Yuva Bharati Magazine - May 2018

In this issue

The recent claims by few Lingayat leaders of Karnataka that they are not Hindus but a separate religion would have raised the palpitations of many in the Hindu society. That the ruling party is trying to polarize the society using this issue is very obvious. They support the Lingayats and are ready to grant them the status they are asking for, hoping to gain the Lingayat votes. They know very well that this will be struck down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, as it did in the Ramakrishna Mutt case 25 years ago. In both cases it’s our law which has driven them to this futile attempt of claiming minority status. In the case of Ramakrishna Mutt, they filed a case in Calcutta High court seeking minority Status in order to save their Educational Institutions from Political interference. But the Supreme Court of India declared that neither Sri Ramakrishna nor Swami Vivekananda founded any independent, non-Hindu religion. Thus ended the RK Mission's desperate attempt to gain the privileges accorded only to minority religions in India, specifically, the right to manage their extensive educational institutions free from government control. The then General Secretary of Ramakrishna Mutt, Swami Atmasthananda, told in an interview that, "Whatever legal brains have done is for lawyers to say." The RK Mission's explanation has been all along that it has taken this step to save its schools, and that the court statements are simply part of the necessary legal maneuvers.