work and his popularity in Karnataka.

With the the Assembly elections in Karnataka approaching, the BJP machinery also got into the act and the Basava Samithi programme in the national capital was turned into a glittering affair. 

The import of that event was not lost on Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. He knows that through such activities, the BJP's game plan is to completely win over the followers of Basavanna, known as Lingayats, who form nearly 17 per cent of the state's population.

As Basavanna's birth anniversary was approaching, in a brilliant counter-move, Siddaramaiah ordered that government offices would henceforth display a portrait of Basavanna along with the photos of Mahatma Gandhi and BR Ambedkar. The Lingayats were extremely happy.

To celebrate the announcement and felicitate the Chief Minister, the Veerashaiva Mahasabha, an umbrella Lingayat body, organised a huge rally in Bengaluru. Having been projected as anti-upper caste during his four-year rule, Siddaramaiah was pleased as punch with this felicitation.

He was more pleased when the office-bearers of the Mahasabha revived their demand to accord recognition to Lingayats as a separate religion and be given minority status. He knew that it had the potential to bring valuable votes to the Congress party, but he had to tread carefully.

Siddaramaiah deployed three Lingayat ministers in his cabinet — MB Patil, Basavaraj Rayareddy and Vivek Kulkarni — to organise rallies across the state with the help of pro-Lingayat sadhvis like Mate Mahadevi to garner support. At the academic level, retired IAS officer SM Jamadar and his team were busy unearthing records to show that the demand for a separate Lingayat religion had been raised at least since the 1940s and the Lingayats were following traditions distinct from the Hindus. 

Though Veerashaivas and Lingayats are generally clubbed together and used as synonyms, there is an undercurrent of tension between the two. The Veerashaivas follow Brahmanical practices and consider themselves superior to the Lingayats. 

Basavanna, who believed in a casteless society, converted thousands of people belonging to such lower castes as cobblers, weavers, blacksmiths and goldsmiths to 'Lingayatism'. He made them wear the 'Ista Linga' around the neck to create a sense of oneness and discouraged them from going to temples or following any Hindu rituals. But over a period of time, they could not be separated from Hinduism, though the hierarchical differences with the Veerashaivas and 'no inter-marriage pact' among the groups continued. 

Though Veerashaivas form only one-third of the group, they control most of the powerful mutts and educational institutions and dominate the political space as well as government jobs. It has led to a sense of deprivation among Lingayats that has fuelled the demand for a separate religion status.

Siddaramaiah was aware that in 2013, Yeddyurappa's KJP taking away 10 per cent of the Lingayat votes from the BJP helped the Congress to return to power. Now that Yeddyurappa was back in the BJP, he needed a plan to divide them.

The Chief Minister urged the Veerashaiva and Lingayat leaders to come together and present him a joint memorandum so that he did not have to take the blame for splitting the community. When that did not happen, he set up an expert committee headed by a retired high court judge, Nagmaohan Das, to submit a report. There were no experts on Lingayatism in that committee, but its job was to simply rubber-stamp the government's wish to recommend a separate status for the Lingayats, and it did just that.

With the Election Commission set to announce the poll date any time, Siddaramaiah had to move quickly. On March 19, his cabinet decided to recommend to the Centre to recognise Lingayats as a separate religion and accord them a minority status. A week later, a gazette notification was issued. Siddaramaiah cleverly managed the dissenting Veerashaiva ministers in his cabinet by convincing them that the minority status would actually benefit the educational institutions run by them.

When this was happening, the BJP leaders had been stunned into silence because they could neither support nor oppose the government's move. They accused Siddaramaiah of dividing the Hindu community for political gain and secretly hoped that the Lingayats would see through his game and continue to back the BJP and Yeddyurappa, who has the best chance of becoming the chief minister.

A lot of churning is currently going on within the Veerashaiva-Lingayat community, especially in the Lingayat heartland of Mumbai-Karnataka, Hyderabad-Karnataka and central Karnataka where Lingayats are a dominant force and where 116 out of 224 seats are at stake.

So, when Karnataka voters go to the polls on May 12, Siddaramaiah's gamble could either pay off or boomerang spectacularly on the Congress.