Prof. Narendra Nayak (right) with Dr. A T Koovoor (second from right), Mangalore, 25th November 1976

I joined the rationalist movement in 1976 inspired by Dr.A.T.Kovoor, an eminent rationalist of Sri Lanka who was conducting what were called as the- Divine Miracle Exposure campaigns. He was running a series of them, he would come from Sri Lanka to Chennai and go on a tour of India traveling to various places in connection with this campaign. Though he was a Malayali from Kerala he had settled in Colombo and had started the Sri Lanka Rationalist Association which was quite active in the field. When we contacted the Indian rationalist Association who were the organisers of the program for one in Mangalore, we were told that individuals or groups of individuals could not host one. It was necessary to have an organisation and hence the Dakshina Kannada Rationalist Association was born with yours truly as its first secretary and has been ensconced in the chair ever since! Of course the journey from there to working for the movement full time has been a long one. But, right from the day I met Kovoor I had the ambition or rather the dream of working for the movement full time after earning enough for a living from one’s career after retirement. I had not imagined that one day I would resign my job to devote all my time for the movement.

Widening outreach in the Indian subcontinent

Anyway, it was a chance meeting with Hemantha at Oslo that brought up the topic of the movement in Sri Lanka and he wanted me to come over there and help them to bring more people into it. That was the reason for fixing up the programs at Sri Lanka. For a movement to grow we need the involvement of the younger generation and for that we need an attractive program with which they can identify and our program on scientific explanations of the so called miracles was one of such. These had not taken place in Sri Lanka so far and hence it was felt that it could be tried out. There had been some demonstrations before about things like fire walking but nothing on the lines of the program which we call as the scientific analysis of so called miracles which has been quite popular in India and is being now tried in Nepal.

At home with the activists

Meeting at Dr. N M Perera Centre, Colombo

A long time associate of Kovoor, Dharmapala who was a lawyer by profession was the President and Tharaka Warapitiya the Secretary. Why the past tense for Sri Dharmapala is that he is no more. Between the invitation for me to come over to Sri Lanka and my actual going there he passed away at the age of 67 years in December,2011. But the programs were not affected as his role was mainly advisory. It is Tharaka who is running the activities. They had made plans to have interactions meetings, demonstrations and also attempts to revive the movement. The first program with the Colombo branch was fixed to start as soon as I landed there. So, from the airport we directly went to Dr.N.M.Perera center where the first meeting was scheduled at 3 pm. However, since the timing is not very different between India and them, the program commenced half and hour later. After the initial glitches with the projector and other systems were set right, the proceedings went on smoothly and we had to wind up at 6.30 pm as most of the participants were from nearby villages and had to go back to their homes. It was agreed that some who wanted a little bit of training would arrive earlier on the next day. That night the stay was arranged with Tharaka and up to the last day, I was staying only in the homes of the activists.

A lost humanist legacy

On the next day we had an early start and by the time the other members arrived, we had some discussions with a core group of interested members. This was followed by the same type of interactions that we have with other groups- lectures, demos and videos. During our discussions I came to know that though Sri Lanka though on paper is a Buddhist nation and Buddha is the earliest among humanists and rationalists, the ground realities were different. There were all types of superstitions which would give tough competition to those in India. there were the witch doctors called as Kattadiyas in Sinhala who would do all sorts of ‘miracles’ to convince their gullible clients about their supernatural powers, the clergy were a law unto themselves even having seats reserved for them in buses, airports and probably in heaven too! Soon after the interactions were over we had to start for Anuradhapura our next place.

Though we had tried to start early from Colombo, it was not to be. We reached our destination at around 1 am where our host was waiting for us. The next morning since here was some free time, arrangements were made for the two of us to visit the famous ruins of Anuradhapura and we found that the stupas and the priests around them were no different from those of Hindus! The only difference was that, the idols of the Hindu pantheon were replaced by those of Buddha. In the afternoon it was time for their program which was held in the community hall of the place. Since it was a working day and also during working hours, the hall was not very crowded. But, the arrangements were excellent with a good projector and sound system. In the evening we had a meeting with their members of whom one was a school teacher, two farmers etc. Terence Gamini is an activist in many movements and they are all progressive ones.

On campus and in the countryside

The next day we had to start early in he morning to reach Kandy another Buddhist place of pilgrimage. Here we were met by Dr.Sena D’Silva who is a dentist by profession. He had arranged two programs – one with the activists of the movement at a hall attached to an old age home and at the University of Peradeniya. This university is the second oldest one in Sri Lanka, situated on a very beautiful campus with a number of faculties including those of medicine and engineering. The students there were on protest against the opening of private universities! The non-teaching staff were on strike for some other reason, but we were assured that since we had been invited by the students union, things would be normal as far as our program was concerned. After the first interaction in the afternoon with the members and some other young people we proceeded to the university. Our program was to be at the auditorium of the university which had been locked up, but arrangements were made at an open air one near their canteen. However, that too was quite spacious. The crowd at the commencement was so less that we were wondering on the wisdom of having such a program when there were strikes going on all over. However, within a few minutes the area was full and it was standing room only! The students were a lively lot many of them actively involving themselves as volunteers for demonstrations. But, when it came to the interactive sessions- they were very reluctant to ask questions. I was told the classroom atmosphere there is quite similar to that in India- questioning is never encouraged and in fact actively discouraged. The students evinced great interest in taking this miracle exposure programs to the people to educate them about superstitions and we had plans to have training programs on their campus in the near future.

From Kandy we proceeded to Kurunegala district after being interviewed for nearly two hours by a freelance journalist who had arrived punctually at 7 am. Our program for that district was at a village with a jaw breaker of a name- Wanduressa Ma Eliya! Gunapala Patiraja was the local leader who had arranged for a lecture demonstration at the local school. He had invited activists from all over the district who had come with families. The gathering there was that of the villagers and these members and had the largest number of women of all our such interactions in Sri Lanka. They were more than half of the audience. They had also made plans for us to have a social gathering that evening but we had to leave as there were programs lined up early in the next morning.

“Ravana was here”

Programme at Galle

On the next day we had a meeting organised by a Sri S.Shivgurunathan, member of the Sri Lanka Rationalist Association with a group of young Tamil people at a place called as Dehivala. This group is a social study circle which meets every week to discuss relevent topics. There were discussions on many topics including the one about the Ravana tourism. There are a number of tourist spots in Sri Lanka proposed as ‘evidences’ for the epic of Ramayana. The meeting had to be concluded early as we had the next program at Galle an important port and has a fort too! Our meeting was arranged by the Galle branch of the Sri Lanka rationalist association at the Town Hall, its president Dr.Shirley D’Silva and the secretary Gamini Wilson were our hosts. The program started with a small crowd which included two Buddhist monks! But, as we went on the crowd swelled and it was soon standing room only. In the nearby hall there was a music program scheduled for 6 pm but the sound was disturbing us and we had to terminate ours early! But, the crowd was quite enthsusiastic with their questions and I could not decipher much and they were in Sinhala and so were the answers by the local organisers.

Revitalizing the rationalist-humanist movement

The last day of the stay at Sri Lanka was with Dr.Kavan who is an astronomer by profession and a science activist by conviction. He had given up a job in the US to come back to Sri Lanka and devote his time to create scientific awareness in his community. At his residence I was interviewed by a reporter of a weekly newspaper called Sunday times who asked very pointed questions about our movement and ideology. In the evening I met Ranjan Fernando who had been active in the movement for the past several decades and had participated in peace marches with famous rationalists like Bertrand Russell. We had a long discussion about how to build up the movement in Sri Lanka.

The tour of Sri Lanka was a success as far as the first contacts go. They had never seen something like our miracle exposure campaign in our present form though the originator of the program was the founder of Sri Lanka Rationalist Association, Dr.A.T.Kovoor. His passing away had resulted in people gradually losing interest and the movement had gone dormant. The attempts of Tharaka and the late Dharmapala to revive it had resulted in people taking interest in the past few years. They have now decided to get their activists trained to conduct these interactions to attract newcomers to the rationalist-humanist movement. They want to conduct training programs for their members so that they go to the people with an attractive program and we have agreed to provide them support for that. Plans are now afoot to have one such training program within the next two months at a central location. We are planning for a joint program with IHEU for building up a rationalist-humanist movement in Srilanka and Babu Gogineni the executive director of IHEU has made some tentative plans about that. Will our plans to build up a strong rationalist movement in Sri Lanka work? Only time and our efforts will tell.

