Hindu Superstition: Sid Harth
navanavonmilita
Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 22, 2003
National
Supreme Court upholds death for human sacrifice
By J. Venkatesan
New Delhi Dec. 21. The Supreme Court has held that all cases of human
sacrifice to propitiate gods or goddesses should be treated as the
"rarest of rare cases" and the perpetrator of the heinous crime should
be awarded the death sentence.
A Bench of Justice Doraiswamy Raju and Justice Arijit Pasayat, while
giving this ruling, upheld a judgment of the Jharkhand High Court
awarding capital punishment to a man, who sacrificed a nine-year-old
child before Goddess Kali for his own prosperity.
The Bench said: "Superstition cannot and does not provide
justification for any killing, much less a planned and deliberate one.
No amount of superstitious colour can wash away the sin and offence of
an unprovoked killing, more so in the case of an innocent and
defenceless child."
The tendency in the accused, it said, was indicative of the greatest
depravity shocking the conscience of not only any right thinking
person but also the courts of law as well.
It rejected the argument advanced on behalf of the appellant, Sushil
Murmu, that though superstition was not expected and encouraged in
modern society, yet an illiterate and tribal, born and brought up in
an atmosphere surcharged with superstition, should not be awarded the
death sentence.
The judges said the bare facts of the case showed that the appellant
did not possess any basic humanness and that he completely lacked the
psyche or mindset which could be changed.
He had at the time of occurrence of the crime a child of the same age
as the victim and yet he diabolically designed in a most dastardly and
revolting manner the sacrifice of a very hapless and helpless child of
another for personal gain and to promote his fortunes by pretending to
appease the deity.
Dismissing the appeal, the Bench said the socially-abhorrent nature of
the crime committed also ought not be ignored in this case. "If this
act is not revolting or dastardly, it is beyond comprehension as to
what other act can be so described is the question," the Bench said
and added that superstition was a belief or notion not based on reason
or knowledge but triggered by thoughts of self-aggrandisement and
barbaric at times as in the present case.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2003/12/22/stories/2003122204281300.htm
Volume 22 - Issue 11, May 21 - Jun. 03, 2005
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU
THE STATES
Witch-hunts in Orissa
PRAFULLA DAS
in Sundargarh
The torture of three women in an Orissa district accusing them of
being witches draws attention to the way superstitions rule the lives
of tribal people in the State.
ASHOKE CHAKRABARTY
Rani Birua and Jhala Bhengra,who were beaten up because a quack
accused them of casting an evil eye on a child.
IT was 11-30 p.m. on April 21 and the residents of Uttam Basti, an
unauthorised colony on the outskirts of Rourkela city in Orissa's
Sundargarh district, were about to retire for the day. A group of
nearly 20 men had other ideas: they dragged three women - Munni
Bandra, Jhala Bhengra and Rani Birua - all past 60, out of their homes
and beat them up. Some of them also raped Munni.
Rani Birua witnessed Munni's rape, while Jhala, whose eyesight is
weak, heard her screams.
As the three women were tortured under cover of darkness, their
families were beaten up and kept confined to their homes. When the
attackers had had enough, they threw the women on the railway track
near by and poured kerosene on them, threatening to set them on fire
if they moved. They did not, in the end, carry out this threat, but
Munni did not survive the beating and the rape. She died the next
morning.
What had Munni and the other two women done to deserve this? Someone
in the tribal hinterland of Sundargarh had pronounced them to be
witches.
A neighbour of Munni, Jaipal Purthy, led the attack. A local quack,
Birsa Munda, had led him to believe that the three women cast an evil
eye on his daughter. Purthy had taken his nine-year-old daughter
Shanti, who ran a high temperature and complained of stomach pain, to
Munda. Unable to provide any cure, Munda blamed the three women.
Purthy then took his daughter to a nursing home in Rourkela town, but
the girl did not recover. She breathed her last at the nursing home at
around 10 p.m. on April 21. Purthy immediately returned to the colony
to punish the women. While some of the attackers were local residents,
others were called from the nearby settlements.
Munni's small house is now locked. She was unmarried and had lived
alone for nearly 30 years. Jhala and Rani are yet to come to terms
with the horrifying experience. "Do we look like witches? We were
tortured for no fault of ours. We know nothing about witchcraft,''
Rani told Frontline.
The Gandomunda police have arrested four men, including Purthy. Eight
other accused, including Munda, are absconding.
The Uttam Basti incident is not an isolated one. The tribal-dominated
Sundargarh district has recorded at least 50 deaths due to suspicion
of witchcraft since 2001. The local word for witch, Dahani, has
powerful repercussions for the tribal population and almost invariably
it is the women who are at the receiving end.
Quacks seem to be the best bet in any illness for the tribal people
living in the remote hamlets. When diseases such as malaria and
diarrhoea claim lives, they often blame a woman for it, accusing her
of casting an evil spell. This makes villagers decide to get rid of
the bad soul and the woman is punished, sometimes with death.
The problem is not confined to Sundargarh. Tribal people in many parts
of Orissa link their problems to sorcery and witchcraft. Many tribal
communities also believe that death is the work of evil spirits, black
magic and witchcraft.
Mayurbhanj, another tribal-dominated district, has recorded 15 deaths
related to belief in witchcraft since 2003. The problem also exists in
Keonjhar and Phulbani districts.
The police only come to know of harassments that follow the branding
of a woman as a witch when a suspected witch is killed. But there are
hundreds of unreported incidents where "witches" are harassed,
ostracised, banished from their villages, tonsured, physically
tortured and even forced to eat human excreta. The assailants are
usually relatives or neighbours of the suspected witch. There have
been cases where the entire village or the panchayat ganged up against
a suspected witch.
The reasons for the superstitious practice are not far to seek. The
health care service in the interior districts is poor and in many
areas, tribal people have to walk miles to the nearest health centre.
The problem is accentuated by illiteracy, poverty and lack of
awareness. There is no road to thousands of villages in the State and
hundreds of schools do not have enough teachers.
Murders induced by belief in witches have left many families
shattered. In Birwal village under Lathikata block of Sundargarh
district, 14-year-old Sumati lives alone. Her mother, Budhuni Singh
(50), was throttled to death by Samara Gauda, a 19-year-old from the
village, on March 20. Samara believed that Budhuni practised
witchcraft and was responsible for his brother's insanity and his
father's death a few months ago. Samara is now in judicial custody. He
was arrested by the Brahmani Tarang police the day after the murder
when some people informed the police that they had seen him killing
Budhuni.
The story of Noni Ekka (40) of Tainsar village of Lathikata block is
equally pathetic. She was branded a witch in May last year. The
villagers tonsured her head and made her eat cow-dung and cow bone.
