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Yeddyurappa Goes Against BJP Stand on Lingayats, Says ‘I Support Mahasabha Decision’
The BJP has accused Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of “playing
with fire for vote back politics” while Congress has said that
Yeddyurappa himself had signed on the demand to accord Lingayats an
independent religion status.

Deepa Balakrishnan | CNN-News18deepab18

Updated: March 20, 2018, 8:00 AM IST

File photo of state BJP chief B S Yeddyurappa.

Bengaluru: While the BJP on Monday slammed the Karnataka government for
its decision to recommend separate religion status for Lingayats, its
state unit chief BS Yeddyurappa seems to be in a dilemma over his take
on the issue and said that BJP stands by the all-India Veerashaiva
Mahasabha’s decision.

The BJP, on the other hand, accused
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah of “playing with fire for vote
back politics” while Congress has said that Yeddyurappa himself had
signed on the demand to accord Lingayats an independent religion status,
him being the tallest Lingayat leader in the state.

Ending
months of speculation, the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in
Karnataka on Monday decided to ask the Centre to recognise the Lingayats
as an independent religion and put the ball in BJP’s court.

After a marathon cabinet meeting and informal discussion with the
powerful Lingayat seers, the state government declared that it would
send the recommendation to the Centre. The state cabinet has decided to
accept the recommendations of the Justice Nagamohan Das Committee which
had asked the state to accord a separate religion tag to Lingayats.

BJP general secretary in-charge of Karnataka P Muralidhar Rao accused
the state’s ruling Congress of practising a “divide and rule” policy.

“Congress carrying ‘Divide and Rule’ legacy of Britishers in India.
Siddaramaiah ji is playing with fire for vote bank politics. Why has
Congress done this before elections? Why haven’t they done it 4 years
back?” he said in a tweet.

The Cabinet decision has put the main
opposition BJP in a fix as Lingayats are the backbone of the BJP in
Karnataka. Its CM candidate BS Yeddyurappa is also a Lingayat and the
saffron party in the state is in a dilemma.

“Now that the state
government has come up with this recommendation, the all India
Veerashaiva Mahasabha should immediately call a meeting, discuss the
pros and cons of this recommendation and be a guiding light to society.
This is my appeal,” said Yeddyurappa in his statement.

In a
significant move, the Congress government in poll-bound Karnataka on
Monday decided to recommend to the Centre granting religious minority
tag to the numerically strong and politically influential Lingayat and
Veerashaiva Lingayat communities.

The Cabinet meeting convened to
discuss the issue was chaotic, claim insiders. Some argued that it
should be called Lingayat religion and the others insisted that it
should be called Veerashaiva–Lingayat religion. However, the expert
committee had recommended that it should be called only Lingayat
religion.

Lingayats are the followers of 12th Century social
reformer and mystic Basavanna or Basaveshwara. A Brahmin by birth,
Basavanna revolted against the Hindu caste system and founded Lingayat
religion to create a casteless society.

The Veerashaivas are a
Shaiva sect and not considered a part of Lingayats. However, they insist
that they are also Lingayats and the religion should include them too.
But some scholars argue that Veerashaivas are a part of Hinduism and not
the followers of Basavanna.

—
Peace Is Doable

https://mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1/messages/48916
21 Mar at 7:03 AM

BJP’s Forays in North Eastern States and anti Minority Agenda

Ram Puniyani

From last couple of decades one is coming across the pamphlets,
leaflets and other material containing the propaganda that Christian
missionaries are converting the people at rapid pace; the examples
mostly given have been those of the North Eastern states. This
propaganda has been extensively used at pan India level, particularly
before elections in most of the states. It is this propaganda which
formed the base of hate against Christians and we witnessed the ghastly
murder of Pastor Graham Stewart Stains, the horrific Kandhmal violence,
and low intensity anti Christian violence and attacks on Churches in
different parts of the country. So how come BJP, the party flaunting it
Ram Temple, Mother cow and Hindu nationalism could make its inroads into
an area where many states Christianity is the religion with good
presence, where beef eating is part of the people’s dietary habits and
where different tribes with diverse and clashing political interests
articulate their aspirations by forming various groups which have been
asking for separate state for their tribes.

