Once more, Karnataka is set for an “orange” versus “saffron” battle. I refer to the robust, and quite differentiated, network of (largely Lingayat) mathas (or monastic institutions), and their mathadishas (heads), who have charted a distinctive path for several centuries, and continue to defend their bastions against the aggrandising efforts of Hindutva.
The battle — and indeed it is a battle — is now for the fundamentals of a 12th century revolutionary movement that has its roots in a fierce critique of Brahminical Hinduism. In 2020, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi and then chief minister B S Yediyurappa began the task of cohering (and redeveloping) Basava’s Anubhava Mantapa (the purported site of the assembly of revolutionary mystics in the 12th century) to “Sanatana Pragatipara”, a progressive Hinduism. The oxymoron was contested by several Kannada litterateurs at the time, but the PM has gone on to add this historical example to his arsenal in support of India as the “mother of democracy”.
But many important Lingayat Swamis have held on to Basava’s 12th century rebellion as marking not only the repudiation of Brahminical Hinduism but also the start of a different religious practice. Panditaradhya Swami of Sanehalli was among those who objected to the portrayal in the revised textbooks of Karnataka under the BJP’s brief tenure, of Basava as a “reformer” of an existing Veerashaivism. He has once more stood up for the specificity of Lingayat practices by saying that the practice of invoking Ganesha before every public event is against the fundamentals of a Lingayat practice that is focussed only on the worship of the linga itself. He went further, in (rightly) tracing the ever-widening public celebration of the Ganesha festival as a historically recent practice, related more to the nationalist movement than to long-established religious rites.
Panditaradhya Swamiji heads the branch matha of the Taralabalu Bruhan matha, at Sanehalli, a village in the Chitradurga district of Karnataka. He has long been a patron of the arts, especially theatre, has established a repertory, and annually hosts a well-known national theatre festival at this matha, for which an impressive infrastructure has been built. During the controversy about a year ago over the introduction of eggs in the midday meal in several districts which have a pronounced problem of child malnutrition, which saw some mobilisation of the men in orange, the Swamiji had stood up for the right of people to decide what they should or should not eat.
He is, in short, among those mathadishas of Karnataka who routinely engage in the public, and indeed, developmental life of the state. The Swamis of the Tontadarya matha, Gadag, and the Nidumamidi matha in Kolar have routinely worked for an end to sectarian violence and actively campaigned for Dalit/lower caste self-redefinition. His senior Swamiji at Sirigere has long organised a weekly Nyaya Peetha in which cases ranging from environmental issues to family disputes are weighed and decided upon. Orange in Karnataka has long stood for several activities and practices that intersect with state, non-governmental or community art/culture activities. The term “secular” would only poorly describe the work of the matha in Karnataka, and may even diminish it.
Still, Panditaradhya Swamiji’s rejection of Ganesha worship as incompatible with the tenets of the Lingayat faith set off a frenzy among the zealous defenders of a unitary Hinduism. Not just the votaries of a unified Hindu practice, but Lingayats such as Basangouda Patil Yatnal, a disgruntled BJP politician, have decided to bestow the mantle of extremism on the Swamiji, by referring to him as the “Naxal in orange clothes”.
It is another matter that the Lingayat (Sharana) revolution of the mystics made many compromises with Brahminical Hinduism, and even at times attempted to trump it in its own backyard. What else can explain the extraordinary bouquet of legal cases from the late 19th century, in which aspiring, and often new, Lingayat mathas and their followers, fought for, and won, the right to chant the Vedas on the streets of Old Mysore state? What else explains the wide range of positions that Lingayats took from the late 19th century, vis-à-vis the census operations, now arguing for the status of a separate religion, arguing that it had a distinct “caste hierarchy” of its own? No doubt, too, the Lingayats of Karnataka routinely repudiate Basava’s immortal words “My legs are pillars/my body the shrine/My head a cupola of gold” through their growing patronage of temples. This makes Swamiji’s bold stand, against the practices of his flock, and against a neo-nationalist political Hinduism, all the more precious, as he redefines “fundamentalism” most profoundly.
Janaki Nair is a Bengaluru-based historian. The views expressed are personal
Orange versus saffron in Karnataka, again
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20.12.2023
Once more, Karnataka is set for an “orange” versus “saffron” battle. I refer to the robust, and quite differentiated, network of (largely Lingayat) mathas (or monastic institutions), and their mathadishas (heads), who have charted a distinctive path for several centuries, and continue to defend their bastions against the aggrandising efforts of Hindutva.
The battle — and indeed it is a battle — is now for the fundamentals of a 12th century revolutionary movement that has its roots in a fierce critique of Brahminical Hinduism. In 2020, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi and then chief minister B S Yediyurappa began the task of cohering (and redeveloping) Basava’s Anubhava Mantapa (the purported site of the assembly of revolutionary mystics in the 12th century) to “Sanatana Pragatipara”, a progressive Hinduism. The oxymoron was contested by several Kannada litterateurs at the time, but the PM has gone on to add this historical example to his arsenal in support of India as the “mother of democracy”.
But many important Lingayat Swamis have held on to Basava’s 12th century rebellion as marking not only the repudiation of Brahminical Hinduism but also the start of a different religious........
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