She was beaten up, paraded naked, asked to cross the Brahmani river
and not return to the village.
Noni's troubles started after she accidentally touched a girl in the
neighbourhood, Sukhi Ekka, while looking for her son Manoj. It was
around 11 p.m. and the girl was sleeping. Noni's touch gave her a
start and she fainted, presumably out of fright. But her parents
blamed Noni's "witchcraft" for it.
A case was registered on May 28 after Noni reported the incident to
the court of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Rourkela. The13 people
arrested for torturing her are now out on bail and the matter is
pending before the court. Deserted by her husband, Noni leads a life
full of uncertainty, struggling to feed her four children.
In another case, Bisaka Munda of Kurga village had high fever which
gave her fits of shivering. The quack whom her family consulted
pronounced her to be possessed by evil spirits. They kicked and
punched the girl through the night to drive the evil spirits away. She
died in the process, and seven members of her family have been charge-
sheeted.
Though women are traditionally the victims of such witch-hunts, men
too find themselves at the receiving end sometimes. In January 2003,
Dhuleswar Barik of Alapaka village in Sundargarh district hacked to
death six men because he suspected one of them of practising
witchcraft. He was awarded the death sentence by the trial court last
year. The matter is pending before the High Court.
There have been many cases where people, trying to propitiate the
gods, have killed young boys and given their blood as offering. Quacks
are sometimes killed when their cures fail.
"The problem is a combination of poverty, superstition, lack of
medical care and illiteracy. It makes a deadly mix,'' said Narendra
Nayak, a Professor of Biochemistry in the Kasturba Medical College at
Manipal in Karnataka and the president of the Federation of Indian
Rationalist Associations. "The solution to the problem lies in
improving the levels of literacy, creating a scientific temper and
improving the medical infrastructure,'' said Nayak, who has been
making visits to tribal pockets of the State to organise
demonstrations of tricks that the tribal people believed could only be
performed by those claiming to possess supernatural powers.
Witch-hunts have also been reported from the coastal districts of
Orissa. Two years ago, in Krushna Prasad block of Puri district, a
woman branded as a witch was tied upside down and four of her teeth
were removed after the local panchayat decided to punish her. The
incident drew the attention of the National Human Rights Commission
(NHRC).
"It is a serious problem when people take the law into their own hands
and kill people in the name of witchcraft and sorcery. It is even more
unfortunate that belief in witchcraft continues to prevail in the
coastal region of Orissa despite the spread of education," said A.B.
Tripathy, NHRC Rapporteur for Orissa and Jharkhand who investigated
the Puri incident. "The government should undertake a Statewide study
and find out the dimensions of the problem. Necessary action should be
taken by the authorities and the civil society should be organised to
fight superstition," Tripathy said. "The women's self-help groups
(SHGs) should be activated through various government agencies and
banks to motivate people."
Nayak said that belief in witchcraft is not unique to Orissa. "The
problem is very strong in the tribal heartlands of Chhattisgarh,
Jharkhand, Orissa, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh," he said.
"Even in a city like New Delhi people have superstitions, but they
usually don't go to the extent of killing people."
According to Nayak, the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations,
a body of 65 rationalist organisations from different parts of the
country, has been demanding a law to ensure the separation of religion
from politics, administration and education. The new law should ban
state-sponsored religious activities, he said.
"The country will never progress unless superstitions are removed. We
cannot afford to have quacks making a fool of everybody, including
Central Ministers," Nayak said.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2211/stories/20050603002504100.htm
Volume 23 - Issue 16 :: Aug. 12-25, 2006
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU
THE STATES
Bold but fuzzy
LYLA BAVADAM
A Bill in Maharashtra drafted to help eradicate exploitation using
superstition comes under fire.
P.V. SIVAKUMAR
Burning false beliefs by applying chemistry to camphor on the palm.
"UNDER the pretext of expelling the ghost, assaulting by tying a
person with rope or chain, beating by stick or whip, to make the
person drink footwear soaked water, giving chilli smoke, hanging a
person to roof, fixing him with rope or by hair or plucking his hair,
causing pain by way of touching heated object to organs or body of a
person, forcing a person to perform a sexual act in the open,
practising aghori [cannibalistic] acts by chanting mantras, putting
urine or human excretion forcibly in the mouth of a person or
practising any such acts." This is the first schedule of the
Maharashtra Eradication of Black Magic and Evil and Aghori Practices
Bill, 2005.
Created to address the problem of andha shraddha or blind faith, the
Bill was meant "to bring social awakening and awareness... to create a
safe social environment... to protect people against evil and sinister
practices and customs thriving on ignorance and aghori practices born
out of beliefs propagated in the name of divine, supernatural or
magical powers.... "
The Bill, put up by the Department of Social Justice of the
Maharashtra government, was passed by the Legislative Assembly during
the winter session in Nagpur last year. It was due to come up before
the Legislative Council in the recently concluded monsoon session of
the legislature but did not because the serial blasts in Mumbai and
the agrarian crisis in Vidarbha took up most of the time.
The Bill has evoked loud criticism ever since the process of drafting
it began in 2003, initially for being too general it would seem and
later for being too specific. In fact, the criticism has at times been
as fuzzy as some of the Bill's own definitions. However, it is clear
that the Bill has grey areas.
The proposed law will allow the State to arrest those who believe in
the power of the divine to cure sickness or any other problem. Such
practice would be considered a criminal, non-bailable offence
punishable with up to seven years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine
of Rs.50,000. While the Bill is essentially meant to target so-called
tantriks, the fear is that prevalent religious beliefs could come
under its scope.
One of the main criticisms has been the poor definition of key words
such as superstition, spells, sorcery and jaran maran (black magic
techniques) in the Bill. For instance, the "display of so-called
miracles by a person and thereby earning money and to deceive, defraud
and terrorise people by propagation and circulation of so-called
miracles" constitutes a crime under the Bill. But what is a miracle?
Would a simple trick by a magician also come under this category? Such
questions are left unanswered.
The `healing' touch. One of the criticisms against the Bill is that
key words such as superstition, spells, sorcery and black magic have
not been defined precisely.
Shyam Manav of the Andha Shraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (ASNS), an
organisation of rationalists that is behind the Bill, said that
earlier the Bill did have wide scope and alternative healing practices
such as reiki and pranic healing came under its ambit. However,
subsequently changes were made and the Bill is now restricted to acts
that are grouped under 12 schedules. Said Manav: "The Bill has been
criticised for vague definitions. First of all, it is limited to 12
schedules. Second, all the words used, like miracle, black magic and
superstition, are all commonly understood words and are available in
any dictionary."