For me it was great experience to go to the country where the person who inspired me to join the movement lived for the major part of his life and tried to build up a movement and a privilege to conduct programs for the organisation that he had started and run successfully for several decades.

Related posts:

1. Why should Rationalists have all the fun?
2. Challenges Issued From Rationalists To Those Claiming Supernatural Powers In Nepal
3. Freethought News: Weeping Mary (Mathavu) to be Investigated by Rationalists (Video)
4. Reaching Out To The Younger Generation Of Rationalists
5. Will Astrologer Bhaskar Shetty Keep His Word And Take Up The Rationalists’ Astrology Challenge?
6. Psychic Yoga Challenge: Yogi Ashwini Vs. Rationalists

Introduction

I’ve written about the social psychological underpinnings of victim blaming before. Essentially, the Just World bias makes us believe that people deserve what they get, and that if bad things happen to someone, they must have done bad things for it to happen. Now, when somebody says “victim blaming”, the classic picture that comes to mind is that of a horrible wicked person saying “You deserved it!”. In real life, this seldom happens. For one, such people are smart enough to know that in today’s more enlightened world, you simply cannot say such things in intelligent company and get away with it. Secondly – and this is the insidious thing about victim blaming – even well-intentioned people can blame the victim without realising it.

Below we’ll take a look at a case study of victim blaming, where the following pattern emerges:

1. The Spotlight: The focus of discussion is on the victim, not the perpetrator. This is true literally in terms of the number of words devoted to each, and also in terms of where the writer is focusing their research/investigation.

2. The Burden of Change: The responsibility of prevention/solution is put on the victim, not the perpetrator. This is usually implicit rather than explicit, and is often intermixed with point number 1.

3. Denial / Protestations to the Contrary: The person will claim that they are not blaming the victim, while proceeding to do just that (via points 1 and 2).

Time Magazine on the Charlie Hebdo Arson Attack

On 2nd November 2011, the Paris office of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo was destroyed in a petrol bomb attack. It isn’t yet known who did it, but given that their previous issue had mocked radical Islam, was jokingly renamed “Sharia Hebdo” and was “guest-edited” by the prophet Muhammad, it is a reasonable guess that Islamists were behind it.

Time Magazine published an online piece about the bombing, titled Firebombed French Paper Is No Free Speech Martyr. I recommend you read the article in its entirety, for it is quite remarkable. Let’s see how it fares with respect to the victim blaming pattern I mentioned above:

1. The Spotlight: The article focuses exclusively on Charlie Hebdo’s behaviour. First it talks about the magazine issue in question and its contents. Then it looks back into the magazine’s past – did you know that in 2007 they reprinted the “controversial” Danish Muhammad cartoons? Shocker. It goes on to criticise the magazine’s insolence, calling it “self-indulgent” and “wilfully injurious”, and continues with heaps of concern about abuse of free speech, Islamophobia, burqa ban, etc. There is hardly a word about the people who bombed a building because they didn’t like the words that came out of there. You would think journalists would want to look into why someone would do that – interview some terrorism experts and psychologists perhaps? Nope, not here.

2. The Burden of Change: This is implicit throughout the article – it all but screams “Don’t mock Islam and they won’t bomb you”. No mention of “Don’t bomb people” anywhere. I.e., the burden of change is implicitly on the critics of Islam, not the Islamists.

3. Denial / Protestations to the Contrary: There are three points in the article where the author offers support to Charlie Hebdo – in a sense saying “I’m not blaming you or anything”:

“Sorry for your loss, Charlie, and there’s no justification of such an illegitimate response to your current edition–”

 “[I]t’s just as clear that intimidation and violence must be condemned and combated for whatever reason they’re committed—especially if their goal is to undermine freedoms and liberties of open societies.”

 “And within a climate where violent response—however illegitimate—is a real risk–”

That’s three sentences of support – qualified support in fact – amidst a 1,229 words-long article. Blink and you’ll miss them. After reading the article, the overarching sense one gets is: Charlie Hebdo was wrong and had it coming. They should change their ways or expect things like this to happen to them.

And then there’s the concluding sentence, which starts with some more support, but then undoes it all with a moral equivalence so revolting it beggars belief:

“So, yeah, the violence inflicted upon Charlie Hebdo was outrageous, unacceptable, condemnable, and illegal. But apart from the ‘illegal’ bit, Charlie Hebdo’s current edition is all of the above.”

Once you learn to identify this pattern of victim-blaming, you will notice it time and again. The recent statements by high-ranking Indian police officials attributing rape to the clothes women wear, for example, focused on what women wear, implicitly putting the burden of change on them. And the spotlight – the media storm that followed – focused on this issue, not the men who are doing the raping.

Another trope that is often seen in victim-blaming is what one might call the helplessness of the perpetrator. While the spotlight is on the victim most of the time, it is shone on the perpetrator for an all too brief moment either to commiserate with or to bemoan the helplessness of the perpetrator, who is cut some slack, as if to say, “What else could you expect, in the light of such behavior by the victim?” The crime is cast as a natural reaction, even Greek tragedy. And thus the seam between the perpetrator and victim dissolves, and their roles become equivalent in the eyes of society. This New York Times report on the gang rape of an 11-year old girl offers an appalling example:

“The case has rocked this East Texas community to its core and left many residents in the working-class neighborhood where the attack took place with unanswered questions. Among them is, if the allegations are proved, how could their young men have been drawn into such an act?

 “‘It’s just destroyed our community,’ said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. ‘These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.’”

No one is immune to victim-blaming; but by identifying victim-blaming bias in ourselves, we can start a process of self-examination – of second-guessing our words and actions, like a freethinker should. So the next time you’re discussing some injustice with a friend, and you find yourself talking more about the victim than you are about the perpetrator, stop for a minute and ask yourself: Am I blaming the victim?

Related posts:

1. The God Delusion in Action: My Indian travelogue.
2. Dress Is Not A Yes

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared in Mangalore Today

Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence, writes Prof. Narendra Nayak while delving on the controversial Made Snana issue.

Warning: This article contains graphic images

Loosely translated into English it means taking bath on left overs but a detailed one would mean rolling over the leaves on which others have eaten and discarded. Again, a lengthier one would be lower caste people rolling on the leaves on which Brahmins have eaten! This has been taking place since hundreds of years if some are to be believed. Again, if some others are to be believed, it is a time honored tradition which has sanction of ‘scriptures’. This happens in quite a few places and as a child I have observed the same when I used to go to temples with my mother. But, I am told that it was and is still an affair which happens between people of the same caste that is GSBs (Goud Saraswat Brahmins) performing this act on leaves on which the members of their own community have eaten.

But, what happened at the Kukke Subrahamanya Temple is something totally different. Here the scheduled tribe people performed this act on leaves on which Shivalli Brahmins have partaken food. This again brings to the fore many issues which have to be discussed in detail. This temple is, to put it mildly, not as popular as the one nearby at Dharmasthala. The latter being owned by a Jain has drawn more people particularly from the other side of the Western Ghats and subsequently has higher collections. The owner of this temple has been also running many capitation fee colleges and businesses. In order to compete with it, the management of the Subrahmanya Temple has been trying its best to get publicity. Its speciality is providing solutions for naga dosha which in loose translation means problems due to cobra or serpent trouble!

These problems could be anything from sterility to skin diseases. Once diagnosed the performance of proper prescribed rituals could result in relief from the associated problems. So, any one going there could be diagnosed with that. Since the dosha or the fault can carry on to several generations it could be said that your grandfather or great grandfather could have performed some act which would have caused harm or angered some serpent. So, that could be set right by performing some rituals which could expiate these sins and hence relieve the victim of the associated problems.