While the situation
in each state is different, there is a pattern of BJP strategy, which in
a flexible manner, supplemented by massive resources, near perfect
electoral machinery and the backing of its parent organization’s
swayamsevaks is getting the cake in state after state. In Assam it
focused mainly on the Bangladeshi immigrants, the Muslims swamping the
state and threatening that Hindus will be reduced to a minority. It was
clever enough to strike alliances even with separatist organizations.
Most of the regional organization in the area looks at Congress as the
party which has not focused on the development work, and BJP while at
one level abuses those differing with its ideology as ‘anti nationals’,
has no compunctions at all in allying with those who have been talking
of separate state or even secession. In Tripura left government; despite
its clean record; failed to fulfill the aspirations of tribal and OBCs
in matters of reservation. It also failed miserably in creating
employment opportunities for the youth which gave the ground to BJP to
promise and create the illusion of development.

BJP here mainly
harped on two major factors. One is the promise of development. As by
now its claims of development all over the country stand exposed as mere
vote catching slogans, in North East they still could sell Modi as a
development man. Manik Sarkar’s failure to implement the new pay
commissions must have hurt the large numbers as they are still stuck at
fourth pay commission while talk of seventh pay commission is in the
air. In Tripura, they could also harp on ‘Hindus are Refugees: Muslim is
infiltrators’ to influence the Bengali Hindu votes. In tribal area, RSS
swayamsevaks working consistently by organizing religious functions,
opening schools etc. from long time have succeeded in turning the
tables, as Manik Sarkar Government failed to address the needs of
Tribal’s in matters of opportunities. In matters of beef, BJP openly
took a hypocritical line that their ban on cow slaughter and eating
beef, which is being imposed in different parts of country; will not be
enforced in North East. As such also one knows that like most of the
issues raised by RSS-BJP, holy cow is a political tool for dividing the
society and when the crunch comes they manipulate the issue as they have
done in Kerala and Goa on the issue of beef and cow slaughter.

In a very loud manner, towering over Christian voters, Mr. Modi talked
of rescuing 46 nurses in ISIS captivity in Iraq and Father Alex
Premkumar from Taliban captivity. What can one say on these issues? Were
they rescued as they were Indians or were they rescued because they
belong to a particular religion? As is the wont with Modi type politics,
they do take advantage of these incidents in a crass political manner.
Despite the fact that their ideology regards Christians and Muslims as
foreigners they do at the same time manipulate these identities for
electoral gains. In Tripura the majority of Congress and TMC MLAS
migrated to BJP as well as the electoral support shifted to BJP. What
worked for BJP here was the anti Bangladeshi sentiment along with the
illusory promise of development.

In Meghalaya, the situation is
different. Though Congress did emerge as the single largest party and
logically is should have been given the chance to form the Government,
the Hindu nationalist Governor, thought otherwise and the second largest
party, in alliance with practically everybody including BJP are going
to form the Government. Here the failure of BJP to win over electorate
is writ large on the results, what is putting them in the camp of power,
is the alliance with a regional party, which has not been having
amicable attitude and relations to Congress. The role of BJP’s all round
clout including money and muscle is the undercurrent of the story.

There is lot of lessons for left in Tripura to learn. Issue of
addressing problems of youth, Tribal and OBC are paramount. In addition
the issue of BJP manipulating in all possible ways to come to power is
something, which can be ignored at the risk of severe declines in the
electoral power of the left and other parties. What is being labeled as
Karat line, not allying with Congress, will surely decimate the left in
times to come, probably sooner than later, as this line underestimates
the potential and the deeper agenda of BJP-RSS. It ignores the threat of
powerful electoral machine built by BJP over a period of time and its
capability to manipulate issues, like beef and conversion by Christian
missionaries, is different parts of the country, taking two opposite
positions and getting away with it!

The emotive politics
unleashed by BJP RSS is visible again in the form of attacking Lenin’s
statue and attacks on CPM workers. What is in store for future of the
region if democratic forces don’t rise to the occasion is anybody’s
guess!