Manav says the Bill will help eradicate all non-scientific and illegal
healing practices carried out in the guise of using supernatural
powers. His critics - mainly the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti (HJS) - say
there is no need for a separate Bill for the purpose since these
practices are punishable under various Sections of the Indian Penal
Code (IPC). "Would I bother with a separate law if the IPC was
adequate?" asks Manav. "These offences are non-cognisable under the
IPC. The Bill makes them cognisable offences."
Despite the criticism, there may be merit in Manav's crusade. For over
two decades ASNS volunteers have done notable work in rural
Maharashtra, travelling to villages, educating people and exposing the
techniques and tricks of charlatans. The organisation's efforts are
reflected in the Statement of Objects and Reason in the Bill. It warns
of "an alarming number of incidences of causing mental, physical and
financial harm... [which] are threatening to seriously damage the
social fibre and faith of the common people in authentic and
scientific medical remedies and driving them to take recourse to such
quacks, conmen and black magicians."
While the intentions of the Bill cannot be questioned, the fear is
that the solutions it offers can end up being the problem. While the
Bill does say that it will not apply to acts involving religious rites
and rituals that do not affect a person mentally or physically, its
language lacks clarity.
Its critics say the Bill is so vaguely worded that anything could be
construed as black magic. Will it, for instance, result in a ban on
mythological stories or religious texts? Would a person like Saibaba,
who is accepted as a saint by sections of society, also come under its
purview?
Fears such as these have led to the Bill being called anti-Hindu.
Manav dismisses the accusation saying he is not interested in the
religious aspect nor in miracles per se. "If it is just a miracle it
does not come under this Bill. But if the miracle-maker profits
financially or fools people then it is an offence."
However, the Bill does need some fine-tuning. Ambiguity has led to the
Bill being hijacked by politics. In a sense the Bill is tackling
religion per se, possibly without meaning to.
To some extent the authors of the Bill seem to have rethought their
own project. The present Bill, drafted by Manav, has many changes from
the Bill of 2003 drafted by Narendra Dabholkar of the ASNS.
For instance, a clause relating to fraud in the name of God by having
illicit sexual relations with or without consent has been left out of
the new Bill since this crime is already punishable under the IPC.
The field experiences of the ASNS have been such that they believe
fiercely in the need for the Bill. But the challenge perhaps lies in
ensuring that it is not politicised by sections that see it as
targeting Hindu religious beliefs.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2316/stories/20060825001104900.htm
Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 25, 2002
`Bare' facts about superstition
By Our Staff Reporter
Vijayawada April 24. Kokuntla village is just 35 km from the much
hyped Hitech City but bizarre things like teenaged girls running
naked, or an entire village population of 3,000 going into mass
hiccups happen here.
Despite five decades of Independence, even today there are no basic
medical facilities in several of the 200-odd villages of Chevella,
Vikarabad and other mandals of Ranga Reddy district, according to the
findings of a study team.
Most of the villages are now in the grip of a mass "black magic'' fear
psychosis, termed in local dialect "Bhanamathi'' and "Chetabhadi.''
A fortnight ago about 20 young girls, almost all of them in their
teens, ran naked in the village. The reason, the local self-styled
witch doctor suggested such a "propitious'' act as most of the women
were suffering from some gynaec problem or the other. And after
performing such strange rituals, the villager again shells out Rs.
2,000-3,000 each to the witch doctor as fee.
``Neither the womenfolk have any compunction about such strange
behaviour nor the men bothered about the modesty of their women as the
entire village is under the fear of the so called Bhanamthi,'' says
Vijayam, a social activist here in Vijayawada.
Mr. Vijayam was among the eight members from Vijayawada's Atheist
Centre who went round over a dozen villages of Ranga Reddy district on
April 20-21 at the invitation of the District Superintendent of
Police, Ramachandra Raju. The team was led by G. Samaram, a prominent
physician here.
Other members of the team included Ram Subba Reddy and T. S. Rao
(psychiatrists), Gautam (magician), Sylvester (mimicry expert),
Niyantra (scientist), Babu Mohan (MLA and cine actor) besides Mr.
Vijayam.
``The 20 young girls ran around the village naked were examined by the
team and it was found that many of them were suffering from anaemia or
other gynaecological problems,'' said Mr. Vijayam.
According to another team member, some of the women have illicit
affairs. But their husbands choose to overlook the same under the
notion that nothing can be done as the women are under the spell of
"Bhanamathi''
At Anantagiripally in Vikarabad, two men and a woman were tied upside
down to trees and made to pull out each other's teeth on the suspicion
that they were performing black magic.These are not isolated cases as
such incidents are common in most villages in the districts besides
the adjoining districts of Medak, Nizamabad and Nalgonda.
Says head of the delegation, Dr. Samaram, "Some of the villagers have
stomachache, schizophrenia or joint pains, but in the absence of
medical facilities the villagers approach the witch doctors who
mislead them. The team's magician, Mr. Gautam, demonstrated the
gimmicks resorted to by with doctors but the villagers were not
convinced.
According to Dr. Samaram, in one single instance the entire village of
over 2,000 people go into mass hiccups. "It is nothing but mass
hysteria or mob psychology,'' he said.
Abject poverty, illiteracy, lack of basic medical facilities are the
main reasons for these superstitions among the villagers, Mr. Vijayam
added .
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2002/04/25/stories/2002042502920400.htm
Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, April 30, 2001
Where superstition, black magic thrive
By Our Staff Correspondent
RAIPUR, APRIL 29. Illiteracy and social backwardness are believed to
be the main factors behind high incidence of human sacrifice and
prevalence of black magic in Chhatisgarh.
The highest number of incidents is, perhaps, reported from the State
with the recent one being the killing of a young boy in Surajpur
village last week. The `sacrifice' came close on the heels of a
similar killing reported from a village in Jammu.
Besides human sacrifice and black magic, the rural areas of the region
abound in `tohni' or witch where women are beaten up or killed
mercilessly after being declared `witches.'
According to Dr. Dinesh Mishra, who runs the Andha Shradha Nirmulan
Samiti - an organisation working for creating awareness against these
superstition - besides illiteracy, there is a social factor behind
these practices.
Putting across his point, he says declaring a woman `tohni' is often
done with a vested interest. A woman is driven away from the house or
village to grab her property or to pressurise her to do something she
is not willing to do. Children are `sacrificed' to please the Gods to
fulfil the wishes of the accused, he claims.
Dr. Mishra, an eye specialist by profession, who has been working in
the field for the past several years, says that innocent villagers are
tricked by self-proclaimed `babas' by showing their supernatural
powers which are nothing but scientific tricks that can be done by any
individual.
