UPA had rejected religion tag to Veerashaiva-Lingayat in 2013

New Delhi/Bengaluru: The UPA government headed by Manmohan Singh had, in 2013, rejected the interest for giving separate religion status to Veerashaiva-Lingayat, saying it is a group of Hinduism.

The office of the Registrar General of India (RGI), in its correspondence, to then Home Minister (Sushil Kumar Shinde) on November 14, 2013, stated, “the request made by All India Veerashaiva Mahasabha for regarding Veerashaiva-Lingayat as free religion is obviously not logical and correct”.

The Union home minister’s office looked for an answer from the RGI, following the request by Shamanur Shivashankarappa, president, All India Veerashaiva Mahasabha. The Mahasabha made a demand to the Ministry for isolated code number/column/abbreviation for recording the religion of Veerashaiva-Lingayat in the enumeration frame and to perceive Veerashaiva-Lingayat people group as a separate religion.

The RGI stated, “If Veerashiva-Lingayat is dealt with as a different religion by giving separate code/column, every single Scheduled Caste maintaining the Veerashiva-Lingayat organization will lose their Constitutional status, since SCs can be just from Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh, alongside their orders.”

Thurstone (in Castes and Tribes of Southern India) has specified that Lingayats have been relevantly portrayed as a tranquil race of Hindu Puritans. Their religion is a straightforward one. They recognized just a single God Siva and reject the other two people of Hindu Triad, the RGI stated.