New Delhi: The Union government has filed an affidavit in the Karnataka high court countering the batch of petitions filed against constituting a panel by the Karnataka State Minorities Commission to probe the demand for according a separate religious status to Lingayats. In the affidavit filed on Tuesday, the central government said that the census conducted by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India in 2011, had notified the Lingayat/Veerashaiva Lingayat sect as part of the Hindu religion alongside other sects, said a report in the Deccan Herald. The counter affidavit categorically rejected the idea that Veerashaiva-Lingayat is an independent religion.
The affidavit further stated that there are no prescribed criteria for declaring any community as a religious minority under the National Commission for Minorities Act 1992. However, the advice of various central government ministries or departments, the National Commission for Minorities and other organisations concerned and stakeholders have to be taken into consideration, before declaring a community as a minority community.
The Lingayats form a numerically strong community of Karnataka. Their demand to be recognised as a religion separate from the Hindus has been growing louder over the years. They are followers of the 12th-century social reformer-philosopher-poet Basaveshwara. The Lingayats contend that Basaveshwara defied the caste system and Vedic rituals and the premise of this rebellion was rooted in opposition to the established Hindu order. Though Lingayats worship Shiva, they say the concept of ‘Ishta Linga’ (personal god) and rules of conduct prescribed by Basaveshwara cannot be equated to the Hindu way of life.
Many scholars, including M.M. Kalburgi, who was killed by unknown assailants in 2015, has argued that the Lingayat tradition is non-Hindu in spirit. Religious heads too have joined the chorus for a separate identity, including Mate Maha Devi, the first woman seer of the faith who has often courted controversy, the Hindu stated.
Prior to the assembly elections this May, the demand for a separate religion by Lingayats eventually became a talking point in the pre-election debates in Karnataka. Following a convention in 2017, the Akhila Bharata Veerashaiva Mahasabha petitioned Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to recognise Lingayats as a separate sect. They had twice petitioned the Centre with a similar demand, only to be rejected.
According to the Deccan Chronicle, the Central government stated that the recommendation of the state government is pending before the Centre and it will look into the matter. The court adjourned the hearing to August 29.