The incidents of human sacrifice and tongue sacrifices increase during
March and April and in October and November in the festival season
since people believe in making generous offerings to the Gods so that
they can be relieved of their problems.
``However, awareness is gradually increasing and villagers themselves
inform our organisation whenever there is an incident of this
nature,'' he says.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/04/30/stories/1430228c.htm
Superstition eclipses science
Dennis Marcus Mathew
HYDERABAD: As the beautiful spectacle unfolded across the skies with
the moon partially hiding the sun, tradition and superstition pushed
science aside and threw a blanket of abstinence and prayers over the
twin cities on Monday.
There were many who did not budge from their seats and remained
indoors for the entire period, which lasted around two hours, refusing
even to relieve themselves. In offices, many left by 3 p.m. so that
they could be inside the "safe confines" of their homes before the
"dragon swallowed the sun". Many others observed fast.
No marks!
Housewives were busy before the eclipse placing `darbas' and tulsi
leaves on food items and throwing away cooked food to prepare fresh
food later. Pregnant women too were tense, sitting tight for fear of
hurting their babies. Some grandmas prevented them from scratching too
for the fear that the newborn would have scars!
These were the deeds of those who believed that a solar eclipse was
not the best of times of to do anything. The list actually is much
longer. "A cyber city in the 21st century, and all these?" was the
question the progressive ones raised.
Panicky NRIs
"I got several calls from non-resident Indians, asking about
precautions when the eclipse would occur in their country. I told them
there was no need of such fears," says the director of the B.M. Birla
Science Centre, B.G. Sidharth.
"These beliefs have no scientific backing. In fact, many reasons are
actually contradictory," says Y. Ravi Kiron of the Association of
Amateur Astronomers.
Science-speak
"For instance, they say you should not go out to avoid the radiation.
Truth is that during an eclipse, the sun's rays are blocked and
radiation is minimised! As for food getting spoiled when it becomes
dark during the eclipse, what about the daily sunset? And on normal
days too, it is harmful to look directly at the sun," Mr. Kiron
argues.
"Same logic applies for worries of pregnant women getting affected due
to ultraviolet rays. The UV rays are blocked during an eclipse.
Avoiding scratching to prevent the baby from getting scars is also
unscientific.
They say the fall in temperature is dangerous. What about winter?" he
asks. Still, science and its advocates had few listeners in the cyber
city on Monday.
http://www.hindu.com/2005/10/04/stories/2005100419610100.htm
Say Superstition
Ever since the evolution of superstitions, morbid phases are passing
through our society.. Why, the howling a dog denotes that some
catastrophe is imminent to befall? Cannot dogs be subject to pain? As,
common hearsay goes — killing a spider brings you ill luck and the
fall of a lizard on your body puts you in trouble. Still worse is the
breaking of a mirror, you will be in trouble for seven years. Why to
leave spectres, who have made an independent providence to play their
part. Try sneezing before a person who is on his way out . Some people
in the morning slither away as soon as they see any cross eyed or
single eyed person approaching them . God has made them and let them
pass through life.
There is absolutely no marriage before logicality and these beliefs.
The abstracts — fear, suspicion, hallucination, illusion and such
sorts in human mind have have no link with science and reason. People
ought to free themselves from the clutches of such things so that they
can sense the more enjoyable and more beautiful .
Anurag Kashyap
New Delhi: Gyan Bharti School
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/quest/200210/stories/2002101200830200.htm
Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 11, 2004
SLICE OF LIFE
Free from superstition
V. GANGADHAR
A TAMIL saying Veliye payirai maindhadu pole deals with a situation
where the fence eats away the crop, which it was supposed to guard. As
we enter a new year, there are more and more instances of people and
institutions that are supposed to protect us, turning against us. It
is doubly difficult to deal with such situations.
In Mumbai, a former Commissioner of police heads the list of high-
ranking police personnel who had been arrested for involvement in the
Telgi Stamp Scam. While the people are staggered at the amounts
mentioned in the scam, what was more shocking was the apparent
involvement of dozens of senior and junior police officers. And the
number is growing.
Watch around us. Leaders in public life whose duty is to help the
people are themselves participants in all sorts of crimes.
Bureaucrats, public prosecutors police officers, and even judges are
mentioned in dowry-related crimes, harassing and finally murdering
young women for not bringing sufficient amounts of dowry. What chances
do the common citizens — victims of such crimes — have in seeking
justice and punishing the guilty? The Chattisgarh police recently
arrested J.S. Batti, the superintendent of police, Bijapur, for
allegedly murdering his wife with the help of hired killers. The
motive? The husband accused the wife, Vimla, of practising witchcraft!
Initially, the police arrested four people, all practising witch
doctors of the region, for the murder. Batti admitted he had asked the
four to treat his wife by "removing the effects of witchcraft" but did
not ask them to kill her. The superintendent suspected the wife of
practising witchcraft on him to make him impotent, the media reports
said. The local police briefed the media they had collected enough
evidence including records of telephone calls made by the alleged
killers to Batti before and after the murder was committed.
Yes, it reads like a weird crime thriller but newspapers do not report
murder stories. In regions like Bihar and sections of Bengal, one
often came across innocent women branded as witches and lynched by
villagers who wanted to possess the land and property belonging to the
victims. Other dark deeds in the regions included child sacrifices
instigated by local tantriks who advised the killing of young children
to procure hidden treasure, remove barrenness in women or do away with
some age-old curses. The practitioners of such crimes were mostly
illiterate men and women, in the throes of superstition and prepared
to do anything told to them by tantriks and the like.
But the Chattisgargh crime was of a different nature. How can a
superintendent of police believe in the mumbo-jumbo about witchcraft?
Vimla was a teacher and Batti was arrested from his native Narharpur
village in Bastar district in the tribal belt of Chattisgarh. It is a
fact that superstition played a definite role in these areas but then
Bijapur and Raipur are fairly large towns where medical facilities
must have been available. Why didn't Batti consult psychiatrists if he
felt that something was wrong with his wife? A police superintendent
in these regions wielded plenty of clout and had access to any number
of doctors and hospitals. Yet, in 2003, a person who was supposed to
protect people from the likes of witch doctors consults them for the
treatment of his wife. That is, if anything was really wrong with her.
But if a person really believed in superstition and witchcraft, it
would be difficult to divert him to sanity and modern, clear headed
thinking. Medically, there could be several causes for impotence,
which, certainly, was not imposed by curses or witchcraft.
Our tribal belts continued to be Areas of Darkness because even the
police, government machinery and sections of judiciary could not get
rid of tradition, power of witchcraft and the like. There will be
plenty of people in the region who would sympathise with Batti and
what he did to his wife. One wonders if the police will be able to
present a case which would stick and lead to a conviction.