One usually sees a large number of people alighting from the train from Bangalore to Mangalore at the Subrahmanya road railway station which is the nearest one to this temple. So, the whole place thrives on the business of ridding people of the sarpa dosha! As already said it has been competing for popularity with the temple of Manjunatha at Dharmasthala which is paradoxically a Hindu temple owned by a Jain! Though the latter is far ahead in popularity, the former cannot be blamed for not trying its best! In fact they have provided ‘relief’ from the serpent affliction to quite a few VVIPs like Sachin Tendulkar, Aishwarya Rai, Amitabh Bachan to name a few. But despite all these the former remains far ahead in terms of popularity( in other words collection of cash).

So, the word has gone around that the ritual of rolling over the leaves on which Brahmins have eaten can cure a number of skin diseases and also other things like bestowing children on sterile couples. But, if one goes by the history of such practices, it looks more like a rite for the down trodden to perform to demonstrate their loyalty to the upper castes who have partaken food on these leaves. In this temple which is run by Shivalli Brahmins, their community is served separately and the others have to eat outside like all such places. There are instances where people have been forcibly evicted from the places reserved for this community! It has been done not just to the supposedly lower castes but even to Goud Saraswat Brahmins who though call themselves so are held in low esteem by these so called upper castes! So, behind these practices lies a simmering cauldron of caste politics. In fact these castes like Koragas have been subjected to inhuman practices like what was called as Ajalu. They were served meals on leaves on which Brahmins have eaten along with a clipping of a nail or hair, dancing before the procession of deities etc.which have now been banned. These things were done ostensibly to transfer the ‘bad luck’ caused by some inauspicious combination of planets to these people!

The reactions to this practice of made snana were diametrically opposite. The Dalit activists who opposed it were manhandled by the very people indignities against whom were being protested-malekudiyas who belong to scheduled tribe, attacked the Dalit activist Shivaram who was submitting a memorandum against this practice to the administrator of the temple and police were silent spectators to this outrage. The volte face of the government on this issue of first banning the ritual and then permitting it left much to be desired. More strange were the attitudes of the ministers. Some of the Dalit ministers opposed the ritual while those like Dr.V.S.Acharya supported it! There are many strong reasons why the latter is supporting it. Firstly, it is a temple belonging to Shivalli Brahmins the community to which he belongs. Then again there is a strong Hindutwa lobby supporting these primitive barbaric rituals which he wanted to please. He also puts forward many theories to support his contentions which deserve to be analysed in detail as Dr.V.S.Acharya is an MBBS graduate who has been trained to and is expected to follow evidence based, scientific system of medicine.

So, if he justifies such a practice on medical grounds as he did he owes a lot of explanations to the scientific community which should be forthcoming. In any scientific system of medicine any practice associated with the process of diagnosis or treatment should be subjected to proper scrutiny before being followed. So, statements like practicing made snana may cause formation of antibodies, have to be justified with proper evidence. The long winded explanation for this is that saliva may contain some bacteria, viruses or some such which could stimulate the production of antibodies and boost the immune system of those who roll on the leaves which have been used. Hahnemann, the father of Homoeopathy has been also quoted here. Well, if something has to be accepted for treatment on the basis of scientific system of medicine it should be supported by evidence.

So, we should advocate clinical trials to validate these claims and these could be as follows: 1.Making Brahmins roll over leaves on which Dalits have eaten. 2.Making Dalits roll over leaves on which Dalits have eaten. 3. Making Dalits do the same on which Brahmins have eaten and lastly do it with Brahmins on leaves on which they have eaten and then compare the anti body levels. As for his resort to Homeopathy, he should understand that it is not an indigenous system of medicine and that a number of double blind trials have shown that it does not work and it has been removed from the National Health Service in UK.

Again many other practices which have been now banned could have been given such justification like nude worship being needed to expose the skin to sunlight to get more vitamin D, child marriage helping to develop deeper bonds between the couples, widow burning being needed to protect them from misery, shaving their heads would protect them from lice etc. All these were well accepted practices at one time and have been now banned. If Dr.Acharya is a firm believer in this theory of antibodies being formed by this ritual he should start this practice himself and boost his own immune system too. Though one cannot agree with the arguments of those who oppose this – like it helps to spread diseases or transmits HIV virus, the practice has to be opposed if it is degrading a particular community that too one like the Malekudiyas who are a scheduled tribe. This system of performing the ritual on the leaves on which only one community have eaten is again violation of human rights of others who profess the same religion.

More to be condemned is the violence perpetrated on the activists who had gone to investigate the happenings. The perpetrators of this were honored as if they were heroes. These attempts to perpetuate the caste divide were supported by the victims themselves who allegedly threatened to stop their annual duty of decorating the temple chariot unless they were allowed to perform this degrading ritual of rolling over eaten leaves. This shows that either they must have been instigated or that their deep rooted superstitions must have scared them of the divine repercussions that would ensue if they ceased to perform this ritual.

It is a pity that even during these times where science has progressed to the level of identifying the micro organisms which cause leprosy that there are those who still believe that it is caused by the curse of a serpent and doing meaningless rituals like this can cure it. It is worse that there are ‘educated’ people in positions of power who keep trotting out excuses for these without a shred of evidence. For those who argue that it is for us to disprove such claims we quote – extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Related posts:

1. A Critical Look At Baba Ramdev’s Claims
2. A Rationalist Exposing Fraudulent Paranormal Claims – The Ones That Ran Away

Ajita was raised in the city of Coimbatore, India. His passion for science and reason went back to early childhood, as he once described in a forum post:

“It is always the best thing when parents encourage freethought. My earliest memories with my dad are of thumbing through stacks of books on natural history, watching David Attenborough documentaries and many hours of footage of the wonders of the Amazon jungles.”

He trained as an evolutionary biologist, and also did a stint as a professional musician in New York. To him, embracing freethought was a moment of homecoming, as he says here in his own words:

“It is a pleasant thought to know that we are not as divided it seems. It’s this common story we share that brings us together to ‘rejoice’ at the idea of existence. This feeling is not new. I had always wondered at the natural universe and have never ceased to be humbled by it. But now, I am starting to actually feel something that I thought I had lost forever. I am starting to feel like I belong.”

Ajita was an active participant in freethought throughout his years in America, forming ties with freethinkers who would become part of Nirmukta’s extended family. Employing his versatile talents, his contributions towards the cause of reason were manifold: as a prolific and edifying writer, as an insightful interviewer, as an adept podcast host, as an energetic community organizer both on-ground and online, and as a welcoming mentor to many freethinkers young and old taking their first steps towards embracing freethought.

In 2008, he started what would later become our organisation known as Nirmukta. Ajita once shared some of his early communication with other Indian freethinkers, a compelling glimpse into how it all started (the extracts are edited for brevity):

A trip back in time.

1. Here is part of Prof. Narendra Nayak’s first communication with me regarding Nirmukta. Context – I had emailed Basava Premanand, not realizing that he was undergoing chemotherapy at the time.

Date: Thu, Jul 17, 2008:

“I am Narendra Nayak. Since Premanand is undergoing chemotherapy for secondaries (the primary was a gastric carcinoma which was removed in January,2007) I am looking after the Indian Skeptic. I also happen to be the president of Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations. I will send you write ups of mine made for the press and my columns. You could use them any way you like. I am at present in Mangalore, but keep traveling all over. Narendra Nayak.”

2. Here is part of Meera Nanda’s first communication with me:

Date: Mon, Jul 21, 2008:

“Dear Ajita: I am very heartened that you are getting together a blog on this crucial issue of naturalism and humanism, as it relates to India. There are so many issues and events in India that provoke me to think and want to intervene. A blog will be a good place to let loose a bit. I like the idea very much. I am unsure if I will be able to do a good enough job. But I am more than willing and happy to give it a good try.”

3. The conversation between myself and Meera Nanda that finally helped us settle on the name “Nirmukta’:

Me, Date: Tue, Jul 22, 2008:

I’m sure you agree that the way to influence cultural evolution is by creating an infectious meme. I was trying to find a Sanskrit word that had a positive connotation. Reason, Rationality, Naturalism! To put this alongside with the marketing angle, I would go back to picking a short pop-sounding word. Niiti still appeals to me. So does apohana. And my new favourite: www.nirmukta.com. Nirmukta: freed, liberated, set free. This has taken long enough, please give me your pick(s) and lets decide and move on. As you suggested earlier we can buy more than one domain name. I am voting for www.nirmukta.com.”

