The Congress has always believed that it has a divine right to rule the country. But, now, Sonia Gandhi-led party also thinks it can establish religions! The Congress Government’s decision in Karnataka to accord a minority religious status to the Lingayat community is a brazen attempt to divide the Hindu community in the State and create fissures among the Lingayats.
Clearly, the Congress believes that even dividing the Hindu faith is acceptable if it can meet its electoral goal. Karnataka will vote for a new Assembly in a couple of months from now, and the Lingayats form nearly 17 per cent of the State’s population. They have enough influence to determine the results in nearly 100 of the 224 constituencies. The Congress is playing a dangerous game for short-term gains.
The Karnataka Government has justified the decision on the ground that a panel set up by the Government had recommended the religious minority tag for the Lingayats and that there had been demands from within the community itself for it. These are unsustainable explanations. It is true that the Lingayats follow the spiritual path laid down by social reformer Basavanna who believed in a ‘formless’ Shiva, and that he had reservations about the many practices which the Vedas have laid down.
But that is not a good enough reason for the Lingayats to be recognised as a people who follow a separate religion. There are many different strands in Hinduism — and that is the great quality of this religion — and quite a few of them defy practices and traditions held sacred for centuries. But that has not made them any less of a Hindu. For instance, the Vedantists are as much Hindus as the Vedic ones; and believers in the Nirgun are no less Hindus than those who hold the Sagun as supreme. Basavanna had not announced the established of a separate religion as a rebellion against Hinduism. Interestingly, there is division even within the larger Lingayat community, with the Veershaivas angry over the religious minority status.
Clashes broke out in Karnataka soon after the State Government announced its decision to accept the panel’s recommendation, and the fear is that the issue would be exploited in the days to come in ugly ways. Only 24 hours before this move, Congress president Rahul Gandhi had grandly stated at the party’s plenary session that the Congress stood for the unity of the people. Dividing the Hindu community not just on sectoral lines but also by wrenching one sect out of Hinduism’s fold itself, is a bad example of unity.
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