Chitradurga, Karnataka: If you drive from Bengaluru to central Karnataka, it is impossible to miss the overarching presence of the Murugha Mutt, one of the most important religious institutions of the state’s politically powerful Lingayat community.
The huge 18th century stone monastic complex in rocky Chitradurga is a major landmark, but its influence ripples far beyond the 82-acre premises — from roughly 150 educational and medical institutions that run under its aegis, to the political firmament of the state.
Over the past 10 days or so, though, a looming shadow has been cast over this Chitradurga mutt.
Late last Thursday, the police arrested the revered 20th pontiff to the peetha (spiritual seat), Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru, for allegedly raping two young girls, aged 15 and 16, who lived at an orphanage run by the Sri Jagadguru Murugharajendra Vidyapeetha (SJMV), the body that manages the mutt’s educational and cultural institutions.
The girls have claimed that they were “evicted” for protesting against the sexual harassment, after which they left and eventually came into the care of an NGO in Mysuru called Odanadi that aids human trafficking victims.
The complainants have provided a harrowing account of the alleged sexual abuse at the serene mutt between January 2019 and June 2022.
According to the NGO Odanadi, the alleged modus operandi was to invite the girls to meet the swami in his bedroom to receive “fruits or blessings”. Saying no, apparently, was not an option and would allegedly be met with “verbal abuse” and “threats” from the warden. Once the students arrived in the room, they would be assured that their families would get assistance from the mutt should they need it.
After that, Shivamurthy would allegedly touch the girls’ private parts and sexually assault them. The complainants have alleged that he “would not let go” when they struggled. Occasionally, the victims have claimed, they would be given fruits or sweets laced with sedatives to make them more compliant. After the assault was over, they alleged, he would “use tissues” to clean up and tell the students to use the bathroom. The girls claimed that they were warned to keep silent or else meet their deaths.
Further, the girls have claimed that there are other victims too, the NGO has alleged.
The first information report (FIR), which ThePrint has seen, was lodged at the Nazarbad police station in Mysuru based on a complaint by Odanadi as well as the district Child Welfare Committee, which the NGO had approached.
The FIR has been filed under sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act as well under section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code. And since one of the alleged victims is a Dalit, the SC/ST Act has also been invoked. The FIR names Shivamurthy, warden Rashmi, a junior pontiff, mutt legal advisor Gangadharaiah, and SJMV administrator Paramshivaiah.
For many in the community, it is hard to reconcile this litany of sexual assault and exploitation with a spiritual leader who was reputed to be one of the most progressive in the state and whose blessings have been sought by a spectrum of political leaders, from the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Amit Shah and B.S. Yediyurappa to the Congress’ Rahul Gandhi.
On his part, Shivamurthy has claimed that he is the victim of a “conspiracy” and that the “truth shall be revealed soon”. But he seemed crestfallen when he was brought to the mutt this Sunday for a mahazar (reconnaissance) of the scene.
When asked whether Shivamurthy was losing steam, his lawyer M. Umesh told ThePrint, “No way. We have moved the courts for bail soon. Swamiji is just tired,” he said. On whether he was confident of securing bail, he smiled. “Let’s see. We can only hope. Rest is left to god.”
A political landmine
Rashmi, the arrested co-accused warden in the case, meanwhile, has filed a counter-FIR of rape and kidnapping against S.K. Basavarajan, a former mutt administrator and a former Janata Dal (Secular) MLA who has reportedly had a tumultuous relationship with Shivamurthy. According to her, Basavarajan kept the girls in his house for two days after they left the mutt. He and his wife have maintained they did so to help the girls.
A section of the community believes that Basavarajan, a one-time confidant of Shivamurthy, encouraged the girls to approach Odanadi and file the complaint as part of a conspiracy to benefit himself, which he has denied.
On the other hand, many in Karnataka are outraged that Shivamurthy walked free for a week after the Mysore police lodged a complaint against him on 26 August.
Between then and 1 September, Shivamurthy, unlike most rape accused, was able to hold meetings, induct an in-charge, and tie up other loose ends.
By then, the case had caught the attention of national media, which cranked up the pressure on the BJP state government’s machinery to act, which it finally did a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Mangaluru.
What everyone can agree on is that the case is a political landmine, especially with assembly elections due in Karnataka next year.
According to the 2011 census, Lingayats constitute about 17 per cent of the total population in Karnataka, making it the largest caste group after the SCs, and wield major political clout — out of the 22 CMs in Karnataka, nine were Lingayats.