Unfortunately, the worst victims of such superstition and backwardness
are the women. They are held accountable for everything that may go
wrong.
I always wondered why the people who were killed on the suspicion of
practising witchcraft were always women. Very few male witch doctors
and tantriks came to grief! Their conclusions and their consequences
had come to be accepted leading to disastrous results including
deaths.
Much has been said and written about not changing the life styles and
environment of the tribals and that it would be undesirable to uproot
them from their habitat. There is some truth in this. At the same
time, it is high time governments and NGOs paid attention to change
the thinking of these people on issues like superstition, witchcraft
and so on. Modern medical treatment and conventional education should
be rushed to replace these harmful, traditional practices. The witch
doctors and tantriks continued to have a field day because they
remained the only alternatives to "guide" people in their problem and
had connections in the right places. If Superintendent Batti was
guilty, he must not be spared. Perhaps that would set an example to
others.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/mag/2004/01/11/stories/2004011100450500.htm
Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 10, 2006
A satirical glance at superstition
KAUSALYA SANTHANAM
United Visuals' `Vaasthu Vasu' advocates a rational approach to life
but subtlety is not its strong point.
SENTIMENTAL: Vaasthu Vasu. Photo: K. V. Srinivasan.
United Visuals' `Vaasthu Vasu,' as the title indicates, is on a
topical theme. The play takes a satirical look at blind beliefs
whether it is in the principles of Vaasthu or numerology, and
advocates a rational approach.
The middle-aged protagonist (`TV' Varadharajen), an ardent adherent of
Vaasthu, is inordinately proud of the house he has built in strict
accordance with its guidelines. His willingness to implement every new
suggestion of its practitioners is watched critically by his sensible
father Sadasivam (Binny Ramachandran), and equally sensible but loyal
wife Mahalakshmi (Usha).
When Vasu's uncle comes with a statue of the smiling Buddha and bids
him follow certain Chinese `beliefs' to bring him luck and ensure that
his only sister who is working abroad gets married soon, Vasu gets
deeper into superstition. Events in his office take an unwelcome turn
and things begin to go downslide rapidly. Vasu desperately tries to
mend matters. A vocal witness to these goings-on is the house itself,
which is personified.
Swamped in melodrama
Varadharajen generally manages to maintain a balance between pathos
and humour in his plays. Here there are a few light touches but the
play sinks into sentimentality. Godmen and tantriks are a favourite of
Tamil playwrights and they generally go overboard with the depiction
of these characters. Once the Vaasthu `expert' (Swayam Prakash) and
his assistant enter the picture, the play becomes tedious to watch.
Subtlety is certainly not the strong point of the production.
The actors, especially the main ones, perform their parts very well.
Ramachandran makes a very credible father while Usha is especially
good in the scene where she speaks out for the house and its
attributes. Varadharajen is expressive and throws himself into the
role. The irony is that a play that calls for moderation and
rationality is itself swamped in melodrama. The personification
(Ravikumar) of the house, though a novel device, becomes irksome after
a point with the jerky head movements. The play has a sensible message
to put across but it could have been conveyed in a better manner. Like
the lachrymose house, which looks as if it would drown in its own
tears, the play too is maudlin, very much following the vogue in Tamil
television serials. The title song and the loud music too have touches
of the serials though the lighting (`Light' Babu) is good.
Varadharajen's plays generally have a simplicity that make them rather
appealing. Here there is a blurring of boundaries between drama and
television. The way of introducing the characters by turning the
spotlight on them is stale. `Vaasthu Vasu,' written by C.V.
Chandramohan and directed by Varadharajen, was presented recently at
the Narada Gana Sabha under the auspices of Kartik Fine Arts.
The play has a glib ending with loose ends being tied up in a jiffy,
even before you could say `Vaasthu.'
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/fr/2006/03/10/stories/2006031002700500.htm
Metro Plus Bangalore
We're rational, touch wood
While most enlightened souls would not admit to being superstitious,
they don't believe in tempting capricious fate either, discovers MINI
ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER as another Friday the 13th looms large
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's a common human tendency. You have scientists waiting for
rahukaala to pass before they start an experiment DR. C.R.
CHANDRASHEKHAR
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rockers Europe might blithely sing: "It's easy to take/ I am not
superstitious." But for aam janta, mirrors breaking and sundry
activities are to be treated with respect. We are in the new
millennium and turning the other way when a cat crosses your path
isn't all that uncool.
Tomorrow is Friday the 13th and even if one were quite sure that Jason
is not lurking in the background, complete with ice hockey mask to
slice and dice, one would not like to invite trouble by starting a new
venture — never mind if the Indo-Pak cricket series starts tomorrow!
Though there are many like Siddhant studying in ninth standard at
Bishop Cottons who believe that "superstitions do not make sense,"
there are others like Deepti and Sneha doing their final year MBA at
Dayanand Sagar College who do not wish to "take a chance" and touch
wood, that universal talisman against the evil eye.
"That is common human tendency," says Dr. C.R. Chandrasekhar,
Professor of Psychiatry, NIMHANS. "Even the most rational of people do
not wish to take a chance. So you have scientists waiting for rahu
kala to pass before they start an experiment. But if you were just
think it through rationally, there are so many trains that leave at
rahukaala that arrive safe at their destination."
Niharika, doing her first semester of Law at the University Law
College, follows "every kind of superstition. I have a favourite pen
for exams, a lucky shirt for tests, if a cat crosses the road, I feel
my day is jinxed. And I pray hard to neutralise the effect."
"Superstitions are short cuts to predicting the future," explains Dr.
Chandrasekhar. "It is born of the human tendency to associate things
you cannot control or predict to neutral things like time, days or
colours. Superstitions are born when unrelated things happen together.
This is passed on through generations and becomes a belief."
For instance, touching wood is something most people own up to. The
origins of the belief can be traced to pagan times when wood spirits
were believed to dwell in trees. The Christian root of this practice
comes from the fact that Christ was crucified on a wooden cross.
But you find that the origin of several superstitions is rooted in
plain common sense, though it might get distorted along the way. Not
cutting your nails at night, for instance, made sense at a time when
there was no electricity and there was every chance of injuring
oneself.
For every believer in superstitions, you have people like Deepti,
homemaker, who does not believe in superstitions as, "God is there and
will see to it that nothing goes wrong."
Says Anita doing her second year nutrition at Mount Carmel College
with a laugh: "I have three cats at home. So I should really be
plagued by bad luck going by the traditional belief!"
