Hundreds pay homage to Kalburgi; bring in anti-superstition law to honour him, says Lingayat seer

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The killing of the former vice-chancellor of the Kannada University, Hampi and Sahitya Academi award winner is being widely speculated as being the handiwork of right wing extremists, as Kalburgi was always known for his outspoken nature and his views against blindly following religious beliefs and practices. However, the police are investigating various angles including a property dispute the family of the scholar was embroiled in.

On Monday when the body of the veteran Kannada scholar was kept open for public viewing at the Karnataka University in Dharwad to pay respect, the seer of the Nidumamidi Mutt seminary, Veerabhadra Channamalla Swamy demanded that the Congress government in the state introduce an anti-superstition bill that it had promised but had with withdrawn under pressure from religious leaders.

“The anti-superstition bill which was appreciated by Kalburgi, bringing it in will be a mean for the government to honour him,” said the seer who is an outspoken contrarian within the Lingayat community.

Kalburgi had faced threat to his life after he in the 1980s had written research articles that questioned established notions among the Lingayat community regarding the 12th century saint and reformer Basaveshwara, whose teachings are the basis of religious beliefs in the community. Kalburgi himself was a member of the Lingayat community.

The Congress government in Karnataka last year shelved plans to table a draft of the Karnataka Prevention and Abolition of Superstition Practices Bill in the state legislature in the wake of protests by religious groups concerned over the curbing of some traditional practices by the new law. Kalburgi was among Kannada writers who vocally supported the new law while Channamalla Swamy headed a group of progressive pontiffs supporting it.

Calling the murder of Kalburgi one of the most shocking incidents in the history of Karnataka, Chanamalla Swamy said the lives of more than 10 intellectuals in the state are under serious threat and the government should take necessary action to prevent such incidents.

Meanwhile, former Karnataka chief minister and senior BJP and Lingayat community leader BS Yeddyurappa who visited the Karnataka University campus on Monday to pay his homage to the Kannada scholar said Kalburgi’s killers must be brought to book quickly and hanged.

Thousands of students, friends, relatives, fans, literary personalities and politicians paid their homage to Dr Kalburgi at the Karnataka University campus on Monday.