JOIN USIt is not only anti-corruption activists and whistle-blowers who risk their lives for their campaign for a clean society. Those who fight against corruption of the mind are also sought to be silenced by threats and intimidations, and when that fails, by bullets.
Rationalist and anti-superstition campaigner Narendra Dabholkar, who was shot dead on Tuesday in Pune, had refused to be cowed down by threats and paid with his life for his long fight against backward-looking and fundamentalist forces. He was a doctor but had left his profession to become a social activist, working to promote reason and scientific temper in the thinking and actions of individuals and society. His anti-superstition organisation Andhasraddha Nirmulan Samiti had 200 active branches in Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka and it made an impact on the thinking of the people in many places. He had challenged astrologers, miracle workers, fraudulent healers of ailments and the like to prove their claims transparently, and had raised public awareness about deceptions in the name of religion and about many pseudo-scientific assertions.
The immediate provocation for his killing is believed to be his championing of the Maharashtra (Eradication of Blind Faith) Bill which has been pending in the state Assembly since 1995. It is a legislation that seeks to outlaw practices like black magic, animal sacrifice and other primitive rituals which have no base in religion but in irrational beliefs. Tantriks, quacks and self-styled god men take advantage of the blind faith of people and exploit them by promoting and undertaking such rituals. Dabholkar had earned their enmity by campaigning for the bill. There was opposition to the bill in the Assembly on the specious argument that it infringes on religious freedom. But religion is not divorced from reason and public good. Dabholkar was not against religion but was against its corruption and degradation. In any case, he had the right to propagate his views in a country where even atheism and agnosticism have been a part of philosophical thought.
Maharashtra has a long and proud reformist tradition in religious and secular thought and practice. Dabholkar contributed to that tradition with his insistence on the primacy of reason and his campaign against social evils. The state government has given effect to the bill with an Ordinance after his killing. The killers should be caught and brought to book. Even after his death Dabholkar will remain a symbol of free thought and critical spirit.