While touching wood is fairly universal, most other beliefs are very
culture specific. Dr. Chandrasekhar says: "Friday and 13th are
considered unlucky in the West while we consider seven and Tuesday
unlucky."
Bottom line — Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if Feng Shui does not get
you, Vaastu must!
Day of great dread
There are many stories about why Friday and the 13th are ill omens,
and together, they are a super combo of bad luck. Starting from the
Norse myth about 12 gods having a party at Valhalla and the
mischievous Loki gatecrashes becoming the thirteenth guest.
Loki causes the blind god Hoder to shoot at Balder, the god of beauty
and joy. Balder dies and the earth is cloaked in sorrow and darkness.
The Biblical reference comes from the 13 who sat to dine at the Last
Supper before Christ was crucified.
The ancient Romans believed witches gathered in groups of 12 with the
devil making for the 13th member.
Twelve is considered a complete number — 12 months in a year, 12 signs
of the zodiac, 12 labours of Hercules, 12 apostles of Christ, 12 gods
at Olympus, 12 tribes of Israel.
So, the number 13 is a little beyond completeness. Friday is the day a
lot of bad things are said to have happened: Eve is supposed to have
tempted Adam on Friday, the flood happened on Friday, the confusion at
the tower of Babel is supposed to have happened on a Friday and Christ
was crucified on Friday.
On Friday the 13th, 1306, French King Philip arrested and tortured the
Knights Templar.
Triskaidekaphobes are people who fear the number 13.
Watch out
Here are some popular superstitions:
Seeing an ambulance is very unlucky unless you pinch your nose or hold
your breath until you see a black or a brown dog.
Do not lean a broom against a bed. The evil spirits in the broom will
cast a spell on the bed.
Never take a broom along when you move. Throw it out and buy a new
one.
It's bad luck to pick up a coin if it's tails side up. Good luck comes
if it's heads up.
To drop a comb while you are combing your hair is a sign of a coming
disappointment.
It's bad luck to say the word "pig" while fishing at sea.
Smoke on the firing line
The origin of superstitions makes for an interesting study in itself.
One finds that real life situations, fears and insecurities often lead
to superstitions.
Consider, for instance, the smokers' belief that it's a bad omen for
three smokers to light a cigarette from one match.
When one goes looking for the root of this superstition, one learns
that it has to do with the precarious lives soldiers lead in trenches
and the fear of death that constantly haunts them. It's believed that
the time it takes for three people to light three cigarettes from a
match is just about enough time for the enemy to spot, aim and shoot
them. The logic goes like this: the enemy spots the target when the
first cigarette is lit, aims on the second and shoots on the third. To
this day, if you light the third cigarette among serious smokers, you
might not get shot, but you sure would bet blasted by your comrades.
Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 12, 2006
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2006/01/12/stories/2006011201460100.htm
Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 22, 2004
Opinion - Editorials
Calling India's freethinkers
By Meera Nanda
A principled insistence on drawing clear distinctions between science
and religion is crucial in India.
MURLI MANOHAR Joshi has learned the hard way that astrology does not
work after all. The will of the Indian voters has overturned the
alignment of auspicious stars in the astrological charts of the BJP,
just as it has defied the numerology of the pollsters.
Indian voters have thrown out the obscurantist-in-chief and the party
he represented. Even though most of the 370-million-strong voters did
not consciously set out to punish the BJP for its obscurantist
cultural and educational policies, they have inadvertently created the
conditions where secularism has a second chance to succeed. This by
itself is reason enough to cheer and hope.
But it is also a time to reflect and reaffirm the role of rationalism
in the Indian society. Sure, throwing out the peddlers of
superstitions is no mean task. But harder still is the task of
creating a society where superstitions lose their hold on the public
imagination. Ridding the government of those who would freely and
arbitrarily mix science and spirituality is undoubtedly a great
achievement. But greater still is achieving a society that has
internalised the principle of separation between science and
spirituality. Without this deeper secularisation of the cultural
commonsense of the Indian people, secularism will remain a shallow
legalism, forever at the risk of a saffron take-over.
This is where the intellectuals come in: the Indian voters have done
their part, now the intellectuals must do theirs. Secular-minded
citizens, scientists, writers, intellectuals, and the liberal, forward-
looking clergy of all faiths will have to join the battle for a deeper
secularisation of the Indian society. Scientists will have to step out
of their laboratories and humanists will have to give up their haughty
disdain for modernity. Those Left-inclined intellectuals seeking a
"third position" between wholesale Westernisation and a nostalgic
traditionalism will have to get over their preoccupation with
cleansing modern science of its Eurocentrism. It is time for a no-
nonsense commitment to the much-trashed idea of "scientific temper."
The objective of a genuine and sustainable secularisation is not to
denigrate the religious impulses of ordinary people — that would be
foolish, because all societies need a sense of the sacred in order to
celebrate the rhythms of life and death. The purpose of secularisation
is not to hasten the disappearance of the sacred, but to keep it
within the limits of reason. In the case of Hinduism, secularisation
must involve a critical engagement with those aspects of Hindu sacred
teachings that make empirical claims regarding the presence of a
disembodied spiritual element in nature "seen" in the mind's eye by
mystics and yogis.
The fact is that people everywhere need a way to reconcile their faith
with modern learning driven by science and technology. Fundamentalists
(and unfortunately, many postmodernist defenders of "alternative
epistemologies" as well) offer one way to reconcile faith with
science: they relativise science and, in effect, declare religious
cosmologies to be as rational within their own assumptions, as modern
science is within its own materialistic and Western (or "Semitic")
context. This road leads to Vedic sciences and the phony Hindutva
slogans of "all truths being different only in name." Indian
secularists have to offer a more honest way to reconcile Hinduism with
modern science. They must refuse the cheap comforts of relativism.
They must insist that all truths are not equal. In the name of
respecting popular religiosity, they must not close their eyes to the
glaring contradictions between what we scientifically know about how
nature actually works, and what our sacred books, our gurus and our
godmen preach.
The first challenge before India secularists is to carefully but
firmly un-twine the wild and uncontrolled intertwining of science and
spirituality that has been going on in Hinduism since the time of
Swami Vivekananda in the late 19th century. Public intellectuals, in
collaboration with progressive scientists, will have to explain — over
and over again, through demonstrations and argument — why modern
science is not another name for the same truths known to our Vedic
forefathers. Indeed, Indian secularists will have to challenge the
deep-seated and self-serving habit of Hindu apologists to draw wild
parallels and equivalence between just about any shloka from the Vedas
and the laws of quantum mechanics and other branches of modern
science. The second challenge will be to bring what we know about the
natural world through science to bear upon the cosmological
assumptions of such "Vedic sciences" as astrology, vaastu, Ayurveda,
yagnas, Vedic creationism, "consciousness studies" and the like.
