Even as the ongoing agitation demanding an independent religion tag to Lingayat Dharma is gaining momentum, members of one of the sects of the Lingayats, who are associated with the movement, have decided to disassociate themselves with the word ‘Veerashaiva’.
The sect which has had a change of mind is the Hadapad community. It has decided to remove the word ‘Veerashaiva’ from it’s association name and replace it with ‘Lingayat’.
Hadapad Appanna, revered by the Hadapad community, was a barber by profession and was one of the associates of the 12th century social reformer Basaveshwara.
The primary occupation of the Hadapad community is running barber shops. They had formed an association naming it as ‘Veerashaiva Hadapad Appanna Udyoga Seva Kendra, which decided issues concerning their work and community issues.
Of late, the members of the community have been taking active part in rallies being held for an independent religion tag to Lingayats.
Now, community members have decided to rename the association as ‘Lingayat Hadapad Appanna Udyoga Seva Kendra’. The religious head of their community, Sri Annadanabharati Appanna Swami of Hadapad Appanna Samsthana Mutt, said: “For several years, we ignorantly mentioned the word ‘Veerashaiva’ in our association, but now we have realised that in reality we are Lingayats. Our community deity, Hadapad Appanna, was with Basaveshwara, who founded Lingayat religion. Therefore, we will now use Lingayat instead of Veerashaiva,” said the swami. Honorary president of the taluk unit Hadapad Samaj, Shivu Hadapad, said Basaveshwara gave recognition to small and marginal castes by bringing all of them under Lingayat religion. “We have realised our mistake. From here on, we will stick with ‘Lingayat’.
We will continue to be part of the Lingayat agitation as we consider Basaveshwara as our spiritual leader, who founded Lingayat religion and not Veerashaiva,” he said.
