Kannada litterateur and Saraswathi Samman recipient S.L. Bhyrappa has termed the present debate on religion status for Lingayat community as “born out of political conspiracy” to divide the Hindu community for electoral gains.
In a detailed statement released here on Friday, Mr. Bhyrappa said there was a general perception among the public that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had stoked the controversy to give a new lease of life to a dormant issue to divide the “politically astute and dominant community” in a bid to weaken the support base of BJP president B.S. Yeddyurappa.
“There was also a strong belief among a section of the people that this has the blessings of the AICC chief Sonia Gandhi and this cannot be discounted,” Mr. Bhyrappa added.
The British encouraged the tendency to divide different communities on the basis of caste and religion, and adopted it as a strategy to strengthen its rule in India. He alleged that the methodology adopted by it was similar to the one being adopted by the Congress in Karnataka by alienating Veerashaiva-Lingayats from Hindu society. There was a body of opinion that efforts to seek a separate religion tag was to circumvent stringent rules stipulated by the government that are not binding on other minority-run institutions or to seek reservation benefits, said the writer. Mr. Bhyrappa said it was a fallacy to imagine that reservation was the only panacea for a community and it was time not only for Lingayats but all Hindus to adhere to the true values of egalitarianism preached by saint reformer Basaveshwara.
He said there was an increase in inter-caste marriages in society, and he wants all religious mutts to endorse it in a bid to weaken the caste system.