Indian secularists must sow seeds of doubt in the popular imagination
about these "sciences" so that the masses reject the worldview of
Hindutva on rational grounds.
A principled insistence on drawing clear distinctions between science
and religion is crucial in India because Hinduism maintains a grip on
this-worldly affairs by claiming to be "just another name" for science
and reason. Hindu gurus and godmen stake a claim to extraordinary and
extra-constitutional powers not by invoking God's commandments or by a
literal reading of a sacred book — such stratagems are easy to laugh
off in this day and age. Hindu apologists instead stake a right to
intervene in secular matters by claiming for Hinduism a rational and
empirical "holistic" knowledge of the "higher" and "subtle" levels of
the material world.
Indeed, even a cursory reading of the voluminous writings of Murli
Manohar Joshi, K.S. Sudarshan (or any number of RSS ideologues), David
Frawley, Subhash Kak, N.S. Rajaram and the host of other apologists
associated with the Ramakrishna Mission and Aurobindo Ashram can show
that Hinduism's unique "scientificity" constitutes the central dogma
of Hindutva.
Hindutva ideologues stake their claims to make "Hindu India" into a
"guru of nations" on the notion that only Hinduism is compatible with
modern science, while all the "Semitic" faiths have been proven to be
false by modern science. Hindutva's self-serving and entirely
fallacious equation of Hinduism with modern science — Hindutva's
central dogma — can be summarised as follows:
Hindu dharma is rooted in the eternal, holistic or non-mechanistic
laws of nature discovered "in a flash" of insight by the "Vedic
Aryans." These laws have been affirmed by modern science and
therefore, Hinduism is uniquely scientific. Because the Hindus live in
accord with a scientifically proven order of nature which unifies
matter with higher levels of spirit, they are more rational and
ecological as compared to those of Abrahamic faiths who derive their
moral laws from an imaginary supernatural being, and who treat nature
as mere matter, devoid of spiritual meaning. Because Hinduism is so
scientific, there is no need for an Enlightenment style confrontation
between faith and reason in India. To become truly and deeply
scientific, Indians — indeed, the entire world — must embrace the
teachings of the Vedas and Vedanta.
It was this central dogma that gave Dr. Joshi and his fellow
travellers the chutzpah to install departments of Vedic astrology in
public universities, to pour taxpayers' money into every superstition
under the sun, and to try to take over public institutions like IITs
and IIMs.
It should now become the first order of business of Indian
intellectuals to demolish this central dogma. We must demolish this
dogma not because we do not want India to shine and prosper and take
its rightful place in the community of nations. We must demolish this
dogma because it is based upon false parallels and correspondences
between modern science and Vedic metaphysics. We must demolish this
dogma because it denies the existence of deeply oppressive
superstitions, including the occult notion of the presence of
consciousness in matter. And we must demolish this dogma because of
its deeply Hindu and Aryan supremacist overtones.
This dogma can only be demolished by drawing clear distinctions
between scientific evidence and the evidence of religious and/or
mystical experience. Clarifying what is science and what is
superstition must become the top priority of India's freethinkers.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2004/05/22/stories/2004052201691000.htm
e:02/08/2002
URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/lf/2002/08/02/stories/2002080201210200.htm
Adding to chaos on the road
Obstructing traffic
HOW DO you define a superstitious belief? An idea or theory that
cannot be tested by a scientific method.
Many rationalist organisations have put in enormous effort to fight
superstition. In that pursuit, they had to face opposition from
religious and other groups, which take offence at the rationalist's
reluctance to distinguish belief from superstition.
Is there really any difference between the two? The answer differs
from individual to individual. When you take into consideration the
scientific framework, there is hardly any fundamental difference.
Superstition-baiters should take a more practical approach to realise
their goals.
In the busy commercial streets of the city you will find huge pumpkins
broken to pieces and scattered on the road, some smeared with kumkum.
This is a common sight, especially on Friday evenings, more in front
of shops. Besides pumpkins, broken coconuts, lemon and red chillies
tied together are also seen on the streets.
This is based on the religious belief that these have the capacity to
combat the "evil eye" and bring prosperity to the trade.
But these seem to pose a threat to motorists, cyclists and
autorickshaws. "There are quite a few instances where motorists have
fallen a prey to pumpkins which are unceremoniously thrown on the
roads without even having the slightest consideration for commuters,"
says S.S. Ramakrishnan, a consumer activist.
"We have represented the problem to the Traffic Advisory Committee and
also at the District Collector's meeting that is held here
periodically. Traffic police and the warden should ensure that they
aren't broken on roads and do not pose a risk to vehicle-users," he
says.
"Pumpkin is believed to top the list when it comes to things that are
used to eliminate evil eye. Pumpkins are broken on the road so that
passers-by look at them thereby removing evil eyes," says Ramanandha
Gurukal.
"But these need not be done necessarily on the centre of the road.
After breaking them they can be brought to the sides so that they do
not cause any hindrance to road users," he remarked.
By Vidyashree Dharmaraj
in Coimbatore
Photo:K.Ananthan
© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu
Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, July 03, 2001
Cultivating scientific spirit
Uncritical acceptance of claims in the name of science is as dangerous
as superstition.
THE FOUNDING Fathers of the Indian Republic gave great importance to
the cultivation of a `scientific temper' by incorporating it in the
Constitution. The Constitution of the United States on the other hand
contains no such provision probably because its founders took it for
granted. Its authors, Thomas Jefferson in particular, were products of
the European Enlightenment and were greatly influenced by Newton's
Principia Mathematica, which set forth a scientific model for the
universe. What they feared most was threat to freedom in the name of
religion. Europe had to wage a long battle to free itself from the
hold of the Church, leading eventually to the secularisation of
Europe. This was institutionalised in the U.S. in the form of the
First Amendment to the Constitution and became part of the Bill of
Rights.
From this history, it is clear that the Founding Fathers of the
American Republic were concerned mainly about the political freedom of
their country and the individual freedom of its citizens. They did not
see European civilisation or its institutions as alien. And the
American scientific tradition is a continuation of the European, going
back to the Renaissance - to Newton, Galileo and Copernicus.
Some like Jefferson looked back also to the sages of pre- Christian
Greece like Plato for inspiration. In fact, Jefferson, an architect of
genius, designed the campus of the University of Virginia based on
Classical Greek models. In this too he was being faithful to the
European tradition, for the thinkers of the European Renaissance and
the Enlightenment had also looked back to Classical Greece - at least
their conception of it - for inspiration.
