In Karnataka, Congress Tries To Prove Amit Shah Missed A Trick

Bengaluru: For nearly three decades, the Lingayats, a powerful upper caste group in Karnataka, have voted for the BJP, whose presumptive Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa is the most statured leader of the community. The prosperous Lingayats were believed till recently to form 17% percentage of the state's population and are governed by a cluster of about 1,000 mathas or religious seminaries, each with its own spiritual head.

Two days ago, it was one of these leaders that presented BJP chief Amit Shah with a letter that is being interpreted as a new couple alert - a pairing of the Lingayats with the Congress, which just a week back said that the Lingayats should be recognized as a religious minority - like the Jains or Sikhs or Buddhists. The BJP says the Congress is trying to skim political support with a move that will divide Hindus.

But Lingayats have long held that they are not to be mixed with Hindus. "Those who believe this decision threatens the Hindu religion are exaggerating. It's too vast and rooted to be in any danger," said the Siddalinga Swami of a prominent Lingayat seminary in North Karnataka. "We are not anti-Hindu, but we don't subscribe to some tenets of Hinduism. This can pose a problem only to those people who speak in favour of an undivided Hindu society, but never act against the ills that plague it. They want to maintain status quo, we are challenging it."
 Unexpectedly, the Lingayats are now the central flash point between the Congress and the BJP. Rahul Gandhi visited a large Lingayat math in February. Amit Shah tweeted that he visited another today.

The Lingayats were formed as a sect in the 12th century by the social reformer Basavanna who rejected the caste system and championed gender equality. Their support to the BJP surged in 1990, when Congress leader and former premier Rajiv Gandhi abruptly removed a Lingayat leader as Chief Minister. When the BJP won Karnataka in 2008, marking its first government in the south, the Lingayats were a large part of its success. The community influences the results of at least 100 of the 224 constituencies in the state.

On May 12, Karnataka will vote for its next government. The incumbent Congress administration, led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, congregates the support of Hindu minorities, backward classes and Dalits, collectively acronym-ed "AHINDA".

Word play on that was offered earlier this week by Amit Shah when he said the Chief Minister is "not AHINDA but A-Hindu or anti-Hindu." His speech was made at a rally in Central Karnataka. He urged Lingayat spiritual leaders to keep the community united in support of the BJP.
 The Lingayat demand to be treated as a complete religion is more than a century old but gathered momentum after a series of rallies last year that regularly drew more than one lakh attendees across the Lingayat heartland that includes Bidar, Belgaum, Hubballi and Dharwad in North Karnataka. "This massive show of strength could not have taken place without the support of the Congress which hopes to benefit electorally from a split in the Lingayats between those who believe they are not Hindus and those who don't have a problem with their Hindu identity," a group of college students in Dharwad told NDTV. "For the rest of the state's six-crore people like us, this is a non-issue, let them fight it out amongst themselves."

They are referring to the rivalry between the traditional Lingayats and a sub-set called the Veerashaivas who subscribe to the Vedas, pray to Lord Shiva, and do not reject Hindu rituals and traditions. The Lingayats say they are not Hindus; the Veerashavias say there is no difference between the two.

Till the Congress made its stealth move on seeking the recognition of the Lingayats as a religious minority, the BJP was confident of its hold on the community. In 2015, a caste census still not officially declared but leaked to the media found that the Lingayats and Vokkaligas, the two dominant and competing upper castes, had fallen to 10 and 8 percent of the population.
 The census' supposed findings hold the potential to puncture the political importance accorded to both castes-they currently account for half the MPS and MLAs in every party. The opposition accused Mr Siddaramaiah of manufacturing the numbers to strengthen his AHINDA - Minorities, OBCs and Dalits- coalition ahead of the assembly polls. The Chief Minister belongs to a backward shepherd community.

Mr Siddaramaiah decided to ignore the Vokkaligas who are unflinchingly loyal to their leader and former Chief Minister HD Deve Gowda. The Lingayats, however, he worked quickly to propitiate. A year ago, he ordered all government offices to display aportrait of Basavanna- a decision swiftly implemented -and renamed a women's university in North Karnataka after the Lingayatpoet-saint Akka Mahadevi."The religious minority tag will allow politicians and more than a 1,000 Lingayat mathas, many of whom run educational institutions, to qualify for government funds and use them independently. It will also allow for 50 per cent of all seats in these schools and colleges to be reserved for members of the community. Even Mr Yeddyurappa, the tallest Lingayat leader has not done so much for them," said M.K Patil principal of a prominent Lingayat-run college in the district of Gadag in North Karnataka.

After the Siddaramaiah government's new move, the BJP was caught between a rock and a hard place just weeks ahead of elections. If it supported the Lingayat demand, it would undermine the unified Hindu society that its ideological mentor, the RSS, seeks and idealizes; it would also contradict the party's successfully tested strategy of consolidating all Hindu voters. Denouncing the move, on the other hand, would likely rewrite the commitment of a core support group.
 Some BJP leaders say the effect will be minimal. "This is an emotive issue which might influence a small section of the urban, educated Lingayats, but in rural areas, where the larger community lives and works, there are other more real concerns of anti-incumbency which have not been addressed for the last five years," claims Arvind Bellad, the BJP MLA from Hubbali-Dharwad West.

But the flip-flops of BS Yeddyurappa have made the BJP's stand tricky. He told NDTV from Bengaluru, "There is no difference between the Veerashaivas and Lingayats -they are a part of Hinduism". Therefore, he said, the Lingayats are not in any way a separate religion. But in 2012, when he quit the BJP (he returned less than two years later), he had signed a petition asking for just that.

He is not the only one to have see-sawed. In 2013, the central government of Dr Manmohan Singh had also spurned the Lingayat demand.

For the Congress, even a portion of the Lingayats switching to the party could offset losses it might incur elsewhere in the state, especially in the coastal districts of Dakshin Kannada, Uttar Kannada and Udupi. Here the BJP is hoping to reclaim its traditional bastion through an aggressive mobilisation of Hindu votes. (In 2013, the BJP won just 5 of the 22 seats from here, the Congress 13.) The BJP's campaign in the region is being led by two of its most divisive leaders, junior minister Anant Hegde and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minster Yogi Adityanath.
 For all leaders harvesting the Lingayat issue for votes, the Siddalinga Swami of the Tontadarya Math has a warning. "They must remember that for the Lingayats, the survival of Lingayatism is more important than the survival of political parties. We are loyal to our beliefs, not to any political leader or organisation."