Further, Lingayats are a key vote-bank for the BJP and are believed to be the major reason that the party came to power in the state. The present CM Basavaraj Bommai is a Lingayat, as was his predecessor B.S. Yediyurappa. Simply put, the BJP cannot risk losing Lingayat votes. At the same time, it cannot be seen to be turning a blind eye to serious accusations like rape. The Congress, too, cannot afford to veer too strongly in one direction or the other.
On the ground in Chitradurga, too, devotees seem divided. While some believe that their leader could have done no wrong, others are less convinced of his innocence. Some even have said that the Lingayat leader may have been a little “too progressive”, and his fall from grace is some kind of divine punishment.
‘Revolutionary’ leader of a powerful mutt
Shri Jagadguru Murugharajendra Brihanmath or Murige/Murugha Mutt was established in 1704 with the help of Vijayanagar empire general Baramanna Nayaka and his son Hire Madakari Nayaka. Since then, it has gone from strength to strength.
The first chief of the mutt was Murugha Shantaveera Swamiji and in 1991, Shivamurthy Sharanaru became the 20th when he was only 33 years old. In fact, he was said to be the youngest among all the Lingayat sect heads in the state at the time.
A scholarly man with a doctorate in vachana (a Kannada verse form) literature, the now 64-year-old has always been known to be something of a trailblazer in the Lingayat community — which, in fact, is already defined by a sense of rebellion.
The Lingayats are a Shaivite sect and followers of a 12th-century social reformer and vachanakara (one who writes vachana) called Basavanna who was also a treasurer in the court of King Bijjala. Basavanna sought to defy the caste system and Vedic rituals so as to create a society free of discrimination. He was a prominent name in the Bhakti movement along with his guru Allamaprabhu, among others.
However, even among Lingayats in modern Kannada society, Shivamurthy’s attempts to propagate the teachings of Basavanna received a somewhat mixed reception.
One move that caused some tut-tutting was the establishment of upa mutts, or subsidiary monasteries, which encouraged marginalised groups/lower castes to have their own swamis as a form of empowerment.
Other radical steps included attempts to abolish certain rituals around mutt events, like abandoning the Adda Pallakki Utsava (procession with the guru seated in the palanquin), and tried to break age-old taboos by conducting poojas in graveyards or on Amavasya (new moon) nights.
Shivamurthy also caused a stir by encouraging and conducting widow remarriage, which was unheard of even in the “progressive” Lingayat community.
One of his most polarising decisions was to drop the title of ‘Jagadguru’ (Guru of the World) from his name and replace it with ‘Sharanaru’, a term that signifies surrender and humility.
Despite being a Lingayat institution, the Chitradurga Mutt has kept its doors open for people of all castes and religions. It’s not strange to see Muslims and Christians coming to the mutt to pay their respects.
On normal days, the place would be teeming with visitors. Mammoth cauldrons would always be bubbling away in the kitchens, and anybody could walk into the mutt for a meal during afternoons and evenings. On average, about 2,000 people would be fed in a day, with the number swelling to 5,000-6,000 on weekends.
In the wake of Shivamurthy’s arrest, the kitchens have not stopped their mass feeding, or ‘dasoha’, but the atmosphere at the mutt is muted and there is a sense, after the allegations and counter-allegations, that not everything at the institution is quite as idyllic as it might have once seemed.
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Mutt intrigues, and a suicide
A long history of bad blood between two camps of the mutt seems to have bubbled over.
Shivamurthy’s supporters believe that the sexual abuse complaint naming him was masterminded by S.K. Basavarajan, who at one point of time was a contender for the position of mutt leader. But instead, he got married and had a stint in politics as a JD(S) leader. The peak of his political career was being elected as Chitradurga MLA in 2008.
Basavarajan, though, maintained links with the mutt. He served as its administrator until 2007, when he left under a cloud. He was brought back into the fold in March 2022 but was not given any powers to execute. Basavarajan was removed from his post of secretary of SJMV on 26 August this year.
After the POCSO case was registered, the accused warden Rashmi filed a case against Basavarajan, alleging that he molested her and “kidnapped” the girls after they left the mutt. He, however, has told the media that he and his wife merely “protected” the teenagers and sheltered them for two days since they did not want to return to the mutt. Basavarajan is currently out on bail.
Basavarajan’s supporters say that he merely helped expose a wrong and should not be excoriated for it.
“Basanna (Basavarajan) has served at the mutt even before Sharanaru came in. Basanna was to be inducted in the place of swamiji. But because he chose to get married, Sharanaru came in,” said D. Rudrappa, 74, a realtor and a grain merchant in Chitradurga. His family have been mutt devotees for many generations.
