Is Lingayat a Caste or a Religion?

The Lingayat community today insists it is a separate religion. They refuse to be placed within the Veerashaiva fold, or being seen as a subset of Hinduism. This demand has upset those who seek to unite Hinduism under a single umbrella by referring to it as 'sanatan dharma'.

- Devdutt Pattanaik

A deeper, less political, issue here lies in the very word religion, an English word introduced to India by the British in the 18th century, and used by even academically trained historians as if it is a timeless phenomenon, rather irresponsibly and casually.

The Europeans had no concept of religion in the 15th century. You were either Christian or not. Wars between Protestants and Catholics through the 17th century forced the Europeans to acknowledge the existence of many religions i.e., sects of Christianity. But in the 19th century, the meaning of religion changed dramatically.

European powers, who came on war ships, demanded "freedom of religion" so they could build churches in Japan that had isolated itself for nearly 300 years. The Japanese court did not understand this wordreligion. After much debate,

Japanese scholars concluded that there were three categories. First was religion, something you could convert into or out of, like Buddhism and Christianity. Second was superstition, the folk practices of rural communities, dismissed as unscientific. And third was ethnic practice, where one is born into it-like Shinto. Indians did not have the luxury of choosing the definition of religion. It was imposed upon them by British rulers.