`Treat Veerashaivism as separate religion'

By Our Staff Correspondent

GULBARGA, SEPT. 3. The Veerashaiva Mahasabha on Sunday decided to step up its campaign to treat the Veerashaivism as a separate religious entity and include it in the census enumeration proposed in 2001.

The Action Committee constituted by the mahasabha under the chairmanship of former minister, Mr. Vishwanath Reddy Mudnal, decided to organise "jathas" in all the districts starting from November 1, and hold a State-level "mahajatha" in December to educate the people on benefits that could be accrued by way of asserting their right that Veerashaivism as a separate religion.

Briefing presspersons about the proposed tour of the leaders of the Action Committee and the "jatha" to be held in all district headquarters, Mr. Vishwanath Reddy Mudnal, Mr. N. Thippanna, and Mr. S.S. Pavate, members of the committee, said that the leaders of the Action Committee would complete the tour of districts in four phases.

In the first phase, the leaders would tour Gulbarga, Bidar, Bijapur, Bagalkot, Gadag, Haveri, Dharwad, Belgaum, Karwar, from September 3 to 11, Mr. Mudnal said. In the second phase, the committee members would tour Raichur, Koppal, Bellary, Chitradurga, Davanagere, Shimoga, Chikmagalur, Hassan, Kodagu, Mangalore and Udupi from September 17 to 26. In the third phase, they would tour Chamarajanagar, Mysore and Mandya from October 4 to 6. In the final phase, the committee members would tour Tumkur, Kolar and Bangalore districts from October 10 to 12, he added.

The main purpose of the tour was to hold meetings with the presidents and other office-bearers of the district and taluk units of the mahasabha, and chalk out a programme to make the "jatha" proposed to be held from November 1 in all the districts a success.

Mr. Mudnal criticised the Census Commissioner and the Union Government for not accepting the demand pending since 1971 to treat Veerashaivas as a separate religious group.

However, the Census Commissioner agreed to treat Veerashaiva and Lingayat as a single entity, if any of the two was entered in the census enumeration form, he said.

Mr. Pavate reiterated that Veerashaivism was not part of Hindu religion and it had separate religious gurus, separate "grantha" and separate religious practices.

He said by entering their religion as Veerashaiva, the followers of Veerashaivism would know the exact strength of their population, levels of employment, education and other parameters in comparison with other religions. The number of Veerashaivas had "decreased" from 42.75 lakhs in 1981 census to 32.69 lakhs in 1991 census, he added.

The district mahasabha president, Mr. Basavareddy Itagi, was present.

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