Meera Nanda, Date: Mon, Jul 22, 2008:

Nirmukta — I like that. I really do. It has a certain something in the sound and it does express what we mean. Stroke of genius. So we will be www.nirmukta.com. Sounds good enough to me. Let us go for it…

And that’s how Nirmukta was born. A few months later, PZ Myers of Pharyngula gave Nirmukta a shout-out which acted as a great publicity-boost, and for many of us, it was actually PZ’s post that led us to Nirmukta.

Here is Ajita in his own words:

“The one thing that I ask is an understanding of the distinction between attacking people and attacking ideas. Ideas deserve thorough scrutiny, not respect. Those who are offended when someone else questions or even ridicules an idea that they happen to hold dear (for example, the idea that an invisible magic man lives in the sky) need to have their priorities re-examined. However, people, with their thoughts, feelings, expectations and capacity for foresight, deserve at least as much respect as they exude. I am as unapologetically anti-religious as I am for human rights and freedom of speech. I believe in adopting a pluralistic strategy towards promoting freethought. We need both the “militant” atheists as well as the humanists. Sometimes building a community of freethinkers and creating social alternatives to mainstream culture can be the most effective and satisfying solution for furthering the freethought movement. Other times, simply laughing at these absurd and patently false ideas is the best way to initiate doubt and self-examination and to provoke believers into questioning these dangerous indoctrinated beliefs. Anger, ridicule, compassion and understanding are all necessary and powerful tools to be harnessed at the appropriate time towards promoting science and reason.

“I am also an environmentalist and armchair philosopher, poet and musician, writer and nature lover, science enthusiast and sci-fi geek, rationalist and humanist, progressive and moderate, pragmatist and optimist, skeptic and naturalist and many other things. I’m putting all this down on my profile hoping to not have to deal with some of the avoidable mis-characterizations of my positions. I do not fit into a neat little box, and I prefer to stay that way. Thanks for reading.”

Here is a short selection of the numerous articles that Ajita wrote for nirmukta.com and affiliated websites:

• Biocentrism Demystified: A Response to Deepak Chopra and Robert Lanza’s Notion of a Conscious Universe (with Vinod K. Wadhawan)
• Is ‘Hindu Atheism’ Valid? A Rationalist Critique Of The ‘Hindu’ Identity’s Usurpation Of Indian Culture
• Is Richard Dawkins Arrogant? Ridicule, Passion And The ‘New Atheists’
• Hinduism: Religion, Culture or Way of Life?
• Debunking Arguments For God Found In Ancient Indian Philosophy
• Freeing Devi: A Pragmatist Argument For Gender Equality In The Freethought Movement In India
• No ‘honour’ in Shame Killings
• Sacred Reason: Reconciling Science and Emotion
• Trolls And Other Disrupters : A Pragmatist’s Guide To Moderating Online Freethought Groups

He was equally prolific in the nirmukta.net discussion forum, where he clocked almost a thousand posts in little over a year and a half. Ajita’s posts were typically detailed, well-articulated missives that could just as well have been articles in their own right. In some, his commitment to humanism and universalism in approach shone through. In others, he took on complex subjects of naturalism and philosophy which served as great introductions for many of us. His responses in the forum’s Spot the Logical Fallacy section were legendary.

Ajita was a keen producer of videos and podcasts too. When he recently heard about Richard Dawkins’ impending visit to Jaipur, he excitedly reminded us of this little interaction he had with Richard. Watching it again still makes us smile; his enthusiasm is so infectious! It is a sad reminder of what we we lost.

The announcement of Ajita’s death in the Nirmukta Facebook group saw an outpouring of condolences and reminiscences. Others, such as PZ Myers, Ophelia Benson and Aamil Syed, posted the news on their own blogs. Here is a selection of tributes and memories that people shared:

Meera Nanda
I am still having a hard time to come to terms with the news of Ajita’s passing. Hard to believe someone so young, so full of life and with such promise is so suddenly gone. I came to know him at a time when he was planning to launch Nirmukta. We brainstormed over a suitable name, and came up with Nirmukta. I met him in person only once in Connecticut, at the home of a fellow rationalist, Milind Kale. That is when we learned he was planning to return to India. My biggest regret is that I could not maintain the pace of writing that blogging requires and as a result, failed to contribute as much to Nirmukta as Ajita often asked me to. But I deeply admired how Ajita managed to turn Nirmukta into such a lively forum for our community of rationalist non-believers. My heartfelt sympathies for Ajita’s family and for all of us — his extended, worldwide family. I earnestly hope that Nirmukta will live on and grow. That will be be most fitting memorial to our friend and comrade.

Narendra Nayak
When we decided to start Nirmukta I was quite e-illiterate and not much on the www. It is because of him that I have become so communicative and have to thank him for that. He always used to say that he would come back to India and start coming with me during my tours. I was initially quite skeptical about whether a movement can be build though the web but went along with him just for a try! But, today I am surprised by how much we build up through Nirmukta. I shall miss you a lot Ajita.

Tom Clark
I’m shocked and deeply saddened to get this news. Ajita was a good friend from our phone conferences, a tireless exponent of atheism and naturalism, humanistic, imaginative, funny, daring. An incredible loss.

Babu Gogineni
I am shocked beyond words – he was one of the best! I met Ajita for the first time in Chennai just a few months ago and I was able to thank him in person for the great contribution he made to the spread of Humanism and Freethinking through Nirmukta. I will wait for news of how he died – he was so young and it was too early to go … In sadness, Babu.

Richard Francis
The ripples of his words and thoughts travel around the world. I am sorry that I never met him but even more sorry that I never will. My thoughts are with his family and friends and long may his words change the world for the better. There is a very sad man in London because of this news.

Satish Chandra
I came to know Ajita sometime after Nirmukta was started. It was in the Indian Atheists group on the Atheist Nexus site. I was just an ocassional commenter. Later I stumbled onto the facebook group and then the forums. It was after I got onto forums that I got to know Ajita more. I volunteered as a developer and we used to interact frequently in the calls that Sid mentioned above.

He was a natural leader. He made sure that we didn’t feel unappreciated for our work even when we said that we do what we do without any such expectations. Despite being so widely read, so towering over us in intellect, he would always listen to what we have to say. He cared so much about building a freethought community that it was infectuous and it became a driving force for many of us.

I always looked upto him and he greatly shaped my thinking. I still can’t believe that he is no more. Still cannot. I wish this were all a dream and I wake up and see a message from him saying “Hey Satish, what about we change this on the site?”.

Naveen K Murthy
My heartfelt condolences to Ajita Kamal’s family and friends, He was an inspiring and motivating force for all freethinkers.Though i have never met or spoken to him but have just had a few interactions on facebook,i used to love the comments he used give on all the posts–smart and precise.The world has lost a great man, a visionary.

Sundeep Peswani
Like the good ones, Ajita left us too soon. He was a single-minded freethinking force of nature, a man who transformed a far-flung group of volunteers into the Nirmukta movement. He’ll be forever remembered by those of us whose lives he touched personally and the movement lives on carrying the torch he lit. My condolences to his loved ones. We miss you already, Ajita

Saravanan Dhakshinamurthy
I was very shocked to hear his demise. I am very much grateful for the platform he had built that let me interact with many freethinkers. Though I did not have the opportunity to interact personally with Ajita, I had always admired his intellect and leadership in running a well oiled Nirmukta. My deepest condolences to his family and friends who are grieving at this juncture.

Suresh Jain
Since I discovered the Nirmukta site three months ago, I have come to appreciate deeply the quality of thought that has gone into creating this community. His posts were so relevant to my own life experiences that I developed deep respect and affection for him even though I never knew him. This is a shocking loss for me. My condolences to all his friends and family.

Sunil D’Monte
My first ever interaction with him was when I sent him a message complaining about why so-and-so was banned from a group. His answer – well reasoned as always – not only set me straight, it also won me over. Classic Ajita. I’m going to miss him terribly. I only spoke to him on the phone once and never got a chance to meet him.

