Coming as it does in the midst of an election, the Karnataka government’s decision to treat Lingayats as a separate religious entity has been seen primarily in political terms. In the process, though, several other more significant lessons from the nine-century-old experience of the Lingayats have been ignored, including those related to the non-economic compulsions of urbanisation. Thinking about the urban across the world is tending to place a prominent place for processes of agglomeration. People moving towards cities are seen as a central part of urbanisation and the further growth of cities. Conversely, processes of dispersal can result in the decline of cities.

These processes have typically been understood in economic terms, to the extent that the non-economic factors in this process are treated as secondary. Yet, even a glance at the early history of the Lingayats gives us reason to rethink this and other common assumptions about urban processes in India.

Anti-caste campaign

The twelfth century social reformer, Basavanna, who is seen by Lingayats as the founder of their religion, built a philosophy of social reform through the use of Vachanas, a form of poetry which speaks of and to Shiva.

In converting this philosophy into a social movement places were created to which people could agglomerate. Prominent among such places was the Anubhava Mantappa, a kind of academy around which people with views similar to those propounded by Basavanna could congregate. This urban settlement became the base for a reform movement that worked against caste and campaigned for equality.

As was to be expected in the twelfth century, such an anti-caste campaign generated resistance from the establishment. When, as a part of this anti-caste movement, a Dalit boy married a Brahmin girl, there was a massive and violent backlash forcing the Lingayats to disperse; some to the north into Maharashtra and others further south into southern Karnataka. Several of the smaller groups, in order to gain greater local influence, tended to return to Vedic rituals, often succeeding in finding themselves a prominent place in local hierarchies. In many such cases what began as a movement against caste had become a caste in itself. Yet there were others who sought to retain the primacy of Basavanna over Vedic influences.

This conflict has continued over centuries and the present conflict between the Veershaivas, who are typically comfortable being seen as a sect of Hinduism, and the Lingayats, who see themselves as a separate religious group, is only its latest episode. Even from this sketchy outline of a major tradition there are several lessons to be learnt. There are lessons of power and rebellion, of the desire for equality, of the use of poetry to develop a philosophy, and also one of how not to see the urban in India.

Not economics alone

The common refrain of the urban in India being solely the result of economic modernisation needs to be tempered. In these modern materialistic times there is little doubt that the economic is a major motivator for the movement to urban centres. Yet Indian history is replete with towns and cities that have emerged from conglomerations of people seeking non-economic goals. The settlement around the Anubhava Mantappa is just one of them. Another prominent one is Varanasi, a place where people have been known to go to meet their end. Nor is this just a part of ancient history. Even today it is not unknown for urban settlements to arise around relatively recent temples; not to mention the urban spaces created by godmen and godwomen.

A second urban lesson from the Lingayat experience is the power of fear to destroy a city. As Lingayats fled in the twelfth century to avoid brutal force being used against them, their urban settlements often faded away. It is convenient to believe that such brutal use of force is a mark of medieval times and will not recur. But modern Indian cities have not been entirely without large-scale riots which have the potential to create an exodus that can change their character. Indeed, even without a riot in Bengaluru in 2012, thousands of migrants from the North-East fled following rumours that they would be attacked.

A quieter and deeper lesson from Basavanna’s original experiment, though not necessarily from later Lingayat practice, is about the process of campaigning for equality. For Basavanna, people had to be encouraged to accept more equitable practices through the persuasive powers of poetry and the conviction of practice. Efforts to impose ideas in the name of equality create new divides, leading to those on one side of the divide seeking to gain unequal advantage over those on the other. As our cities get more aggressive in debates over ‘appeasement’ and ‘rights’, this may be the lesson that most needs to be learnt.

The writer is a professor at the School of Social Science, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru

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