“Basanna would never dream of causing any harm to the mutt or to the community. What is wrong! People here have the evidence that this sin has taken place,” he added.
Even as the investigation continues, the case seems to have opened a Pandora’s box.
This Monday, Basava Siddalinga Swami, the leader of Sri Guru Madiwaleshwar Mutt at Neginhal in Belagavi district was found hanging in his room. He was a disciple of Shivamurthy Sharanaru and had completed his initiation rites at the Chitradurga Mutt.
He was reportedly upset because his name had come up in an audio clip that is currently doing the rounds. In it, two women can be heard discussing alleged sexual crimes perpetrated by Lingayat godmen, including one “Neginhal swami”. The purported suicide note found close to his body reportedly says, “I have done nothing wrong. Please do not interrogate anyone”.
Devotees divided
Since the Chitradurga Mutt has crores of devotees in central and north Karnataka, who regularly attend events on the premises, it was assumed that they would take to the streets following Shivamurthy’s arrest. However, the response has been surprisingly muted.
One of the reasons for this might be that followers are simply unsure about what to believe — many are instinctively sympathetic to the girls, while others think internal mutt politics are the problem rather than any outside force. There is even a hint of schadenfreude in some reactions — that Shivamurthy got comeuppance for his “ultra-progressive” ways.
“We didn’t know he was doing such a heinous crime,” said Ramachandrappa, a long-term confidant of Shivamurthy and an ardent devotee of the mutt.
“We had objections to [Shivamurthy’s] breaking of age-old traditions, conducting pooja on Amavasya day, uprooting the Bilwa tree, and displacing the idol of Chowdamma Devi that was inside the mutt. It has never brought good luck to anyone,” Ramachandrappa added, shaking his head, his eyes welling up.
Another devotee and mutt worker, who asked not to be named, was reluctant to voice her opinion, but finally did. “This is wrong. He shouldn’t have done it,” she said.
There are practical repercussions too: fewer people are coming, which means business is slow for the hawkers that sell their wares around the mutt.
Two such vendors, who did not wish to be named, told ThePrint that they made sales worth about Rs 3,000 every day before the scandal, but now earn barely Rs 300.
When asked if they were aware of where the swami is, the two women exchanged meaningful glances. They have come to a consensus: If he is guilty, God is “punishing” him.
A political tightrope
The Murugha Mutt is no ordinary monastery. With its numerous branches across the state, 150 affiliated educational and medical institutes, and legions of followers across the Lingayat and even other communities, it has become known for its wealth (a nickname for it is ‘Nava Koti Narayana mutt’, or New Mutt with Crores of Riches), and political clout.
Several chief ministers have had close ties with it. The very first CM of unified Karnataka, S. Nijalingappa, and later J.H. Patel were ardent followers of the mutt and its traditions.
More recently, B.S Yediyurappa has also been vocal about his affiliation with the mutt. The former CM was quick to call the charges against Shivamurthy “false” as soon as the FIR was filed. Last summer, when Yediyurappa’s chief ministership was under threat, many Lingayat swamis had lobbied for him, including Shivamurthy. Yediyurappa lost that battle but his successor, current CM Bommai, also belongs to the Lingayat community.
Bommai, though, has been tight-lipped about the sexual assault case and only said that the police has a “free hand”. He has chosen not to comment on the delay in Shivamurthy’s arrest, for which he has faced some heat.
Given that the Lingayat community are veritable king-makers in Karnataka, there is a sense of unease across the political divide about how to address the sexual abuse scandal, particularly ahead of the 2023 assembly elections.
While former chief minister and JD(S) leader H.D. Kumaraswamy spoke out in August and said he was “not surprised” by the case, no one else in the opposition parties has said much, including the Congress.
The allegations against Shivamurthy came weeks after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi received ‘Ishtalinga Deekshe’, an important blessing within the Lingayat sect, from him.
Notably, shortly before the ceremony, Shivamurthy had reportedly made clear where his political sentiments lay by saying that the country needed leaders like Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
But the mutt’s newfound infamy has thrown its own political desirability into question. It has also shaken the movement for a separate Lingayat religion, of which Shivamurthy has been a votary in a limited sense.
Former IAS officer S.M. Jamdar, who has been at the forefront of the movement, acknowledged that the POCSO case was a setback since the spiritual leader’s image was dented.
“We will overcome this. The actions of Sharanaru are to be condemned if the charges are true. Prima facie, everything points at that,” he said. “We will wait for the courts to give us the verdict.”
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
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