Fractured Faith

The recent decision of the Karnataka-based KudalasangamaPanchamasaliPeetha Trust’s decision to expel a Lingayat seer for consorting with Hindutva exposes a deeper pathology in Indian politics to nurture divisions within Hinduism, even at the cost of weakening a tradition that has sustained the subcontinent for millennia.

While the affair is being dressed up as a matter of bylaws and propriety, it reveals the familiar fingerprints of Congress-style sectarian politics beneath its surface. The meeting that ousted the seer was chaired by VijayanandKashappanavar, a Congress legislator who doubles as the trust’s president. His charges were that the Swamiji allegedly violated rules, acquired property and dabbled in questionable finances. Yet his most poisonous accusation - that the seer had ‘abandoned’ Lingayat ideology by aligning with Hindutva – was ideological.

It appears that a Lingayat who recognises himself as Hindu is intolerable to a Congress party that has built its electoral playbook on treating Hindu identity as suspect.

This hypocrisy is staggering. Congress grandees, past and present, have bent over backwards to accommodate Sikh separatists, to coddle Muslim clerics who thunder against the state and to indulge every sectional grievance in the name of ‘secularism.’ But when a Hindu seer places his sect within the wider civilisational fold, he is declared a pariah.

Kashappanavar’s role in this farce deserves special scrutiny. As both lawmaker and trust president, he embodies the rot of Congress’s dual game: claiming to protect community pride while manipulating it for political gain. Such people thrive on carving Hinduism into vote banks while preaching about sectarian purity.

The irony is that Hinduism, unlike the rigid Abrahamic faiths, is inherently plural. It has room for saints, sceptics and schismatics alike. To expel a seer for embracing Hindutva is to commit a double folly: to misunderstand Hinduism’s capaciousness, and to weaken the very community one pretends to defend.

This is not merely an incident pertaining to Karnataka. It is a pattern that has disfigured Indian politics for decades. The Congress party has long profited from encouraging communities to see themselves as estranged from Hinduism. The ousting of a seer for his supposed Hindutva sympathies is the latest manifestation of that disease. The damage is not abstract.

At a time when India aspires to global leadership, it projects weakness when its leaders peddle identity fissures for provincial gain. To international observers, this suggests that India’s unity is skin-deep. To ordinary Hindus, it reinforces the suspicion that their traditions are fair game for derision, while minority assertions are sacralised.

Hinduism deserves better than to be sliced into electoral fiefs. When a Hindu seer is hounded for acknowledging his place within Hinduism, while separatists of every stripe are indulged, the symbolism is corrosive. It tells Hindus that unity is shameful, and that their faith is to be tolerated only in fragments. Hinduism deserves better. And India deserves leaders who will rise above the politics of fracture.