Tribute in Ghadar Jari Hai
Prof
M M Kalburgi--A Researcher Par Excellence
http://www.ghadar.in/gjh_html/?q=content/avishrant-anveshaka-prof-m-m-kalburgi-tireless-researcher
Shivanand Kanavi
On
the morning of Aug 30, 2015, the town of Dharwad, a major educational and
cultural centre of Karnataka was shocked out of its contented and cultured
life, when one of its leading lights Prof M M Kalburgi, a renowned researcher
into Kannada culture and a prolific writer was shot down at his residence. The
tragic loss has shocked the entire literary world of Karnataka and thousands of
Prof Kalburgi's admirers and students. Speculation is rife on who might have
ordered a gangland Mafiosi style hit on a 77 year old writer.
The
funeral was held near Karnatak University Campus, according to Lingayat burial
traditions, not too far from the lecture halls where he once taught thousands
of students for over three decades on the nuances of Kavirajamarga the 9th
century Kannada classic on poetics or the correct way to read and interpret the
works of Adikavi Pampa the great 10th century Jain Kannada poet or the
radicalism in 12th Century Vachana literature of Basavanna and other Lingayat
Sharanas of Karnataka.
Since
then there have been a large number of demonstrations by thousands of students,
literary figures, writers and democratic supporters not only all over Karnataka
but also outside: in Delhi, Varnasi, Tiruvanthapuram etc.
Dharwad
unlike other cities, does not count its IT billionaires or the Real Estate
Rajas but it does proudly reel off the names of its Jnan Peeth and Kendra
Sahitya Akademi Award winners; poets, novelists, playwrights, researchers and
of course an incessant stream of top notch Hindustani musicians. Hence the
shocked town and the rest of Karnataka hope that the supari style killers who
came into his home acting as students-- perhaps knowing that it was always an
open house to researchers-- and shot him in the head, in cold blood at close
quarters, and those who hired them, would be caught soon by police
investigators.
A
very large demonstration and rally was held in Dharwad on Sept 14, where
writers came from all over Karnataka and thousands gathered to condemn the
murder and questioned the tardiness in catching the killers.
I
was not his student in a formal sense but my parents being his neighbours and
close friends afforded me an ease of entry into his warm friendship, whenever I
visited Dharwad. He gladly shared his vast knowledge, his concerns and his
flashes of new insights into the radicalism of 12th century Sharana Sahitya,
which was our common ground. Every time I met him he would wave with great
enthusiasm a bunch of new books that he had either written or edited. His
energy was infectious. He was also an indefatigable organiser and motivator,
who cajoled others into his numerous projects.
He
was prolific. His six volumes of research papers; Marga I-VI with over 750 research papers and over 120 works
including dozens of volumes of Vachana literature that were edited by him stand
testimony to it. After a brilliant teaching career in Karnatak University
Dharwad he became the Vice Chancellor of Kannada University at Hampi, where he
once again showed his organising abilities. Post retirement he continued to
write and edit profusely.
His
recent output in the past five years alone is mind boggling. He edited and
published the complete literary and journalistic works of Basavaraj Kattimani,
a progressive writer from Belagavi (formerly Belgaum). He also edited and
published several volumes of the great early 20th century researcher, F G
Halakatti from Vijayapur (formerly Bijapur). He made a great gift to medieval
historians by getting 12 volumes of world history written in Persian by a
scribe in the 18th century Adilshahi court of Vijayapur (Bijapur), translated
and published in Kannada.
He
was now engaged in editing and publishing a volume of over 2500 selected
vachana poems to be published in 20 different languages. His long introduction
to the collection is a learned commentary on the essence of Lingayat sharana
movement. He supervised and guided the translators in different languages by
conducting several workshops for them all over India to convey the nuances of
ancient Kannada (Halegannada), of which he was a master. As a result, in 2012,
Kannada; Sanskrit; English; Urdu; Bengali; Hindi; Marathi; Telugu; Punjabi;
Tamil editions were published by Basava Samiti.
A
week before his heinous assassination he assured me that the remaining 10
language editions in Dogri, Maithili, Assami, Bodo, Gujarati, Malayalam,
Konkani, Nepali, Odiya, Santhali, Kashmiri and Sindhi are also in the final
stages and would be published in the last quarter of 2015. Translations into
Mandarin, Japanese, French and Spanish were also on the cards.
He
then pointed to me a heap of corrected proofs of over 20,000 vachanas in
Kannada, which would be published in two slim volumes in literally Bible style
with similar paper.
And
all this after "retirement" !
I
joked with him that the name plate outside his house was a mistake. It said
Vishrant Kulapati (Retired Vice Chancellor) and it should have read Avishrant
(tireless) Kulapati instead !
His
researches and speculations were bold and were often iconoclastic. He was a
great admirer of Basavanna the 12th century sharana and founder of Lingayatism.
The radicalism of Basavanna and his sharana colleagues inspired Prof Kalburgi
to take on all those who claimed to be leaders and moral guides of Lingayats
today but who would not stand the test of Basavanna's radicalism.
