MB Patil, Vinay Kulkarni, S P Patil and Basvaraj Rayareddy, all ministers in the ruling Congress led by Siddaramiah in Karnataka, have a spring in their step. Spearheads of the movement for a separate religion tag for the Lingayat community, these ministers had much to be happy about at the huge turnout witnessed at the rally they had organised in support of their cause at Kalaburgi last week.

The Lingayat community members came from all parts of north Karnataka, Maharasthra, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana. This was perhaps the biggest of the recent rallies that had been organised to promote the cause, the last ones having been in Bidar and Belgavi.

For the Congress ministers, the success of the rally was a clear indication of the huge support that their campaign is getting. Even chief minister Siddaramiah would have been pleased no end considering the discreet support he is providing to his ministers, notwithstanding his public comments to the contrary.

The Congress game plan is clear.

It wants to split the Lingayat vote on which the BJP banks. The opposition party’s chief ministerial candidate, B S Yeddyurappa, a Lingayat himself, enjoys the support of the dominant community which accounts for nearly 17 per cent of Karnataka’s six crore population. More importantly, nearly 100 of the 224 assembly seats elections to which are scheduled around AprilMay 2018, come from north Karnataka.

While in 2008, Yeddyurappa was able to take the BJP to power riding on the huge support he got from the Lingayat community, in 2013 he split that vote bank after forming the Karnataka Janata Paksha. He formed the KJP after moving away from his parent party. The result was evident from the fact that the split caused the BJP to lose over 30 seats from north Karnataka with the party barely managing 40 seats overall in the 2013 assembly polls.

While the KJP itself only got six seats, Yeddyurappa did blank out the BJP thanks to the division in the Lingayat support. Now that he is back with the BJP, the former chief minister is fighting to ensure that the Congress move does not erode the Lingayat vote base. Essentially, both the Lingayats and the Veerashaivas form part of the Lingayat community.

In fact, the terms are often used synonymously. The difference, highlighted by M B Patil, is that the Lingayats follow social reformer Basavanna who in the 12th century spread his radical views against the Vedas and untouchability. He promoted widow remarriage while promoting gender equality. According to S M Jamdar, former bureaucrat and Lingayat Mahasabha co-ordinator, Basavanna dismissed everything about the Hindu religion while rebelling against it.

The Lingayat movement, therefore, rebelled against the Brahmanical system even as it rejected the varna ashrama concept, multiplicity of gods, priesthood, animal sacrifice and the tradition of rituals. Basavanna, he said, had also dismissed the concept of rebirth and karma.

In sharp contrast, the Veerashaivas within the Lingayatcommunity worship ‘Shiva’ as god while following several Hindu practices. The Lingayats worship Shiva in his formless state even as they reject all things Vedic. For a long time the Lingayats who are pure vegetarians, did not have much to fall back on in terms of their religious texts.

This was because their vachanas or prose texts written on palm leaves were misplaced in the latter part of the 12th century, Mr Jamdar explained to The Statesman. It was only some 150 years ago that over 22,000 vachanas were discovered from different places with the teaching and poems contained in them strengthening and boosting the followers of Basavanna.

In fact, according to Patil, Basavanna should have been accorded the same status and reverence as Buddha or Jesus Christ considering the impact of his teachings and the accompanying social reforms that he brought about. This explains the demand for a separate religion status for Lingayats. Other experts add that a separate tag will help the Lingayat community to be declared as a minority. In other words, this would help the Lingayats, known for running several educational institutes a free hand in governing them.

The separate tag is not acceptable to the Veerashaiva Lingayats whose practices are akin to those followed by the Hindus. Ironically, a few decades ago, the Veerashaivas themselves wanted that Veerashaiva Lingayats be accorded a separate religion status, a demand that was rejected by the Central government. Today, the Lingayats among the community who follow Basavanna are demanding the same status while even arguing that the Veerashaivas can always move away as a separate sect.

The Veerashaivas, who hailed largely from what is known as Andhra Pradesh today, moved to present day north Karnataka fascinated by Basavanna’s teachings and became his followers. They believed in him and his teachings till about 200 years ago before reverting to their own practices which included belief in vedic scriptures, pujas and related Hindu customs. The question that arises today is why the controversy about Lingayats and Veerashaivas being different has been raised now. The answer is simple. This is purely a political issue considering that assembly elections are barely a few months away.

The Congress wants to hit the BJP where it hurts. For a party whose majority support comes from the Lingayats, this would be a telling blow in the event the community is split. Patil and others who spearhead the movement, however, maintain that theirs is an on-going movement and not something that has cropped up now. The BJP, incidentally, finds itself in a dilemma. If it supports the separate religion tag, it would annoy its Veerashaiva Lingayat support bank. This could hit its Hindu support base too. Conversely, if the party does not support the Lingayats, then it faces the prospect of losing their support.

Either way, as of now it is a winwin situation for the Congress which is enjoying the discomfort of its main opponent. In short, the BJP finds itself in a paradoxical situation which also explains its silence so far. This also underlines why the BJP central leadership has asked Yeddyurappa to move from his normal seat in Shikaripura in Shimoga district and to contest from Lingayat-dominated north Karnataka during the 2018 polls.

The party would not like to miss any opportunity to realise its avowed objective of winning 150 seats in the 2018 elections and must woo the Lingayats. However, the controversy has also impacted the Congress. Today many in the Lingayat community sees its move for a Lingayat religion tag as an attempt to divide an otherwise peaceful section of society.

What has hurt, even angered the community, however, is the gaffe committed by Patil in dragging Swami Shivakumar, the 110-year-old seer of the Siddaganga mutt, Tumkur, into the controversy, according to a senior Lingayat leader. The minister had claimed two weeks ago that the revered seer, also referred to as the “walking God,” had supported his move for a separate religion tag for the Lingayat community. This was promptly contested by the mutt the next day leaving Patil red faced.

His supporters, however, attributed the developments to “the pressure tactics of the BJP”, taking care to emphasise that the revered seer could not be dragged into any controversy. They did not lose any opportunity though to accuse the BJP of playing politics.

A section of senior Congressmen admit in private that the mutt controversy in particular could backfire on the party. But at least one group of Karnataka ministers that is spearheading the separate religion tag for Lingayatism believes it has struck on a winning formula.

(The writer is The Statesman’s Bengaluru-based Special Representative)