Ajita’s lasting impact on me will be twofold I think. The first is with regards to his humanism. I learnt about questions of “oughtness”, of rightness and wrongness – how should we live? What is the right thing to do? I will always smile when I think of the many moderation discussions we had, where he talked about “our humanistic values”. The second involves learning. I realised that ignorance is not an option, and standing still is not an option. By my bedside lies a book called The Story of Philosophy. I bought it precisely because in discussions with him, I realised “There is so much I don’t know about Philosophy. Must change that.” I’ll think of him every time I read it now. In addition, it feels like a personal loss, because I think we could have been friends in real life. It’s hard enough in this world to find people you “connect” with. To find someone like that and then have them snatched away from you before you have a chance to develop a proper friendship, feels like a horrible injustice.

Aditya Manthramurthy
I met Ajita online after I stumbled onto Nirmukta. I was very impressed and inspired to see such a carefully thought out group that pursued the same goals that I held dear and I quickly volunteered to work with him to build a community of freethinkers. Our numerous conversations over Skype increased my respect for the man with an inspiring vision of a freethinking India. His tireless work towards this goal has been the single greatest inspiration of my entire life. His eloquence and articulation of complicated ideas are things of legend. Only he could have brought together such a varied group of people from all over the world to Nirmukta. As is well known among those who worked with him, he was always generous with appreciation for the efforts of others. We have lost a towering intellectual, an inspiring force and a dear friend, but he will be immortal because his memory lives on in our minds! I can think of no better tribute to him than to redouble my efforts for our shared vision.

Debayan Sinharoy
I really don’t know what to say. From those early days at the rd.net website to all those unfinished debates in the hangout sessions, Ajita was one of the best friends I had. Here’s to the common dream we shared. I’ll miss you, mate. I seriously will.

Priyabrata Mahapatro
I’m yet to meet a person who has inspired me so much , within a span of two months , in my life. I must tell here that I haven’t even met him in person ; only the brief interchanges here were enough for me to become a fan of him. Whenever he ‘liked’ my posts here , I used to have a satisfactory feeling that I’ve said something useful and that used to cheer me up and energize me . My mind still refuses to believe that he is no more …

Siddharth S.
Although I had known Ajita for over two years, my biggest regret is that I could never meet him in person. I often thought to myself that we would meet someday and discuss science and philosophy over a few drinks. That dream will forever remain unfulfilled. I never had a doubt that he would forever be the man I would go to when I wanted some clarity in my mind. He is undoubtedly one of the most intelligent persons I have known; probably the most intelligent. He was a teacher, colleague and most importantly, a dear friend to me. He died too soon, with too many things unsaid and too many tasks undone. The world is indeed poorer without him.

Lalit Mohan Chawla
I always wanted to meet him in person. I don’t easily open up to people, but when i talked to him we would chat for hours. Over a short span i had grown really close, I can just scroll through my messages with him and see myself maturing under his guidance, he was my mentor. He had so much to do, he was so ambitious. He used to talk about his dreams like a child and then work on his goals tirelessly, no wonder he was able to bring Nirmukta to where it is today. He was so full of life, it was a privilege knowing him.

Gayathri Iyer
My sincerest condolences to his family. I still have a very hard time processing this. It feels like I just spoke to him yesterday. I don’t really know or understand how this could happen. He was so young, so full of passion and light. A terrible loss not just for his family and us here at Nirmukta, but also for the world. A brilliant mind gone, a great human gone, just like that.

Geetha Tg
I was standing outside the Conference hall during Thinkfest – the first session was extending beyond tea time and I was a bit worried talking to the hotel staff. I turned to see Ajita Kamal walking towards me – I smiled, pointed at him and said ‘Ajita!’ He did the same and said ‘Geetha!’ We shook hands warmly – I was elated to have him with us. I had somehow imagined him to be tall – I smiled remembering it was probably because in his profile picture he was standing next to Randi.

Throughout the day he contributed to the sessions with nuggets of wisdom, especially on the topic of Evolutionary Biology. I particularly remember him animatedly explaining how dinosaurs would possibly have acquired flight and later told me that he should not have assumed that everybody would know that birds had evolved from dinosaurs. That was Ajita – with towering intellect he also exhibited a rare sensitivity to others around him – he was never condescending when he chose to teach. During lunch I saw him walking around talking to people. I asked him ‘Are you happy that Nirmukta has grown so much and that it was all your idea?’ He said ‘All I did was just plant a seed. Nirmukta has grown so much because of so many people.’

Arvind Iyer
In the all-too-brief time of a little over a year that I knew him, he offered so much in terms of learning and inspiration and I am unable to come to terms with this news that it is only memories that we will have now. In the many whom he has inspired, he has earned a place that is his alone, and so much is owed to him…

Murthy Avn
I stumbled upon one of many Ajita’s articles on nirmukta in Dec 2009. His writings changed my life in ways that month I find it hard to articulate. I remain indebted to his efforts on nirmukta in bringing together Indian freethinkers from across the globe and creating a community of activists. Mate, we carry forward. We shall surge ahead from where you left. We are poorer without you but your legacy will enrich our efforts. You were a teacher, friend and a towering intellectual giant.

Faheem Hameed
May Ajita’s demise never diminish the incandescence of his thoughts, words and deeds. Let us all continue to fight the good fight that he fought with the one weapon which united us all and the only weapon that will help us ultimately win – conversation. Journey well my friend, for you will be immortal in the many minds that you freed.

Bala Bhaskar
It is not often that someone comes into your life out of the blue and influences the very way you look at the world, and in turn, changes your life for the better. One such person was Richard Dawkins, and standing right next to him is Ajita Kamal. Dawkins showed me the power of reason and the beauty it revealed. Ajita gave me a community that agreed. Without Ajita, and in turn Nirmukta, the intellectual thirst infused in me by Dawkins would have eventually fizzled out as life went on, and I would have been just another apathetic believer who went through a “phase”. It was Ajita and the community of Nirmukta that helped me sustain this inner fire.

I met Ajita in person only once and that day will forever be a cherished memory. After Thinkfest 2011, Ajita, myself, Balu and Anbalagan went out to have dinner. He expressed his ambitions for the movement and we just listened in awe. After a lively discussion, I dropped him at the bus stop. As I drove away I felt honored to have met the man, but was also bewildered. Is this guy for real? Not once during the day did he show any sign of being the guy who almost single-handedly started the movement. He was mostly invisible during the entire meet, standing at the back of the room, except when he would occasionally answer audience question with his trademark articulation. Never did I imagine, that when I drove away that October night after dropping him, that it would be the last I see him.

In my first ever mail to Ajita, I said, compared to him, I have done next to nothing to help promote science and freethought in India. Nearly two years later, the feeling still remains. He did everything he could to make me feel appreciated for the work I did. But looking back now, at the amount of work he has put in, I am just a silent spectator. As the grief of his tragic demise sets in, I can think of no better way to salute this brave soldier than to continue his amazing work with renewed vigor and dedication.

Farewell my friend and mentor. We will take it from here.

Related posts:

1. M F Husain In Memoriam
2. Ajita Keshakambalin: The Rebel Who Wore A Blanket Of Hair
3. The Cosmic Boondocks- Episode #1, May 15, 2011
4. The Cosmic Boondocks – Episode #2, May 22, 2011
5. The Cosmic Boondocks – Episode #3, May 29, 2011
6. The Cosmic Boondocks- Episode #6, Nov 1, 2011

Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code defines ‘Rape’ to be unlawful sexual intercourse by a man,

• with his own wife under the age of 15 years or,
• with any other woman under the age of 16 years, with or without her consent or,
• with any other woman above the age of 16 years, against her will, without her consent or ,
• with her consent , when her consent has been obtained by putting her or any person in whom she is interested in fear of death or hurt or,
• with her consent , when the man, knows that he is not her husband and that her consent is given because she believes that he is another man to whom she is or bel ieves herself to be lawfully married or,
• with her consent , when at the t ime of giving such consent , by reason of unsoundness of mind, or intoxicat ion, or the administ rat ion of any stupefying or unwholesome substance, she is unable to understand the nature and consequences of that to which she gives consent .

The very definition of rape incorporates in itself the essence of the crime, the absence of consent. Rape is a non-consensual violent act which means to humiliate, subjugate and terrify the victim. It affects the victim’s body and mind, subjecting them to immense physical and psychological scarring. It is the most contemptible and heinous offence possible. Rape is not a statistic-strata-class-genre-type based offence. A rapist targets the infliction of harm on the body of the person, not their clothes, family background or behaviour. A woman from any walk of life, in any profession (including sex-workers), fully clothed or not, walking alone or not, married or not, with child or not, without distinction, could be a victim of rape, but, under no circumstance can she be said to have been the reason for it. A woman, at all times, is entitled to her right to give or withhold consent and anything done against her will is an offence, nothing less. The rapist is a criminal, with no condonation or mitigation plausible of the crime, and the victim could never be the trigger or the causation for the crime.

Rape is also an offence which requires the victim to be exceptionally strong to even begin to admit being raped and if at all she chooses legal recourse, she needs to be stronger while taking the insurmountable road to justice, through FIRs, identifying the offendor(s), bearing stigmatisation and providing testimony while being made to relive the horror every minute of seeking justice, which often comes too late.

Women live in a dichotomous situation within a patriarchal society where they have to adhere to male defined boundaries of safety and decorum, trusting them to be protectors while having to deal with the added, unwelcome burden of being the upholders of family honour in situations of breach of their personal rights. Women are ferociously guarded by men in families and communities in all aspects of social interaction because they are considered incapable of being independent and needing monitoring. Yet, in cases of rape, when the protectors become the perpetrators, subscribing to a notion that the woman could have possibly predicted or controlled the crime seems to become an easy explanation however impermissible by logic. It also covers the need and embarrassment for the society and the police to sit up and admit failure in protecting or assisting women in situations threatening their life, liberty and dignity. It also sadly and shockingly, suggests that the rapist deserves some sympathy because the woman put him in a situation where he could only succumb to temptation, and the woman should share the blame, if not take it totally and allow aspersions to be cast on her character and intentions. It binds the woman in more chains of responsibility for her own safety as well as the breach of it while letting off the rapist for being helpless before temptation, making the victim the offendor. It is an unacceptable statement on the society, its apathy and basic understanding of how this crime is a power tool in the hands of the rapists to assert power, show contempt and scar a woman for life; also highlighting lack of measures to suitably address the issue of protection of women.

In this scenario, misogynist comments, promoting blaming the victim, are not mere social gaffes, retractable at will, but vile statements defiling the character and humanity of an entire gender. They are defamatory, made in denial of the fact that women are equal human beings, equal participants of this democracy, equally protected by the Constitution of this country and also holders of the same fundamental freedoms enjoyed by the men. They are entitled to roam the streets, dress as they please, speak and interact and enjoy all the privileges as men, in the same quantum of liberty. Misogynist statements made by people in powerful positions, especially men, such as ministers and police personnel are patriarchal echoes of shoddy reasoning and gender intolerance while being extremely dangerous because such notions being propagated from public platforms, coming from power-wielding men, they are deemed to influence opinions and imply sanction, now that the plausible explanation is made available. When there are sections of the society fighting for a sea change in outlook and policies for women, such comments are a huge setback to the efforts. Every woman is entitled to safety, life with dignity, liberty and the State is equally responsible for the protection of each and every woman in its territory, without exception.

The merest reference to any sort of responsibility attributed to the woman in being the victim diminishes the gravity of the crime by promoting a conditioning within the society and especially the perpetrators; to hold women accountable for their safety from wrong-doers with a hollow and ridiculous excuse for debilitating transgressions of their bodies and suggests some sort of willingness on part of the victim to be raped in the tone of “asking for it”. It shifts the accountability, quite ironically, from the perpetrator to the victim and dilutes the seriousness of the crime and the outrage caused to the victim.

Irresponsible statements inimical to women, promoting a culture of shame and silence, or worse, asking them to be ‘more responsible’ should be taken note of and strongly dissuaded and if repeated, be punished with disciplinary action against the speakers to instill a sense of responsibility that comes with the power in position.

Related posts:

1. Victim Blaming in Action

The moment the costume is removed they become untouchables.

Deepti belongs to a caste called as Kottaris and is studying for her masters in commerce while working at a mall. We have performed many intercaste, interreligious marriages but the maximum opposition has been when one of the couple is a Dalit. As to be expected, Deepti’s family was very much opposed this match and three days ago she fled home and started staying as a paying guest.

Today it was a tearful shivering young woman who had come to meet me, worried about her fate and that of her beloved. This was because her family had arranged a match for her from her own caste, a young man who was a relative of the head of a most feared moral police of the Hindutwa right wing! She was scared that his goons were searching for her. In fact, all the documents needed for her marriage were kept at the place where she used to work, and she was scared by her former colleagues who told her that a close watch was being kept on her locker by the minions of this man.

She had come to us for help along with a middle-aged lady whom we assumed was her relative- but it was not! She was Sandesh’s mother who had come with her out of love for her to-be daughter-in-law. By that time a number of progressive organisations had been intimated and also some very progressive minded journalists. While we tried to get her documents from the place where she used to work, some goons from there tried to follow her and then it was a ride straight to the office of the Commissioner of Police, Sri Seemanth Singh who had instructed his office to give all help for the couple. By the time we reached the office, ony Deepti’s brothers were there and they informed the police that they had absolutely no objection to her marrying any one of her choice.

So, in the evening one progressive-minded priest, Jayaram Bhat, performed their marriage in the presence of journalists and progressive minded organisations like DYFI, Samudaya, AIDWA, Insurance employees union and the Dakshina Kannada Rationalist Association!

For the last named, though religious marriages are not their cup of tea, under some circumstances, particularly when registration has to be done immediately, this sort of ritual becomes necessary. In a state like Karnataka where self respect marriages are not recognised as common law marriages for registration purposes, some sort of a formal drama becomes necessary for registration purposes. We are very happy that Sri Jayaram Bhat has been co-operating with us for the past two decades whenever the need arises.

Related posts:

1. The Legacy Of Brahmanism: Abomination of Untouchability And Curse Of Caste System
2. Exposing The “Miracle” Of Blindfolded Sight- The Story of Ranjana Agarwal
3. Sambhavi Gudilona, Badilona? Story of a Humanist Campaign Against Religious Exploitation of a Child
4. Ayurveda Question, And A Story About Akhilesh Sharma
5. A Secular (“Priest-less”) Marriage Ceremony At Shimoga, Followed By A Rationalists’ Meet!

Despite the fact that he wasn’t directly involved with the freethought community in India, and perhaps because of the way he lived his life, undaunted and marching to his own fiercely independent beat till the very end, the news came as a hard punch, leaving us stunned. Cancer for him was merely an event in the essential continuity of life, one that was to be met squarely in the eye. In keeping with his indomitable spirit, a tribute to Hitchens can be nothing less than a celebration of the way he lived.

Hitchens’ impact on atheists in India was significant. Our Nirmukta community, comprised of a majority of younger members with a passion for intellectual challenges, revelled in the inevitably one-sided displays of percipience and performance that Hitchens so relished turning his debates into. The rest of his long and illustrious career, covering everything from international politics to war and science, is often quite regrettably reduced to a footnote for lack of breath after watching one religious apologist after another have their core beliefs skillfully and thoroughly dismantled by The Hitch. For many of us, Hitchens was one of the most accomplished and visible of the recent wave of atheist authors and intellectuals emerging to challenge religion in the public sphere, replayed millions of times on youtube and elsewhere online, bypassing traditional media while still playing out his role as one of its last remaining heroes.

Although Christopher Hitchens was a late entry into the ranks of the “four horsemen”, many of our members, particularly the younger ones, have him to thank for helping them grow intellectually into mature atheists capable of swiftly dispatching any theistic argument. So it was to be expected when news of his death prompted an outpouring of grief on the forums and our Facebook communities. Here is a sample of what Nirmukta members had to say:

“The world is a bit darker without him.”

“ Losing Christopher Hitchens is like losing a dear loved one.”

“…at a point in my life when i thought i had no one and confidence was a all time low, ch (Christopher Hitchens) saved my life…”

“ It was only 3 years ago that I had come across one ofHitchens debate on youtube. I was a believer then, I am an atheist now. His writings and debates have influenced my life in more ways than I can describe in words.”

“His achievements in journalism, literature and freethought will be a beacon of hope for closeted skeptics worldwide to embrace critical thinking.”

“How to explain this terrible feeling of sadness?”

“This is a salute to a Horseman who, undaunted by the onslaught of authority, broke through barricades of convention, fought like an army unto himself, died in harness, and remains forever one who led from the front the charge of Reason.”

Hitchens stood out, even among those propounding so-called “militant atheism”, for the unrestrained contempt he directed at those with whom he disagreed on issues of human rights. He did not hesitate to make explicit his moral outrage against religious leaders and apologists who defended the barbaric, inhumane doctrines of the Abrahamic religions. With such people Hitchens did not draw the line at attacking ideas alone.

“Hatred, yes I plead guilty to that. One of the things I don’t like about Christianity is that it tells me to love my enemies. I don’t do that, and I don’t want you doing it for me either. Go love your own enemies, don’t be loving mine. I’ll get on with the business of destroying, isolating, combating the enemies of civilization.”

~Christopher Hitchens

Hitchens reserved the full force of his anger for those targets of public adoration and respect that he considered hideously immoral. The best examples, in the Indian context, are his criticism of Gandhi and “mother” Teresa. But even when he wasn’t laying out a solid case describing the bottomless inhumanity of a weapon of the church who thrived by martyring herself on the pain of others, one whose organization glorifies suffering and serves to extend the misfortunes of those in whose name it raises billions at the coffers, his ideas were relevant to us.

You don’t have to try hard to apply Hitchens’ scathing criticism of religion to the Indian context. It is true that although he was so eloquently contemptuous of all religious doctrines and the authoritarian forces that wield them to various nefarious ends, much of his polemics were targeted at Judeo-Christian beliefs and practices. But when we come across a religious apologist with a distinctly desi flavour, the odds are that a quote, link or adapted retelling of a Hitchens argument would serve just as well in standing up for reason in the Indian context, and with style.

Christopher Hitchens will mostly be missed for his ability to cut through the layers of deception and subterfuge that centuries of religious indoctrination has bred into culture. He made us question deeply ingrained beliefs and unexamined premises, and held us, his audience, up to a higher standard than many of us were willing to grant ourselves. For us Indians, most of us products of a system that discourages free inquiry, systematically replacing independent thought with rote-memorization, where asking a question is seen as a sign of disrespect and the only acceptable claims to knowledge are based on authority, Hitchens’ sheer irreverence was breathtaking. He spurred us on with his coruscating wit to see past the blinds of authoritarian dogma, a lesson well worth conveying to the masses of Indians who reserve criticism and scrutiny for faiths other than their own.

“If you say to people, why don’t you wonder if there’s anything wrong with your own faith, if there’s anything wrong with your own cult, if there’s anything wrong with your own suspension of reason, then they get antsy. They always want to laugh at someone else’s.”

~Christopher Hitchens

The big question we’re concerned with here at Nirmukta is how do we best go forward, remembering the great Hitchens by carrying on down the path he blazed before us, bearing on his battle-scarred shoulders the irresolute future of freethought. The stakes are as high as ever. It is civilization itself that hangs in the balance, as Hitchens reminded us at every opportunity.

It is difficult to say where the freethought movement, including our efforts in India, will lead us in the next few years. But one thing is for certain; Christopher Hitchens will continue to influence us for generations to come, taking his rightful place in a long tradition of freethinkers who have changed humanity for the better. The acerbic wit and unmatched insight that characterized his books, essays, talks and debates will continue to be shared, quoted and argued over in forums and coffee shops everywhere for as long as religious tyranny continues to cast its shadow over our lives.

In remembering Hitchens through this tribute to his life’s work, an unyielding resolution to forever seek the truth and question authority is the only way forward. It’s the least we can do to advance what Hitchens would call “the materialist conception of history”.

No related posts.

I was 7 years old in 1945. My father was a religious person and a very virtuous man. He was the Mines Manager at TISCO’s Doddakanya mines near Kadakola close to Mysore. He was falsely implicated in a case of theft of Rs 1000 /-. I used to hear him cry in front of my mother while I pretended to be asleep. He used to wonder why the Lord Rama & Shirdi Saibaba whose bhajans we used to sing so reverently every day, did not help him to absolve himself from the blame.

For me my father was honesty personified and when I saw that the gods & saints with godly powers did not help him, I was confused to say the least.

Somewhere along the line, over the next decade, a seed, a small seed of doubt crept in, and unlike most children of my age, I resolved to resolve it, so to speak. I pried it open and looked at it twelve ways and found that I couldn’t reconcile my doubt with my previous beliefs. This may sound condescending, but the practice of acquiring religion, through childhood indoctrination, actually dampens and suppresses the ability to think critically, but in some people it doesn’t always take. It didn’t for me, and thank goodness it didn’t for me. In a relatively short time, that seed of doubt grew into a cancerous growth in my brain (a good form of cancer) that continued until it had fully consumed all of the theistic molecules in my body.

With meteoric force, it shoved me, when I was about 17, into a blackhole of Atheism from which there was no escape.

When I was 20 yrs.old :

I read books like “The Origin of Species” & “The Oscillating Universe” and realized that the very concept of god, much less god itself, was an irrational, nonsensical notion, based on contrived, yet ignorant explanations of nature, ones not worthy of belief, not worth basing one’s whole life around.

I became more and more convinced that god must have many psychological problems, even if we asssume that he exists. For one thing, he seems so insecure. He demands worship from everyone — praising him, pleading for money, requesting relief from illness. Why should an omnipotent, omniscient & omnibenevolent being need this flattery if he is omnipotent and solicitation for help if he is omniscient & omnibenevolent (He should know who needs what kind of help at which time, shouldn’t he?). Perhaps, I reasoned to myself, this makes him feel powerful, which shows his inferiority complex and insecurity. Secondly, he goes out and creates faulty humans and then blames them for his own mistakes. So even if hypothetically we assume that he exists, I felt that he doesn’t deserve my respect and adoration.

My parents were quite orthodox and religious but were quite pragmatic about it. They never coerced me to visit temples and do homas, yagnas and prayers. They only wanted their children to study well, do the best we could and leave the rest to God, as per the Gita. Once my mother said to me, ” why can’t you be like all the others? You think you know best? Mahatma Gandhi believes in God. You don’t. You think you are more intelligent than him?”

I had always thought of myself as an average person, with average intelligence, and certainly never felt that my intelligence surpassed that of others. My less-than-average academic grades was the proof of this. But even my average intelligence was telling me that we are alone in this universe and it was deluding ourselves to think that a God was concerned about human welfare.

So I ignored all the 2 crore gods in the Hindu pantheon and never visited the temples to trouble them with my petitions, and those gods also kept their respectful distance from me.

In my adulthood :

I found out through Comparative Religion that every religion thinks it is true. But I concluded that all 10,000 + currently alive religions cannot be true simultaneously, though they can all be false simultaneously. I discovered the difference between science and religion. When knowledge is inadequate, science poses a question, but religion proposes a belief.

I examined other religions and religious philosophies. Buddhism had great attraction for me. The life of the Buddha, and most of his precepts, seemed admirable and sensible in many ways. I began to study reincarnation, not just as presented by Buddhism, but in general. The fact that Buddhism stresses the ideal of becoming an integral part of the universe seemed to make sense. However, the asceticism of Buddhism, its complete rejection of the physical world (the only world we have) and the extent to which later Buddhism became formalized and corrupted bothered me. It surprised me somewhat to learn that Buddhists are essentially atheists – at least the idea of “God” does not play much of a role in Buddhist thought.

As I studied Evolutionary psychology and the history of science, I came to realize that all religions that I had studied were attempts to explain events and phenomena for which we have no natural explanation. Throughout mankind’s history, when we could not explain why something happened, it was because some deity or devil made it happen. God, angels and Evil spirits were simply the ancient substitute for the present-day function of scientific knowledge.

Why did the baby get sick? Why did the grass not grow for my sheep, goats & cattle? Why did the volcano erupt? Why did our enemies defeat us in battle? All these things occurred because we had displeased the gods. When good things happened – a miraculous recovery from illness, a victory, a good harvest – it was because for some reason the gods were pleased with us. Dreams, visions, hallucinations were interpreted as divine messages. All religions can be traced back ultimately to this need to explain the unknown and to control the vagaries of life. And religions survived because sometimes they appeared to work, and because we didn’t know any better.

We have since learned the natural explanations for many things that used to be attributed to the whims of a deity. Even those who still believe in God must admit that the best course in the case of illness is to get the doctor to prescribe the appropriate medicine, not to ask the priest-astrologer to determine the effects of Saturn & Rahu on us and to perform a ritual sacrifice to ward off those evil effects.

So it seemed to me that God was rapidly losing his job as an explanation for things we don’t understand.

In my Post-Retirement years :

If you’ve rejected traditional religion (or were never religious to start), you may be asking, “Is that all there is?” It’s liberating to recognize that supernatural beings are human creations … that there’s no such thing as “spirit” … that people are undesigned, unintended, and responsible for themselves.

But what’s next? That was the question bothering me throughout my adulthood.

For many people like me, mere atheism (the absence of belief in gods and the supernatural) or agnosticism (the view that such questions cannot be answered) aren’t enough. Atheism and agnosticism are silent on larger questions of values and meaning. If Meaning in life is not ordained from on high, what small-m meanings can we work out among ourselves?

So I asked myself, ” If eternal life is an illusion, how can we make the most of our only lives? As social beings sharing a godless world, how should we coexist?”

Religious people tell me that if there was no god, it would mean that this life had no meaning and purpose and they could not bear to live. I can understand that feeling, especially in view of the ‘ugliness’ evident in our world. Many people see life as a trial, as trudging from one problem to the next. The minute you have solved one problem, another crops up before you can say Sarveppalli Radhakrishnan. They need to believe that there is a reason for the misery and pain of existence. I can appreciate that. It might make suffering easier if you believe that you will be more than compensated for it, in an afterlife.

I would say life is meaningless, in the sense that one day, I will not exist as I do now. And of course, the Sun will eventually burn out and all life on Earth will vanish. But then who thinks that far in advance ? Who travels through life constantly worrying about the end of time ? Non-theists have the same kind of meaning in their lives as religious people. We, for some reason, don’t have a need for any greater meaning than is apparent. I see no evidence of a reason or purpose to existence. I only know that I exist, unlike god, and I must make the most of it.

I then came to the conclusion after extensively reading the works of Paul Kurtz, the Secular Humanist, that the purpose and meaning of life, is to make our lives purposeful & meaningful by cultivating the 3 C’s :

- Courage to face our life’s trials & tribulations without needing to suck on the pacifier of blind faith ,

- Cognition ( Critical reasoning and scientific temper to understand the origins of the Universe, life & consciousness), and

- Caring ( Compassion and tolerance for all humans & animals in the biosphere).

It is certainly not obtained by endlessly doing “Bhajans”, praising the glory of an imaginary sky-daddy. But I am not one who throws the baby out with the bath water. I realized that there are some redeeming features in Religion. Otherwise it wouldn’t have survived for thousands of years.

I will be the first person to acknowledge that the best benefit of religion is the spectacular art, sculptures and music it has produced. Examples of music :

- From Western classical we have : Handel’s Messiah; Bach’s B minor Mass; Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D minor.

- Then you have the Sufi music in Islam, and

- In South Indian Classical music you have Kirthans by Saint Thyagaraja and Saint Purandara Das praising Lord Rama & Krishna respectively.

In a moment of epiphany I realized that one doesn’t have to be a religious person to enjoy these kinds of enthralling music. There is melody and rhythm in this, which gives us auditory pleasure. Even infants, who are basically born atheists, enjoy music before getting indoctrinated into faith by parents. Many of these musicians were no doubt inspired by their ‘ Imaginary Gods’ to create this kind of music. But I felt that in the final analysis this music was man-made just like the God-concept was man-made. And as a humanist, though a secular one, I should respect the creation of human beings.

However, the biggest advantage to believing in god(s) — apart from the comforts of believing in everyday protection in this life, and immortality for self & Ultimate Justice for people who have deliberately hurt us, in the afterlife – is that you don’t have to unnecessarily tax your brain cells to learn & understand anything worthwhile about the origins of the Universe, life & humans — no physics, no biology, no geology, no paleontology, no anthropology, no evolutionary psychology, no neurotheology, no comparative religion, no nothing. Most of the religious people do not have any in-depth knowledge of these subjects and also have not cultivated the art of logical & critical reasoning and hence lull themselves into a sense of self-complacency thinking that their puerile religiosity is unquestionable.

I confess I wanted to learn & understand and didn’t mind the effort required . And so I ended up as an atheist cum secular humanist.

Prof. V.N.K.Kumar.

Related posts:

1. Unraveling a ‘Secular’ Hoax
2. A Secular (“Priest-less”) Marriage Ceremony At Shimoga, Followed By A Rationalists’ Meet!
3. My Experiences at the Humanist Congress held in Oslo
4. Sambhavi Gudilona, Badilona? Story of a Humanist Campaign Against Religious Exploitation of a Child

This post is to announce that four new Nirmukta Groups and a long overdue official Nirmukta Page have now been launched as part of our community network on facebook.

The images on the left are clickable.

Nirmukta Skeptics: The purpose of this group is to discuss all sorts of events and ideas from a skeptical perspective, using the tools of science to evaluate dubious claims and expose the pseudoscientific ones.

Nirmukta Humanists: This group is for those atheists and freethinkers interested in discussing morality, ethics and all sorts of issues involving social rights and justice.

Nirmukta Science: This group is for atheists and freethinkers interested in posting and discussing science-related links, book suggestions, videos, documentaries and articles. The group is also a place for discussion on the scientific method and philosophy of science.

Nirmukta Politics: This group is for those atheists and freethinkers interested in discussing political events and ideas in a secular and rational framework.

Credit for the customization of the Facebook Page goes to Lalit Mohan Chawla for the coding and Bala Bhaskar for graphic design. Bala also designed the logos for the new Facebook Groups.

The new official Nirmukta Page has far fewer members than the Nirmukta FB group as of now, but it will become Nirmukta’s main outreach page on facebook. Several new features have been added to this page, including a custom landing page and tabs that extend functionality. Please be sure to check them out.

Lalit has put together a handy guide to help us promote the Nirmukta page.

Eight ways you can promote the Nirmukta FB Page.

1) Add it to your profile
2) Post a testimonial in welcome page
3) Add it as a ‘featured page’ on your page
4) Share it (see # 2 in the image) on your profile (check post to profile while commenting in testimonials).
5) Invite friends (the conventional way)
6) Like the page
7) Post and share images or share the image below.
Invite friends using Smart Suggest app

Related posts:

1. Announcing The Nirmukta Community Forums At Nirmukta.Net
2. Nirmukta on Facebook and the Long Overdue Newsletter
3. Everybody Bake Jesus Day – Facebook Event
4. Freethought News: Nirmukta Forums, SEA-Atheists, Meet Narendra Nayak (Poll)
5. Nirmukta Advisory Board and National Coordinator Appointed On Temporary Basis
6. Nirmukta Live: Video Panel Discussion And Interactive Chat Conference

“Our time is burdened under the cumulative weight of successive debunkings of our conceits…. We live in The Cosmic Boondocks.”

~Carl Sagan

The Cosmic Boondocks is the podcast from Nirmukta Radio, promoting science, freethought and humanistic values in India.

Starting with this episode the show will feature clips of conversations between Nirmukta members, from our SENHS (Saturday Evening Nirmukta Hangout Sessions) meets. In this week’s episode we discuss ’A Freethinker’s view on the Science and Ethics of the Environmentalism Movement’. The attendees at this meet were Bobby Krishna, Geetha T.G., Satish Chandra, Lalit Mohan Chawla and myself, Ajita Kamal.

Music for this episode

Rising Legends, by Epic Soul Factory

Linear System, by Grendjohn

Bust This Bust That, by Professor Klig

Earth, by David Schombert

Related posts:

1. The Cosmic Boondocks – Episode #2, May 22, 2011
2. The Cosmic Boondocks- Episode #1, May 15, 2011
3. The Cosmic Boondocks – Episode #3, May 29, 2011
4. The Cosmic Boondocks – Episode #5, June 21, 2011
5. The Cosmic Boondocks – Episode #4, June 7, 2011
6. Nirmukta Radio Podcast Episode 5 – Hemant Mehta, Narendra Nayak, Rakshi Rath