Malleshappa M Kalburgi, a reputed scholar and academic who served as the Vice-Chancellor of Kannada University in Hampi was shot dead by unidentified men at Dharwad on Sunday morning, police said .
Three men who barged into his house shot him after an heated argument, police said.
While police strongly suspect that he might be the target of Hindu fundamentalist , they have also ruled out personal enemity over sharing of property.
Kalaburgi was awarded the National Sahitya Akademi award in 2006 for Marga 4, a collection of hundred of his research articles.
He was a noted Kannada epigraphist and a renowned scholar of the Vachana literature.
A controversy broke out in the early 80s over Kalburgi’s book, Marga-One, erupted. Religious zealots belonging to the powerful Lingayat community came down heavily on Kalburgi and he was forced to recant the allegedly derogatory references to the founder of Veerashaiva-the liberal Shaivism followed by Lingayats-Basavesh-wara, his wife and sister.
The denouncements grew louder among the community and he was summoned to a math in Hubli and forced to ‘recant’ a life’s work.
Kalburgi’s writings are a product of extensive research. Marga-One is a collection of papers on Kannada folklore, religion and culture.
Though Kalburgi had apologised to the Lingayat seers, the controversy continued, with the fundamentalists demanding that the book be proscribed.
A frustrated Kalaburgi had declared later that he would never again pursue any research on Lingayat literature and Basava philosophy.
Last year, Kalburgi’s comments at a public programme raised nany a eyebrows. Speaking at a programme on , Kalburgi had referred to remarks made by late Jnanapith awardee U R Ananthamurthy about idol worship in a collection of essays called “Bettale Puje Yake Kudadhu” (roughly translated as “Why nude worship is not acceptable”).
Kalburgi had stated that writer U R Ananthamurthy had once urinated on the idols of Hindu gods, to prove that they are not powerful.