The
12th century sharana movement with Basavanna as the spearhead founded
Lingayatism and in short stood for: complete dignity of labour; dismantling of
caste discrimination; gender discrimination; temple worship and all meaningless
rituals. It also gave a prominent egalitarian social twist for the first time
to the older experiential Bhakti movement that had primarily advocated paths to
individual spiritual salvation. It was not only inclusive towards all castes
and communities but also put forward an egalitarian economic and social
philosophy and not renunciation of the world for other worldly goals.
In
today's India very few would of course stand Basavanna's test. This led Prof
Kalburgi to not only take on casteist and conservative forces in general but
also some powerful conservatives among Lingayats.
Conservatives
found him polarising and some researchers disagreed with his speculations while
admiring his scholarship but he posited that culture studies and historians
have to perforce join the dots, speculate, interpret, interpolate, extrapolate
and take leaps to make progress even if some of them later turn out to be
wrong.
He
would relish pursuing a new idea or an insight to bold conclusions. In our
recent meet as usual he started sounding me out on a new idea which had struck
him, "the barometer of radicalism and openness of any reform movement,
even in a religious form, is the participation of women". He pointed out
that the 12th Century Lingayat Sharana movement in Karnataka had over 35 women
poets who freely expressed their thoughts in hundreds of Vachanas but their
number dwindled soon after and a rare woman vachanakara showed up in the last 9
centuries.
He
posited that once a movement becomes accepted by the state power and perhaps becomes
an established religion, its radicalism dwindles too and women are once again
consigned to a lower status. We discussed similar trends in Vedic culture,
Islam, Christianity and Buddhism. Later I came to know that one of the
unfinished manuscripts left by him is an essay on the same topic.
I
was struck by his fresh thinking when he gave me a paper where he had pointed
out that Basavanna and the Lingayat's clash with state power represented by the
Kalachuri King Bijjala was perhaps not on the question of Sharanas' Right to
Conscience and the right to organise based on their beliefs. He pointed out,
Bijjala largely remained neutral in Sharanas' fight against orthodoxy and the
caste system. However when Basavanna said that the treasury belonged to the
people and not the King who was just a custodian of national wealth, then
Bijjala felt threatened and undermined and hit back with violence on the
Sharana movement. He quoted some vachanas to support his thesis. This was
typical of his approach that some found iconoclastic while many found
refreshing. We published excerpts of this paper in Ghadar Jari Hai. (see http://www.ghadar.in/gjh_html/?q=content/basavanna-and-royal-treasury)
I
requested him many times to attempt a history of Lingayat movement; the setting
in the 12th century when it was started by Basavanna; its later stultification
and various ups and downs in the last 9 centuries. He would say with a twinkle
in his eyes, "it would be too controversial".
While
scholars did not disagree with his approach in principle and listened to him
with interest, students lapped it up. Status quoists or those who feared his
criticism however would adopt extra-academic methods like demonstrations and
stone throwing outside his residence.
Shrill
elements in the media would be all too happy at times to take his remarks out
of context or even misquote him to create a controversy. For example a remark
he had made about superstitions in a public meeting in Bengaluru which had been
organised to discuss the draft Anti-superstition bill prepared by Karnataka
Government last year, led to screaming headlines in some news papers leading to
death threats and cowardly acts of vandalism at his residence.
But
he carried on fearlessly and when I asked him last year about such threats he
quoted me a vachana by Basavanna himself:
ನಾಳೆ ಬಪ್ಪುದು ನಮಗಿಂದೆ ಬರಲಿ,
ಇಂದು ಬಪ್ಪುದು ನಮಗೀಗಲೆ ಬರಲಿ,
ಇದಕಾರಂಜುವರು, ಇದಕಾರಳುಕುವರು
`ಜಾತಸ್ಯ ಮರಣಂ ಧ್ರುವಂ' ಎಂದುದಾಗಿ
ನಮ್ಮ ಕೂಡಲಸಂಗಮದೇವರು ಬರೆದ ಬರೆಹವ ತಪ್ಪಿಸುವಡೆ
ಹರಿಬ್ರಹ್ಮಾದಿಗಳಿಗಳವಲ್ಲ.
ಇಂದು ಬಪ್ಪುದು ನಮಗೀಗಲೆ ಬರಲಿ,
ಇದಕಾರಂಜುವರು, ಇದಕಾರಳುಕುವರು
`ಜಾತಸ್ಯ ಮರಣಂ ಧ್ರುವಂ' ಎಂದುದಾಗಿ
ನಮ್ಮ ಕೂಡಲಸಂಗಮದೇವರು ಬರೆದ ಬರೆಹವ ತಪ್ಪಿಸುವಡೆ
ಹರಿಬ್ರಹ್ಮಾದಿಗಳಿಗಳವಲ್ಲ.
Let
what could happen tomorrow come to us today,
Let
what could happen today come to us here and now,
Who
is afraid of this!
One
that is born will also die
Neither
Hari nor Brahma can override what my Koodala Sangama Deva has writ.
Perhaps
a fitting epitaph for a tireless researcher. May he rest in peace.