Attempts to limit Basaveshwara’s philosophy won’t succeed: Beladal Sharanaru

Poojya Siddarama Beladal Sharanaru of Basava Yogashram decried the tendency among a section of religious heads to limit the 12th century social reformer Basaveshwara and his philosophy to one particular community.

Delivering the presidential address at the second state-level Vachana Sahitya Sammelan organised by the Karnataka Vachana Sahitya Academy in Kalaburagi on Sunday, he said that social reformer Basaveshwar did not just limit his movement to eradicate the caste system and give equal status to all the communities. He said the reformer used the movement as a modem to spread the message of equality and social justice.

He said that the Vachana sahitya had answers to all social evils and the ills of the society faced now and in the 12th century, Basaveshwara and his contemporaries had established Manaa Ekta Kendra to bring every single community under one platform.

He commended the efforts of the Karnataka Vacahana Sahitya Academy to popularise the vachanas when everybody were forgetting them and the importance of the vachanas in day-to-day life.

Former DGP Shankar Bidari, who inaugurated the Sammelan, said that the revolutionary ideas and the principle of social justice preached in the vachanas penned by the 12th century social reformers have been incorporated in the Indian Constitution by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. He said that the government was now thinking about introducing the Anti-superstition Bill to fight superstitious beliefs when the main plank of the social reformist movement of the 12th century was to fight superstition and blind beliefs in the name of religion.

Congress MLC Allamprabhu Patil, former MLC Shashil G. Namoshi, former member of the state backward class commission Thippanna Kamakanur, President of the Academy Vijaykumar Tegaltippi and Zilla Panchayat president Nitin Guttedar was present.