I’m not well-versed in the various religious groups in India, so I’m afraid I’d never even heard of Lingayat until today:
Two Lingayat community outfits, Basava Samithi and Vishwa Lingayat Mahasabha, have urged the Union government to grant their community the status of independent religion. Addressing a press conference here on Monday, Sanjay Makal, Vlasavathi Khuba, Asha Khuba Manjunath Kale, Chandrashekhar Tallali and other leaders associated with the outfits argued that their community had never been part of Hinduism.
“Lingayat is an independent religion based on its own world view. After Independence, Sikh, Jain, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism faiths were declared as religions. But, Lingayat was perceived as a caste within Hinduism. The efforts, both legal and social, to get an independent religion for Lingayat have been on since 1940,” Mr. Makal said.
[…]
To a question, Mr. Makal said his outfit had taken special drive among community members for recording their religion as Lingayat in Socio-educational Economic Survey conducted by Karnataka State Backward Classes Commission last year.
“Many community people did not mention their religion name as Lingayat as they were afraid of losing reservation allocated for their sub-caste. Mentioning their religion as Lingayat would in no way affect the reservation benefits. We have taken up a prolonged campaign to educate the members so that they would correctly mention their religion in 2021 census,” he said.
H/T to Colby Cosh for the link.
