SEER GIVES DEC 30 DEADLINE FOR MINORITY STATUS TO LINGAYATS

Calls to recognise Lingayats as belonging to a separate religion were made once again on Sunday at the annual convention of the Lingayat Mahasabha, with Mate Mahadevi, the influential pontiff of the Basava Dharma Peetha, setting chief minister Siddaramaiah a deadline of December 30 for sending his recommendation to the Centre in this regard.

"Elections are due next year and once the model code of conduct comes into force, it will not be possible for the government to do so. Hence, I call on the CM to make the recommendation by December 30," Mahadevi said.

Putting forth a set of five demands, the pontiff said, the demand was not just that Lingayats be recognised as a separate religion but additionally they should also be recognised as a minority religion. "The CM must also announce Basavanna as the cultural leader of the state," she said, referring to the 12th century reformer and sect founder.

Crediting Basavanna with having enriched Kannada, Mahadevi said if the vachanas literature begun by him were to be removed from the Kannada corpus it would be much the poorer. “Till Basavanna came along, god only knew Sanskrit. It was Basavanna who said that god should be able to respond to the poor, who petition him in their mother tongue, Kannada.”

Apart from these, Mahadevi called for the renaming of the Kalaburagi university as Basaveshwara university.

BENGALURU: