“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 started by Ajita Kamal for  promoting science, freethought and humanistic values in India.   Nirmukta hosts both open and closed hangout sessions. The time would be around 9-11 pm IST The open hangouts would be live-streamed at the facebook pages(1,2) , the blog and the channel and are often held at Google+ . And closed hangouts would be recorded,edited and composed to a podcast. To be a part of the closed hangouts  send an email to editor@nirmukta.com (If you prefer, your details will be maintained confidential) with the body of the message containing Brief introduction, Key area of expertise, Other areas/related fields of interest and Time-zone(in case not IST). Your suggestions for topics of discussions are most invited. This week we interview Bill lauritzen,author of  The Invention of God ,who explains how several features of religion reveal themselves to be invention of man and an outcome of attempts at understanding natural events. Bill Lauritzen is an educator, scientist, and visionary.  Among his other accomplishments, Bill invented a new number system, designed a modern-day Stonehenge, called SpaceHenge, and wrote a paper explaining the value of geodesic domes. He also wrote a book about the invention of religion and mythology called,The Invention of God.

More about Bill

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 #7, Feb 18, 2012
2. The Cosmic Boondocks- Episode #6, Nov 1, 2011
3. The Cosmic Boondocks – Episode #2, May 22, 2011
4. The Cosmic Boondocks- Episode #1, May 15, 2011
5. The Cosmic Boondocks – Episode #3, May 29, 2011
6. The Cosmic Boondocks – Episode #5, June 21, 2011

An inherited tyranny

Section 295A of the IPC pertains to insulting religions and religious beliefs. Made by our colonial masters to divide and subjugate their vassals, like many other provisions of the archaic laws made by them, this section too has been carried over into our laws and is being used now mainly to persecute and hound people who may have points of view contrary to those of the powers that be. The rationalist movement and other progressive forces have been mostly at the receiving end of persecutions under this, but the others have been no exception. The word ‘persecution’ has been deliberately used here as most of the cases booked under this section have resulted in acquittals of the accused and all they have had as punishment is the period of the ‘due process of law’ which can take several years to couple of decades to complete.

Sanal Edamaruku at Mumbai church (courtesy http://sanaledamaruku.blogspot.in)

A miracle gone soggy

The most recent case receiving media coverage in this issue is the attempt to prosecute a rationalist from Delhi, Sanal Edamaruku. He has been quite active on the TV channels denouncing superstitions and god men on them and has been a regular feature on many of them. The most recent controversy in which he has been involved is the one of a cement crucifix of Jesus Christ in Bandra, Mumbai dripping water from its feet. There were hot discussions of some TV channels about the veracity of this so called miracle and there was a heated exchange of words between him and others leading to complaints against him under the above-mentioned Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code for “deliberate and malicious acts leading to outrage religious feelings of any class” – here read as the Roman Catholic community. Again, the act does not pertain to the miracle of the dripping cross but other words used in the course of the discussions which have outraged the religious feelings of a group of people known as the Organisation of Concerned Catholics (OCC) and the Catholic Secular Forum (CSF)  who had lodged complaints against Sanal at the Juhu and Andheri police stations. It was said that Sanal’s contentions that the so called ‘miracle’ was promoted by the church to fleece gullible people and the prefix used for the head of the Roman Catholic Church by calling him Mr. Pope had angered these Catholics who chose to file this complaint. It was in the newspapers that the Mumbai police have summoned Mr. Edamaruku for questioning on this complaint. A committee to defend him under the leadership of the eminent Supreme court lawyer Mr. N.D. Pancholi has been formed and funds are being collected from all over the world for his defence.

Fatwas on literary translation

It is not the first time that this section is being used or that Sanal Edamaruku is the first one to be hauled up under this. A couple of years back one Krantikar from  Andhra Pradesh had been hauled up under the same sections and had been in prison for quite some time as he had refused to apply for bail. His crime – he had translated some write ups of Taslima Nasreen which had been published more than decade back and were available to the world at large on the web into Telugu and had published that in book form, which had again angered the local fundamentalist Muslims who were after his blood. The ruling Congress party in the state had brought all these sections upon him to please their so called ‘minority vote bank’! The way it was done it was pretty obvious that the case would be thrown out by the court but the ‘persecution’ part of it was more important for the government!

Recipe for mass starvation?

Just at the time of the Sanal case hitting the headlines a student of Hyderabad, Kartik had been arrested on the same grounds for reacting that there is no god to someone who had greeted him on Hanuman Jayanthi day. He had been arrested and was in police custody for having expressed his convictions and exercising his constitutional right! Again, the same law was used by a right wing student organisation to target a member of a rival organization. The saffron gang are experts in using this law to harass those who do not see eye to eye with them. In fact, they used it to file complaints against those who organised and participated in a ‘beef festival’ on the campus of Osmania University recently. Though one’s dietary habits are one’s personal business, one mans food can be another one’s religious sentiment! So, people could file complaints under section 295A for eating beef (Hindu religious sentiments), pork (Muslim religious sentiments), any non vegetarian-food (Jain religious sentiments) and so on ad infinitum! It could also be argued that even the menus of restaurants are publications which are deliberately and maliciously composed to hurt them and so on.

An idea whose time is past

Like many of the archaic laws made by our colonial masters have been relegated to the dust bin in their country, this law too deserves the same fate. In fact it has been advised by them that we should do so! Yet, we choose to have these which are an affront to the very concept of human rights. If a person has the right to propagate one’s religion we should also have the right to question the same. All the religions thrive by striking the fear of the unknown into the minds of people and by spreading superstitious beliefs and questioning any of them would be construed as hurting the religious sentiments and cases filed under section 295A! If those who do so are members of a movement like ours then it could be added that the intent was ‘malicious and deliberate’!

Supporters of Taslima Nasreen protest Kolkata Book Fair ban (image via The Hindu)

All in the family

I can recall some instances from the past when we have been threatened with this. About a decade ago, I had made a public statement about cows urine being the urine of animal like any other- for instance a dog! At that time a campaign was started by the peddlers of the concoctions containing ’ urine that it was an attack on the religious sentiments and I should be booked under this section. A big debate went on for weeks and finally a legal luminary concluded it by saying that though I deserved to be punished under that it could not be done as I was born in a Hindu family! If I were to be born in a family professing some other religion then I could have been prosecuted! He also added that criticism and reform was a salient feature of Hinduism! So, the whole controversy died a natural death. We have been threatened with the same when we questioned faith healers of Christianity- the excuse was that they were just conducting prayer meetings! The same was threatened when we exposed one Aslam Baba who was supposedly conducting surgical operations with tailors scissors! A couple of years ago when we had tried to investigate Mary’s flex prints shedding tears we had to struggle very hard to keep out any such allegations of ’hurting religious sentiments’ !

Does this law have a role in our society? Well let us take a look at Article 51A of the Constitution of India which deals with the duties of the citizen. It states that it is a “fundamental duty of every citizen of India to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform”. With a constitution which states this and with a section of the IPC which is contrary, it is the article of the constitution which should prevail.

Flame wars

This has been also stated in the Hulikal Nataraj vs Govt of Karnataka judgment of the Karnataka High Court. In this case, a case was filed against him for making a statement at a placed called Madikeri in Kodagu district of Karnataka. He had stated in a public lecture that the so called miracle at Sabarimala at the Aiyappa temple area was man-made. It was about a flame called as Makara vilakku from a hill called as Ponnambala Medu which was opposite the temple.The locals who wanted to hound him and harass him had filed a complaint with the local police station and the station house officer had straightaway filed an FIR and a charge sheet and tried to arrest Nataraj who had gone to the High Court for quashing the case. After a couple of years the judgment came as an indictment of the whole system. In fact the judge called the Home secretary to the court and also withheld the increment of the Sub Inspector who had attempted to arrest Nataraj.

A question for the faithful

A couple of years ago when we had tried to investigate the phenomenon of flex prints of Mary shedding ‘tears’ at the church in Aluva, Kerala there were attempts to convert that too as clash between various sections and to convert it into a outraging religious sentiments issue as in the case of Sanal mentioned above. But, due caution on our part in that case, prevented any adverse outcome.

Laws like Section 295A have no place in a civilized society and need to be consigned with many of such to the trash bins of history. Finally after mulling over the legal issues and the secular aspects of the law, a philosophical question needs to be addressed - why does an omnipotent deity need the services of a mundane law made by puny human beings to set right alleged infractions of divine laws made by a higher force? This is for the religious whose feelings are ‘offended’ to answer!

No related posts.

Around 300 BCE, the pacifist Emperor Ashoka proposed alternative punishments to the death penalty in India., but did not ban it.

In Japan the death penalty was abolished in 818 AD by Emperor Saga and this lasted for 338 years until 1156.

Between the 9th and the 13th centuries, the Ukraine based Kiev Rus mostly replaced the death penalty with banishment, or payment of a fine.

China which today executes more people than the rest of the world put together once had a brief no death penalty phase between 1747 and 1759.

The Grand Duke Leopold II of Habsburg was so influenced by Cesare Beccaria’s 1764 work Dei Delitti e Delle Pene (On Crimes and Punishments), that he abolished the death penalty in the then-independent Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

In the US – a country where guns are freely available and where well over 20,000 persons have been killed by the state since 1608 –Illinois state banned the death penalty in 2011, Oregon adopted a moratorium on executions, Maryland and Connecticut are close to banning them, and California is likely to put a referendum on the state ballot in November that could abolish the death penalty.

While Iran routinely executes people for crimes committed as children, the US Supreme Court stopped this as a cruel and unusual punishment in 2005 in its judgement in Roper v Simmons.

The 2008 Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment commissioned the most comprehensive study of the US system. The report, which consolidated the results of 14 other studies and examined more cases than previous analyses, concluded that murderers sentenced to death will end up costing taxpayers three times more over the length of the case than if they were sentenced to life without parole.In a case that is eligible for the death penalty but where it’s not sought and the sentence is life without the possibility of parole, the average cost to the US taxpayer is $1.1m. But where a death sentence is given, the case in its entirety will cost an average of $3m.

By contrast, the cost of a death penalty-eligible case where death is sought but not awarded by the court is $1.8m.

In a most recent decision a court in the US has banned the import of Sodium Thiopental into the US on ‘health considerations’ of the person about to be executed. There is not enough drug now in the country to carryout executions. The judge must have read Orwell’s moving essay ‘A Hanging‘.

Image links to source

The Indian Scenario:

Chandigarh Sessions Court’s instruction to the SP of Patiala Central Jail to implement the scheduled execution of Balwant Singh Rajoana on 31 March has revived the debate on the death penalty in India. Rajoana was the back-up human bomb when Punjab CM Beant Singh was assassinated in 1995. Rajoana never appealed for mercy, but clemency petitions filed by the Punjab government and by Sikh groups who consider the unrepentant Rajoana a living martyr to the cause of the Sikh nation have led to a further postponement of the execution.

While some political groups bay for the blood of convicts they dislike (Afzal Guru and Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab), and others ask for clemency for those they support (Sri Lankan nationals convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case — Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan), on 29 March the Supreme Court of India took notice of death row politics in the country and asked some uncomfortable questions as regards clemency petitions and procedures. This is of great significance as there are currently 18 clemency petitions with the President’s office and over 300 people are on death row in the country.

In India, the crimes of murder, gang robbery with murder, abetting the suicide of a child or insane person, waging war against the nation, abetting mutiny by a member of the armed forces and large scale narcotics trafficking are eligible for the death penalty. The SC which in 1983 instructed that the death penalty should be imposed only in the ‘rarest of rare’ cases has recently recommended the death penalty for police officials who stage false encounter killings and for those who commit honor killings.

Is the death penalty a moral abomination or an effective deterrent of violent crime? Is it better for society to incarcerate a dangerous criminal forever, or is the ultimate punishment more justified for heinous crimes? How safe are death penalty convictions?

Providing a backdrop to the death penalty debate in India was Amnesty International’s latest report on the global use of the death penalty in 2011. The report recorded the positive trend that only 20 of the world’s 198 countries carried out an execution in 2011; 96 countries did away with it while 34 countries have been abolitionist in practice by observing official or unofficial moratoria. India has been abolitionist — the last execution took place in 2004.

From a distance, it appears that the world is slowly moving towards a more civilised system of criminal justice. In 1971 the UN General Assembly called for a restriction on the number of offences for which the death penalty could be imposed, with a view to abolishing it altogether. This will of the global community was reiterated in 1977 and again in 2010 in UN Resolutions with ever growing support from member nations. Today, no country can become a member of the Council of Europe or of the European Union unless they abandon the death penalty. Some African countries like Angola, Djibouti, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa have abolished capital punishment. Gabon is the latest to join their ranks.

From close, the picture is less attractive. India, along with the US, Saudi Arabia and China, did not support the UN resolutions and more than 60 per cent of the world’s population today lives in regimes where the death penalty is still legal — 18,750 people remain under sentence of death worldwide, and at least 676 people were executed in the year. These figures exclude the statistics for China which keeps executions secret, but is believed to execute thousands of people every year. A sharp rise in the use of the death penalty was noted specially in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, who along with the US and China are the world’s top executioners.

Despite its wide spread use, can the death penalty ever be justified?

Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that moral Magna Carta which sets universal standards for the global civilisation and in whose formulation India played an important role, affirms: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The infliction of death as punishment is indeed a cruel and unusual form of punishment. It is in the spirit of retribution, not rehabilitation and militates against modern standards of justice.

From flaying alive to boiling in oil to the executioner’s axe, from the hangman’s noose to the lethal injection, the death penalty has seen many barbarous refinements, but has only inflicted pointless pain where a less severe punishment could have achieved the same purpose. As Victor Hugo pointed out, it is irrevocable, irreparable and indissoluble and hence has no place in human law. In Franz Kafka’s nameless Penal Colony the death machine kills the guard himself in the name of justice, in the same way that every death penalty kills our humanity and brutalises our society.

The time has come to hang the death penalty, not humans.

-

Notes:

- ‘Barbarous refinements’ is Camus’ phrase.

- The phrase ‘inflicted pointless pain where a less severe punishment could have achieved the same purpose’ is from the Furman v Geogia judgement.

Editor’s note: A part of this article first appeared in The Postnoon.

Related posts:

1. Euthanasia: A Death Wish

“The 21st century should be an Age of Reason, yet irrational, militant faith is back on the march. Religious extremism is implicated in the world’s most bitter and unending conflicts…Even as we live in the shadow of holy terror, our Government wants to restrict our freedom to criticize religion. Science, we are told should not tread on the toes of theology.”

It is on that ominous note of foreboding that Prof. Richard Dawkins begins his documentary “Root of all Evil”. What will it take to reclaim this century for Reason? Outnumbered by an apathetic majority, outshouted by a violently voluble cohort of bigotry and outlying to the myopic priorities of incumbent governments, do today’s freethinkers even stand a chance in correcting the courses of their regressing nations? Today, they may lack numbers, a ready audience and government backing, but advocates of Reason remain convinced custodians of the hope expressed by American anthrophologist Margaret Mead thus: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

It is an intrepid few who will venture to take the lead and walk the talk, when the ground is yet to be laid and veritable minefields sprawl ahead. Where speech is not genuinely free, even talking the talk comes at a cost, which we must find the resourcefulness to bear. Victory in this campaign is not merely a matter of a popularity vote, but the wages of victory will include both the one vote that we have and all the popularity we can muster for our cause.

Staking our vote

Freethinkers are a minority but not a votebank. A vote is a citizen’s exercise of franchise, but a votebank is an institutionalization of groupthink, which is antithetical to freethought. It is by an aggregation of votes that most policy change is mediated in a democratic society and freethinkers have a compelling reason to use their vote to nudge the polity towards more secular and humanistic policy. But what if the polity is a majoritarian juggernaut heedless to any shoving, or a catatonic puppet oblivious to these nudges? Prof. Dawkins in his TED talk on militant atheism makes an observation which is as true about India as it is about America:

“So, we’ve reached a truly remarkable situation, a grotesque mismatch between the American intelligentsia and the American electorate. A philosophical opinion about the nature of the universe, which is held by the vast majority of top American scientists and probably the majority of the intelligentsia generally, is so abhorrent to the American electorate that no candidate for popular election dare affirm it in public. If I’m right, this means that high office in the greatest country in the world is barred to the very people best qualified to hold it — the intelligentsia — unless they are prepared to lie about their beliefs. To put it bluntly, American political opportunities are heavily loaded against those who are simultaneously intelligent and honest.”

The choice for a conscientious voter in India is often between resigned support for the ‘lesser of two evils’ so that the vote ‘at least counts’, or assisting in the losing battle of a rare candidate who is intelligent, honest…and unelectable. Isn’t throwing away one’s vote on a worthy candidate who is all but guaranteed to lose, a waste?. The answer, according to recent political scholarship is, “Yes and no.” It is indeed a waste, if the motive to vote was ‘instrumental’, that is, with an intent to influence the electoral outcome. It is anything but a waste, if the motive was ‘expressive’, to make a statement of conviction. Quoting from the article “Expressive Political Behavior: Foundations, Scope and Implications” by Alan Hamling from the University of Manchester and Colin Jennings from the University of Strathclyde published in the British Journal of Political Science:

“Any ‘instrumental’ calculus that focuses on the expected benefits associated with the outcome of the election, and admits that voting is at least somewhat costly, is therefore likely to show that voting is irrational. By emphasizing aspects of the act of voting, or of voting for a particular candidate or option, that do not depend on the outcome of the election, voting maybe portrayed as individually rational; and such aspects have been labeled ‘expressive’.

The basic idea here seems clear enough; voting, or voting in a particular way, may ‘express’ some aspect of the voter’s beliefs, values, ideology, identity or personality, regardless of the impact that the vote has on the outcome of the election, and such ‘expression’ maybe valuable to an individual in its own right and so provide sufficient motivation to vote.”

Your vote may not immediately influence government policy to be more secular. However, a conscientious vote for secular values at least reinforces your own secularism even if not the government’s in any discernible way. At first sight, doesn’t this suggestion seem irrationally solipsistic and a resort to self-talk when the public discourse does not go our way? The authors of the article assure us otherwise: Quoting again from the British Journal of Political Science article:

“Expressive motivations open up a new area of study which allow rational choice techniques to be employed in ways that more accurately reflect the meaning and symbolic significance of much political behavior”.

The authors make due note in the article that the ‘endogeneity’ of much political behavior, that is, how a great deal of political deliberation is private to the individual and that even not-so-visible expression by means of an inconsequential conscience vote in a secret ballot has utility in this regard. Widening the discussion beyond simply voting, the authors also consider other examples of expressive behavior in a civic context :

“Consider a situation in which an individual decides to write to a local newspaper to complain about some feature of local life and perhaps to suggest a remedy. How might this behaviour be explained? The standard instrumental line would have to be that the individual sees this as a means of generating a desirable outcome: perhaps the implementation of the suggested remedy. But the expressive line would suggest that the behaviour is best understood simply in terms of venting dissatisfaction, or identifying with the critical position, and that the observed behaviour might be expressively rational even if the individual knew in advance that writing to a newspaper would have absolutely no impact on the situation complained about.”

A vote may not win us a seat, but it can definitely help us take a stand. While your vote may have little impact on the immediate election, it is not to these elections alone that a vote’s impact is limited. While lamenting the lack of options for an Indian voter that are neither radical, sectarian nor dynastic, historian Ramachandra Guha hopes for ‘a new party altogether’:

“Based on the aspirations of the expanding middle class, this party could throw away the baggage of the past by constructing an agenda suited to the circumstances of the present. As a modern, or even post-modern, party, it should be open to all, regardless of caste or religion, and promote policies that are likewise not oriented to a particular sect or ethnic group. Anticipations of such a formation are already available, in the activities of such groups as Loksatta and the Professionals Party of India, both of whom shall put up candidates in the forthcoming elections.

These candidates will lose, but a decade or two on, some of their successors may actually win.”

If and when they eventually win, the victory will be owed in part to the votes cast for them conscientiously in every losing battle earlier. There is no telling when a merely ‘expressive’ vote will turn ‘instrumental’, but so that there is a chance at all of this happening, we must continue to express, conscientiously and consistently.

Illustration: Bala Bhaskar

Staking our popularity

So is casting a vote with a half-chance of change a generation from now, all we can do to push for secular policy? Is there no hope for change unless we take the plunge and form our own political party? There is at least one historical case study which shows how a campaign can produce change well within a generation, across the board and more widespread than any partisan mobilization. Sam Harris describes the decline of racism in America thus, in his talk at AAI 2007:

“Racism was about as intractable a social problem as we have ever had in this country. Now, I am talking about deeply held convictions. I am sure many of you, or all of you, have seen photographs of lynchings in the first half of the 20th century, where seeming a whole town in the South, thousands of men, women, and children; lawyers, doctors, newspaper editors, church elders, even the occasional Congressman and Senator, would turn out, as though for a carnival, simply to watch some young man or woman be tortured to death and strung up on a tree or a lamp-post for all to see. And even if you have seen these pictures, realize that the pictures themselves are a poor indication of the horror of these episodes. Realize that these genteel people, otherwise quite normal, we must presume they were unfailingly religious, often took souvenirs of the bodies home to show their friends and family….teeth, ears, fingers, toes, and often displayed them in their places of business.

Now of course, I am not saying racism is no longer a problem in this country; but anyone who thinks that the problem is undiminished, has forgotten or never learnt how bad a problem it was. Now, my question to you is…’So we’ve done something to racism. The KKK was battered to the fringes of society; we’ve had the Civil Rights movement; we changed our discourse about race; our major newspapers no longer write flagrantly racist editorials and articles as they did less than a century ago. But how many people have had to identify themselves as ‘Non-racists’ to participate in the process? Is there a Non-racist Alliance somewhere for me to join?”

Americans did not vote to end racism. They began to choose, first individually, then collectively, to judge themselves by the content of their character rather than the colour of their skin. They did not need to attach a badge of ‘non-racist’ to themselves to proclaim their commitment. They did not view their mission as simply legislative and did not simply call the political classes into account, but viewed it as transformative and began first of all with self-examination. Their successes which are in evidence today, are owed not just to political campaigners, but in great measure also to every lawyer who volunteered expertise in the service of justice rather than simply the letter of the prevailing law, and to every journalist who chose to voice conscientious objection rather than echoing the conventional folly of the times. The conversations they began, are in a deep sense still unfinished and still ongoing, and  continue to serve us a reminder of the persistence and sensitivity that is demanded of any advocate of lasting change.

The lasting social change we struggle for today, is less about the ballot or badges, and more about our conduct and the conversations that we must begin by staking our popularity. We cannot afford to forget that the first individuals who spoke out against racism got not a hero’s welcome but a heretic’s censure, or even more often, the silent treatment. Reason is too important to be left to just the rationalists, and human rights too important to be left to simply the humanitarians, for us to think that the conversation with those who do not yet share our convictions can wait. Some of these conversations will be confrontational, but this is a necessary ‘exposure therapy’ we must undergo as a society so that we do not respond in panic in the manner of phobics when political upheavals bring our differences to the fore. Much as we disagree with our ideological opponents, we agree with the Hindutva-leaning historian Koenraad Elst that ceasing conversation is not an option, when he says “Ideological confrontation is the best and ultimately the only way to prevent physical confrontation.” In our commitment to fight ideas rather than people, we can even agree with BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, who, quoting Urdu poet Basheer Badr in a Lok Sabha debate said “dushmani jamkar karo lekin yah gunjaaish rahe; jab kabhi ham dost ban jaayen to sharmindaa na hon” (Fight me like a worthy foe, but let us not the chance throw;That if we become friends some day, shame does not come in the way!)

Count Leo Tolstoy, had he lived to see the change in America, would have witnessed an illustration of the following lines from his book ‘The Kingdom of God is Within You’:

“…how are we to suppress by force acts committed in the midst of our society which are regarded as crimes by the government and as daring exploits by the people?
To exterminate such nations and such criminals by violence is possible, and indeed is done, but to subdue them is impossible.
The sole guide which directs men and nations has always been and is the unseen, intangible, underlying force, the resultant of all the spiritual forces of a certain people, or of all humanity, which finds its outward expression in public opinion.”

Tolstoy’s book, notwithstanding its name, is an important and instructive historical document for freethinkers too, especially since it has in nascent but already recognizable forms the concepts of ‘community organization’ and ‘consciousness raising’ as means of social change, not to mention its acknowledged influence on Satyagraha. While Tolstoy may indeed have drawn his inspiration and his vocabulary from religion, the high regard he places on human life, his rejection of violence as a means to social change and his recognition that lasting social change is brought about only by changing minds and deeds as a society, remain things which citizens of today would do well to remember. The title of Chapter X of the book reads: “Evil cannot be suppressed by the physical force of the Government. The moral progress of humanity is brought about not only by individual recognition of truth, but also through the establishment of a public opinion.”

A means to ‘establishment of public opinion’ as a motivation of ‘expressive behavior’ could be one reason for its appeal to a rational agent. The authors of the British Journal of Political Science article make the point that it is by no means irrational to treat ourselves as our own audience of our advocacy to start with. However, our ideas will become harder and harder to ignore when we continue to express them with conviction and without compromise. The ballot may well be secret, but our participation in civic discourse outside of the polling booth need not be. We may not yet win votes for freethought, but we seek to win voters for freethought. We seek to win over a group of thoughtful citizens, however small, who are committed to the moral progress of humanity and being the change they wish to see.

Laying the ground and clearing the way

It is on each one of us that this moral progress depends, and on every conversation where we will break conspiracies of silence and every conscientious objection we will raise against arguments from tradition. To begin with, we must at least talk the talk at every opportunity, at home, in travel and in the workplace, braving the raised eyebrows and bracing for the verbal brickbats. We do not yet have a bully pulpit to make our call from, but we can continue to speak up at the coffee-machine, in ticket-queues and in drawing rooms. We cannot continue indefinitely to be deterred to walk the talk simply because the ground isn’t laid yet or is strewn with mines. We must continue to lay the ground, inch by inch, through every attempt to help freethinkers organize in local communities and build mechanisms to collaborate and campaign. We must continue to be minesweepers of discrimination in any form, detecting and destroying prejudice when it is still subterranean and subliminal, so that what was once hostile territory for some, becomes common ground for us all, where we can take a stand, together, for Reason and Compassion.

Related posts:

1. The Autobiography of a Secular Humanist
2. Unraveling a ‘Secular’ Hoax
3. A Secular (“Priest-less”) Marriage Ceremony At Shimoga, Followed By A Rationalists’ Meet!

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in Mangalore Today.

If there is a Nobel Prize for hypocrisy then the religious forces would have a tough contest among themselves. It could be anything from the attitudes of Roman Catholic Church to priests’ outings with young boys to Mullahs molesting young girls to our legislators watching porn in the legislative assembly- hypocrisy seems to be a monopoly and the stronghold of the religious revivalists. The recent incidents show us the double-faced hypocrisy of the Sangh Parivar, their righteous indignation when exposed and all the rest of their much hyped ‘moral integrity’ of the party with a difference. Yes of course it is one. They are different because they believe in taking hypocrisy to heights never seen before.

They have been systematically attacking couples seen together in public places and preaching about morality, they have conducted ‘raids’ on pubs and such places, young people going on picnics or even events organised by educational institutions have been attacked and they have been foaming at the mouth and raving about ‘Westernisation’ of Indian cultural values. Of course the word rave here has been used on purpose here and there lies the tale. In the first week of February a religious event was organised at St.Mary’s island near Udupi- of course that the name given by the whites and there are moves to change it and also install a statue of Madhvacharya there! The event was a satsang befitting the new status of the island and was done with the pure motive of attracting tourists to this religious event. A number of Sants and Sadhvis were invited to be there for three days to live under spartan conditions for their spiritual awakening. There were events with the intention of glorifying the great traditions of Hindutva. They all danced in religious ecstasy to the singing of devotional songs and many of them were minimally dressed as they had taken vows of poverty when they joined the religious order and we have been told that there were also digambaras(those whose apparel is the air)! They all consumed satvik food like puliyogare, curd rice(items served in temples and supposedly very holy food) and such prasads. They had liquids like panchamrat, panak(liquids served as offerings in temples supposedly holy beverages) and such holy blessed concoctions. They had also taken Ayurvedic medicines for the purification of their atmas. Of course all this in the name of promoting tourism and Indian culture!

While this is what they would like us to believe, what happened there was quite different. It had to be because the party who are ruling Karnataka now are a party with a difference! It was a wild party with all that goes into such ones- and it was going on under the protection of the authorities in charge of law and order! When one does such things protected by the district administration and the powers that rule things could go on without any probems and they did. When the truth behind this so called music festival was exposed the event was over, the organisers had made their pile, the participants had their fun and once again the the Bharatiya Janata Party stood exposed for what it stands for- a motley crowd of opportunists and hypocrites. Not that the others are any better but this party takes the top post for the gap between practice and preaching!

Image courtesy d-sector (Click on image for source.)

Not to be outdone and to atone for their sins the legislators of the very same party sorry the ministers were attending a session of the legislative assembly where many serious issues were being discussed like the drought in various districts. These three ministers were watching clips about how the shortage of water had been handled in the west by shedding clothes altogether and were also taking lessons in anatomy and reproductive medicine on a mobile phone belonging to one of them. The watcher was explaining one of the very critical points concerned about the welfare of women and children which were being shown on the clipping! This was filmed by a TV cameraman and these edifying moving pictures were broadcast for the world to see! Then the real miracle happened these educational clippings were replaced by pornographic footage by a conspiracy of the enemies of Hindutva and it was that which was shown! One of the ministers was so worried about the morality of his constituency that his supporters cut off electricity to the whole area! As for the other one cable TV broadcasts were stopped! Their consciousness for their voters morality was so refined that newspapers were also not allowed to be circulated on the next day! We have the distinction of one our very own involved in the episode none but the minister in charge of the district Mr.Krishna Palemar who is a philanthropist to a large number of ‘religious’ institutions and is said to be very close to a local godman. It was said that the educational material which was being viewed originated from his mobile phone while he claimed that he did not even know how to operate it!

The hypocrisy of the journalists of the district has to be pointed out here. While they write reams about the so called ‘raids’ of the moral police and about mythical things like ‘love jihad’ they did not have the spine to utter a word about the hypocrites of the saffron gang. What were written were mere whimpers! There is a good reason for that too, many of them are beholden to one of the main suspects in the whole sordid drama. While the others from other parts of Karnataka had to struggle to keep the info from reaching their voters, those in Dakshina Kannada did not have to do that. In fact, a procession was organized in support of the minister so that the reporters could do some ‘positive’ publicity for the minister. The sudden demise of Dr.V.S.Acharya also added to the smoke screen in singing praises to the departed, all the other issues were swept under the carpet or rather washed away by the tears. His  support for the polluting coal based plant, his irrational stand on made snana, the statements about saliva acting like a booster of immunity were all forgotten. It was reported that it was the suggestion of some journalists that procession supporting the disgraced minister was to be organized (and it was done too) so that they could make reports making it look like it was a spontaneous display of public reaction for sullying the fair name of an innocent person.

It is not that this sort of behaviour is something new to the district. There was not a whimper when Sri B.V.Seetharam, the editor of Karavali Ale was arrested, paraded in handcuffs in a midnight raid. This was the reaction of the authorities who were acting so at the behest of  a Jain lobby who wanted to take revenge for his criticism of the naked Jain munis going in that state in public. His only sin was that he had questioned as to why sections on indecent exposure were not applied to them! Later on the High court came down heavily upon the government and the ruling party and the press council also vindicated his stand. It was again the hypocrisy of this group and the ruling party that was exposed here.

The ex-chief minister was very quick to defend his minions – he even questioned the journalists as to why they wanted to make a big issue out of some one watching porn? He countered them with an argument that they too do it! Well, in his blind rage of being denied his rightful reinstatement as chief minister and being busy with his visits to various places of worship in a bid to seek powers of the non existent gods to bring him back to power, he had forgotten that the basic issue was not about watching pornography but doing it in the legislative assembly when it was in session and a serious discussion was going about drought in the state which was an issue that affects millions of the population of the state who have been paying for all the goings on and also a fat salary and perks to them.

As I am writing this a case of  sexual exploitation of a little girl by two middle aged males has been in the news. The rapists have gone into hiding. The issue would have caused riots here in the communally surcharged atmosphere. But, nothing of that sort has happened. The parents of this girl are poor construction workers. The culprits have been supported by a politician from the Congress party which has been attacking the ‘porn watching’ ministers. But, when worse is happening under their very noses the party has turned a blind eye to its own leaders supporting culprits who have committed such heinous crimes like raping a minor. The other major opposition party has been no better with its ex chief minister being hit by scandal after scandal for his sexual escapades.

It is not that their hypocrisy is confined only to these issues. The religious rightist fundamentalist forces have a long history of this. It is always a matter of preaching what one does not practice. While a big fuss was being made about supplying eggs to children at schools for their midday meals in an attempt to provide them some quality protein, a big fuss was made about it with statements like that they were being poisoned or something like that! Most of it from the people in positions of power who themselves do not mind enjoying non-vegetarian food. While preaching simple living and high thinking for the  masses, the ruling cliques always travel in helicopters and large entourages at public cost. While they speak volumes about greatness of our ancient culture they want the latest gadgets from the morally decadent West! While singing praises of our glorious cultural traditions of our ancient civilisation they take every opportunity to go to the moraly corrupt, decadent civilisations of the developed countries!

Well, long  live our hypocritical political leadership, you have nothing to lose but your inhibitions! The most tragic part of the scenario is that if one clique is voted out, the ones who assume power are no better. The hypocrisy seems to be increasing day by day scandal after scandal and the attitude seems to be becoming more and more brazen.

Related posts:

1. A Critical Look At Neo-Hindu Religious And Spiritual Fads
2. Politicians Pleasing the Rain-Gods: Religious Backwardness in India
3. Sambhavi Gudilona, Badilona? Story of a Humanist Campaign Against Religious Exploitation of a Child

“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.

After the unfortunate death of Ajita Kamal,the SENHS were stalled for some time.

Starting this  Saturday, we would be hosting closed hangouts every odd saturday and
open hangouts every even Saturday here.
The time would be around 9-11 pm IST
The open hangouts would be live-streamed at the facebook pages(1,2) , the blog and the channel .
And closed hangouts would be recorded,edited and composed to a podcast.
To be a part of the closed hangouts  send an email to editor@nirmukta.com (If you prefer, your details will be maintained confidential) with the body of the message containing Brief introduction, Key area of expertise, Other areas/related fields of interest and Time-zone(in case not IST).

Your suggestions for topics of discussions are most invited.

Topic for the meet on 18th was “how religion infects our lives and culture”
Guest was Darrel Ray

Darrel  Ray (born 1950) is a writer and speaker on leadership and organizational development and author of two books on the topic. He is the author of the book The God Virus: How Religion Affects Our Lives and Culture and Sex & God: How Religion Distorts Sexuality . Ray is founder of the organization Recovering Religionists, a national self-help group for those leaving their religious indoctrination. In May 2011, he published the survey Sex and Secularism: What Happens When You Leave Religion?

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 #8, May 15, 2012
2. The Cosmic Boondocks- Episode #6, Nov 1, 2011
3. The Cosmic Boondocks – Episode #2, May 22, 2011
4. The Cosmic Boondocks- Episode #1, May 15, 2011
5. The Cosmic Boondocks – Episode #3, May 29, 2011
6. The Cosmic Boondocks – Episode #5, June 21, 2011

Coauthored with Satish Chandra

Many a time when freethinkers engage religious believers in a discussion, it quickly degenerates without achieving much in the way of a dialogue. So here is an exercise where we try to simulate a dialogue. Arvind role-plays as a believer and Satish as himself (freethinker). The arguments are limited to around 100 words so that only the best ones can be presented. Also this way, the believers’ usual plaint of not receiving ‘equal time’ or a ‘proper hearing’ in freethought debates is dealt with. We think that exercises like this serve to self-examine our (freethinkers’) beliefs and also as a resource of common arguments made by believers.

So, here it goes:

Religious Believer: In every human endeavour, there are more consumers than critics. Skeptics have their place in the religious sphere, but their numbers shouldn’t exceed that of the faithful, for the same reason that there should be more casual movie-goers than professional movie-reviewers. When some suspension of disbelief and placement of trust in the narrator is routinely considered worthwhile for the sake of entertainment, why shouldn’t this be invested in religion which promises so much more than mere entertainment?

Freethinker: Your argument assumes that a professional movie reviewer reviews movies only with the intent of finding faults in them and not enjoying them and hence if the majority are professional movie reviewers, then there will be very few left to enjoy the movie. But movie reviewers like Ebert are movie lovers first and then critics. They enjoy movies in a way that casual movie goers do not. So I find the movie reviewer analogy untenable. In fact, using it, it can be implied that skeptics actually have a good time with life. Also, suspending disbelief and placing trust in the narrator come at a cost and the cost in the case of a movie is the time it takes to see the movie and the chance that the movie will suck. So if the same analogy is to be applied to religion, the cost of the investment in it should be considered.

Religious Believer: How can a skeptic, claiming to understand the drama of life way better than the average believer does, ignore an obvious feature in the human condition that people do not seek correct explanations as often as they seek colourful explanations or consoling explanations? Aren’t splashing colour and seeking consolation as integral to the human condition as having to correct each others’ misconceptions once in a while? Would anyone wish to live always in a critical unadorned world bleached of all colour, simply because someone prefers sanity over psychedelics and insists that this is the only legitimate preference?

Freethinker: Skeptics do recognize that a majority of people prefer colorful or consoling explanations. A point to note is that a skeptic can have just as fulfilling lives as the religious, if not more, with their beliefs. However, the religious do not recognize that there are other people with different worldviews, and that they should be given space to lead happy lives. Any argument for tolerance is met with arguments from religion, based on some implicit, unagreed upon standards. Such arguments often spill into politics and policy which affect skeptics as well. Hence the vocal criticism of religious beliefs from a skeptic which can be mistaken as demands for intolerance of religious beliefs.

Religious Believer: Skeptics, despite their professed incredulity, are not immune to hoping against hope when prospects are bleak, and articulating their hopes in a narrative indifferent to science. Notice how even Dawkins resorted to a language of ‘mind over matter’ and ‘triumph of the spirit’ while describing Hitchens’ illness. “Though his body had clearly been diminished by the brutality of cancer, his mind and spirit had not.” You are free to take the reductionist route to answer certain questions, but aren’t there other questions where you too have to resort to using language in a way that is typical of the faithful?

Freethinker: The words of Dawkins are being taken out of context. If you ask him what he means by “mind”, he will say “Oh, the grey goo in our skulls” and not something immaterial. Same goes for spirit – it does not mean something beyond matter. So, Dawkins’ words should be understood as “Though the rest of Hitchens’ body has diminished in capacity, his brain is still as active as ever”. The words don’t imply that he is hoping beyond what is allowed by nature. Your argument is just over definitions, which can dissolved by substituting words with their expanded meaning.

Religious Believer: The fact that something means different things to different people, does not mean that it is meaningless! Consider the function served by prayer which skeptics are dismissive of. Doesn’t prayer serve the important function of creating a contemplative pause, either solitary or collective, and imbuing a given situation with a seriousness and solemnity that both solidifies earnestness and invites inspiration? In this sense, isn’t prayer its own purpose, even leaving aside the question of whether there is a Someone to whom it is being addressed?

Freethinker: People find meaning in all sorts of things and a skeptic will not deny that. Prayer has the same meaning whether it is directed towards traditional god-entities or towards Batman. However, I don’t see any religious person acknowledge that a Batman worshipper deserves the same respect as they do. What I do see is, religious people claiming special privileges for their way of praying whilst ignoring other forms of prayer. Just because something is not called prayer, it doesn’t make it any less meaningful than things called as prayer.

Religious Believer: When freethinkers acknowledge that meaning can be found in prayer by some and that they are free to do so, why so many objections to the ceremonial and symbolic uses of prayer in schools and in the workplace? And why this constant lament about having to put up with policy made by a religious majority? Doesn’t the ‘secular state’ in India, or the Church-State separation in America give freethinkers all the freedom they need, often even more freedom to be themselves than is available to the faithful?

Freethinker: Not everything that a person is free to do is allowed in schools and workplaces. For example, playing a boom box is not allowed. The reason is, they are shared spaces and other people’s preferences should be respected. But when it comes to religious matters, such preferences are completely ignored. Even if there are laws on paper, you can’t get a temple to shut down their loud speakers. You also can’t have freedom of speech because religious people find it offensive, but it is a given that skeptics are expected to not be offended by religious stuff.

Religious Believer: Immersion in a cultural context which involves a cherishing of ancient lore and yes, festivities centred on shrines, is not something that many practicing scientists oppose with the same vehemence as so-called freethinkers. One of India’s well-loved technocrats Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam continues to cherish his faith-filled childhood influences in the temple town of Rameswaram. The physicist Richard Feynman had a passion for studying Mayan hieroglyphs. Why do so many freethinkers have this allergic reaction towards anything that harks back to classical accomplishments, including attempts like reviving Sanskrit that may have a nation-building function?

Freethinker: Of course, people are free to cherish whatever they want to. But they shouldn’t tread on other people’s lives on the pretext of cherishing. An aside: Feynman is a freethinker. Again, people are free to revive historical achievements. But when that involves unsubstantiated claims like “Sanskrit is the best language to program computers”, expect a freethinker to call it out. Such exercises aren’t nation building, but are plain jingoistic which more often than not leads to intolerance of anyone who don’t agree with them, and to calls for barbaric measures to deal with “insubordination”.

Religious Believer: If this was just about having the space to do science or to pursue unorthodox aesthetic preferences, then this might have been settled long ago. However, far from stopping there, so many voluble freethinkers, under the noble pretext of promoting human rights, are fighting for creating such a permissive society that would grievously weaken the institution of the family and for creating a radically pacifist state that forswears capital punishment, which can even have national security implications. Perhaps a stringent moral code maybe incompatible with so-called freethought, but how can you claim the right to make relativism and licentiousness the norm?

Freethinker: The issue is about having space for everyone where they can find meaning for their life. It is also about having moral systems which are based on facts and not fantasy. Any moral code which depends on false claims like “Women need to wear the mangalasutra, else it be amangalam for the family” should be outright rejected. A freethinker’s morality will strive to be based on facts and reasoned agreement and regulated through legal and political systems. There is good evidence (in some western countries) that such moral systems don’t lead to apocalyptic scenarios as concocted by the religious.

Religious Believer: You forget that in India, a mangalasutra-wearing woman can drive to work and a couple can choose to have a civil marriage at a registrar’s office even if there’s temple music blaring in the background. You whine as if this is a theocracy like Saudi Arabia where a woman cannot drive or where civil marriages are not recognized. Living as you do in the democracies of India, Europe or the USA, don’t you think you sound like rebels without a cause, excessively fond of your own voice and belabouring points that have already been well-made and established in our societies?

Freethinker: That’s like saying since there are kids dying of starvation, kids suffering from malnutrition is not a problem at all. Even if women drive to work, Indian roads aren’t safe for walking for women during late night hours. During day time they still have to deal with catcalls and groping from smart hero guys. For married women, things like working or driving are seen as gifts given by the in-laws and not as women exercising their freedom. Asking men to share in household work is frowned upon and the mere utterance of such ideas ignites gigantic egos in “moral” society.

Religious Believer: Isn’t taming such beastly instincts in men, a civilizing function of Religion? And isn’t civilization a vulnerable incremental process which we cannot afford to casually overhaul in the name of choosing Reason over Tradition? Even your Flying Spaghetti Monster that you mock our beliefs with, needed to first be memed in your counter-culture, before becoming a recognizable argument. When there is so much overhead in creating the cultural currency that becomes the basis of shared meaning, why can’t we just keep the hard-earned cultural currency of our religions, relying on the wisdom of our people to tell apart the gold from the counterfeits?

Freethinker: A question from colonial era – Isn’t asking the British to vacate India and leave the governance to Indians too much of an overhead? After all they have given us roads, railways and an administrative and legal framework. Why can’t we just accept their rule, and work with them to iron out a few minor irritancies?

A question from caste apologist – Varna dharma is a result of thousands of years of experimentation which lead to an efficient society. Sure there are aspects of it for misery porn aficionados to lust after, but doesn’t Karma dictate that such deprivation is fully justified?

Religious Believer: Do you have any progress to report in your fantasy of building a reason-based society, except symbolic ones in the rarefied, elitist Internet and academia? One of your ‘successes’ maybe replacing ‘BC’ and “AD’ with the more secular-sounding ‘BCE’ and ‘CE’, but can’t you see that even after this cosmetic change, the pivot and zero point is still Christ’s advent? What ‘reason-based alternative’ can you hope to offer a soldier in the border battlefront whose spirit is lifted by battle-cries invoking those whom his people worship, or a physician who may have no crutch to offer a sinking patient but faith?

Freethinker: Secular governments and legal systems are a testament to reason based efforts. Unlike worthless chants of “anyone can hop Varnas“, a secular system like in Finland provides a true platform of equality. That we have only one life to live, should be motivation enough for a soldier to fight for themselves and the people they love. Learning to form beliefs based on evidence will make it easier for physicians to tell patients their health status. Even if that is not possible, a freethinker is still quite capable of showing compassion and doing what is needed to comfort the patient.

Religious Believer: If your conception of progress is in the context of secular society, do you envision something like Turkish or French secularism with a headscarf ban or the more accommodative Unity-In-Diversity model of Indian secularism? Isn’t the Indian model more realistic and isn’t it better furthered by harmony among faiths, rather than shunning of faith itself? When it is interfaith dialogue, where it is participants’ faiths that provide both the content and context of the dialogue, which will bring us closer to harmony, what contribution can you, who consider faith dispensable, ever hope to make in building a more peaceful society?

Freethinker: I don’t endorse the headscarf ban neither do I think Indian secularism is really secular. Religious thinking still dominates our governance and public discourse. Apart from being a tool to bring harmony, it has played well into hands of bigots and fear-mongers. What a freethinker can contribute to peace is an emphasis on facts about the world, cognitive biases and moral reasoning which takes into account such biases, and a firm commitment to compassion which arises from a realization that we are fully caused beings.

Religious Believer: There are some areas where I understand where you come from, but also some where you are bewildering and belligerent. The only unifying idea in your group seems to be spite-filled atheism which you try cloaking beneath benign-sounding terms like freethought and humanism. On my side we do have life-affirming beliefs to defend, and defend we will, come what may. I believe in preserving the best in our heritage, in upholding the institution of the family and the nation and in honouring the sanctity of Life, imbuing it with the sacredness that emerges from its very Source, to which we must remain free to celebrate our connection with, by means of worship if we wish.

Freethinker: There are atheists who are hateful. No group can be completely homogeneous or with black and white characteristics. But the freethought community is self regulating in that regard. Hateful rhetoric will be called out when it is seen. Now the real contention is what beliefs to defend. For example, the institution of family in India is riddled with so many flaws that it is very stifling and miserable for many individuals. But that gets swept under the rug with beatific smiles of “India has such a low divorce rate!”. I’m afraid such beliefs with serious flaws are a lot more common in religious communities than in the freethought community. Coming to our relationship to the “Source”, science does a better job of uniting us with it.

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These debates, be it in real-life or their simulated versions, cannot realistically be settled once and for all in a single instalment. This is but part of a series of attempts to overcome the communication challenges and culture clashes in such exchanges, while maintaining both convictions and a measure of civility, in the argument that continues…

Related posts:

1. Akalmandi Water Dispute: Hot Negotiator Attempts To Thaw Cross-border Ties
2. Trolls And Other Disrupters : A Pragmatist’s Guide To Moderating Online Freethought Groups
3. Guidelines For Organising A Freethought Event In India
4. Freethought News: Weeping Mary (Mathavu) to be Investigated by Rationalists (Video)
5. Freethought Activism In The Tribal Areas Of Madhya Pradesh
6. Proposal For A Management-Oriented Non-Profit Organization To Promote Freethought In India

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.

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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?

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1. The God Delusion in Action: My Indian travelogue.
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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.

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2. A Rationalist Exposing Fraudulent Paranormal Claims – The Ones That Ran Away