The Indian experience was different - the decolonisation had to be
both political and spiritual. The overwhelming majority of people
living in India saw European institutions and culture as alien. This
is still the case. At the same time, national leaders recongised the
need for incorporating modern western institutions, like science and
technology, if the country was to achieve progress. This is what made
them incorporate the `cultivation of a scientific temper', as one of
the founding principles of the new Constitution. Successive
governments also took steps to establish scientific institutions that
would foster such a temper and lead to technological excellence.
While technological excellence has been achieved, it cannot be said
that the scientific temper among the public at large, even among the
educated, has progressed to the degree desirable. This, in my opinion,
is due to the fact that much of the thinking remains rooted in
imitation and uncritical acceptance of the West. It lacks an
independent foundation. Indian thinkers continue to borrow and copy,
without developing independent methodologies that can address problems
that are uniquely Indian. They simply look to the West for solutions.
Built-in corrective mechanism
Science is concerned with understanding nature and its laws. It
transcends political, social or religious boundaries. As long as
problems don't cross the boundary of science and intrude into social
and political realms, there are enough correcting mechanisms to deal
with false claims. This can be illustrated with two recent examples.
First, the claim made by Ramar Pillai that he had invented a method of
converting water into `herbal petrol'. Far more sensational was the
claim made in 1989 by Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman of the
University of Utah in the U.S. According to them it was possible to
achieve `Cold Fusion' in a bottle. This is equivalent to claiming that
the energy mechanism of the hydrogen bomb - the physical phenomenon
responsible for the sun's energy - can be reproduced in a bottle at
low temperatures.
Both claims were refuted by science, which shows that as long as the
problem remains within the bounds science, the built-in corrective
mechanisms can take care of such claims. (The great chemist Irving
Langmuir called such cases examples of `pathological science'). But
science is not merely search for truth; it is also an authority figure
that has replaced religion from its fromer position in Europe.
Problems arise, however, when science is invoked in the service of
some political and/or social goal.
The West is not immune to such abuses. To take an example, the manned
space programme - including the Space Shuttle and the Space Station -
is an enormously costly venture of no scientific value. Similarly, the
Star Wars anti-missile programme - now reincarnated as the NMD - has
no chance of working, but has the potential to upset the world's
strategic situation by leading to an arms race. Both have been sold
with false promises in the name of science. The West has largely
accepted these utopain claims made in the name of science.
A double-edged knife
This shows that science is a double-edged knife: it can be used to
enhance knowledge and produce useful applications; it can also be
misused by invoking its authority and prestige. This means that the
cultivation of a scientific spirit, or `scientific temper', should
include knowledge of science as well as capacity to recognise the
misuse of science as authority to push political and social agendas.
The latter is more common than one would wish.
In the Nineteenth century, and even in the Twentieth, racial
discrimination was justified in the name of science. Modern biology
has demolished the whole concept of race, but it continues to raise
its head in different guises, especially in the West. For example, two
American scholars, Murray and Herrstein, recently wrote a book called
The Bell Curve in which they claimed that science showed American
blacks to be mentally inferior to whites. They used this as
`sceintific' support to argue for abandoning affirmative action
programmes for blacks. This was of course their real agenda, but they
justified it in the name of science to make it acceptable.
In India, the situation is further complicated by what Sri Aurobindo
called ``an over-readiness to defer to European (and American)
authority'', or lack of critical spirit. This allows Western powers to
impose versions on events that serve their own interests. For example,
soon after the Pokharan II tests, an American defence lab released a
statement claiming that their seismic analysis showed that the Indian
tests were much weaker than claimed. The fact of the matter is that
seismic tests conducted half a world away cannot accurately measure
the power of an explosion. Scientific models for the propagation of
waves through the earth are highly unreliable at such great distances.
This is precisely the reason why the U.S. Senate rejected the Non-
Proliferation Treaty - compliance by other countries cannot be
verified. And yet, this obvious misinformation by the U.S. was carried
in the Indian media without any qualifications, under the belief what
comes from the West must be true.
A similiar situation was in evidence in recent reports claiming that
genome research at the University of Utah had demonstrated a
connection between high-caste Indians and Europeans of more than five
thousand years ago. This too was reported without qualifications.
Basic questions were not asked: how genome research that had
demolished a supposedly biologically inherited trait like race, could
in the same breath identify a purely man- made construct like caste?
Further, how could a sample of a few hundred from the Vishakhapatnam
district - the sample used in the study - allow one to make such far-
reaching statements about Indian and European populations more than
five thousand years ago? Also, Professor Richard Villems, one of the
co-authors of the Utah study, soon retracted earlier claims by stating
that there may be some ``apparent shift of frequencies towards those
variants more common west of the Indus. Europe as such, however, has
nothing to do with that.'' It was also claimed that by `Europe' the
authors really meant anything west of the Indus.
Professor Villem's reticence is understandable, but even this is
questionable: if `West of the Indus' can mean Europe, it can with mroe
justification mean `East of the Indus', perhaps all the way to the
much closer Vishakhapatnam where the sample was taken. Nonetheless,
this study, which one of its authors characterised as ``weakly
statistically reliable,'' was cited as scientific evidence in support
of certain social and political theories. (`Weakly statistically
reliable' is a euphemism for unreliable). In other words, this Utah
study is no more reliable than the previous Utah study on Cold Fusion.
In all this one sees an inherent belief on the part of a segment of
the Indian intelligentsia that any study coming from the West must be
accepted as scientifically valid. In this setup, proof of a claim does
not often go beyond quoting some Western authority.
In summary, science and scientists can take care of pathologies that
arise within the boundaries of science. But in the absence of a
critical spirit, especially among the intelligentsia, society is open
to abuse and manipulation by those who invoke science as authority.
This is far more dangerous than fraud that invokes the supernatural
and appeals to superstition. Where superstition thrives on the fear of
the unknown, and can be cured by education, science as authority
promising utopian certainty is harder to combat. This is why spread of
scientific knowledge without an independent cirtical spirit is
dangerously incomplete. This critical spirit is largely lacking in
India today.
N. S. RAJARAM
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/07/03/stories/13030611.htm
Quest Published Monthly
Quest
Suppressing superstition
People the world over believe in superstition in some form or the
other. In spite of education and modern technology, people continue to
hold on to superstition.
When a person sees an animal at the outset of a journey and he is
unsuccessful in his venture, he attributes his failure to seeing that
particular animal. A black cat is one of the worst omens.
The number 13 is considered unlucky, the hooting of an owl is supposed
to bring disaster, the cawing of crows announces the arrival of guests
and an ugly mask is hung in front of newly built houses to take away
"evil eyes".
Elders should free the minds of the young from such superstitious
beliefs.
Karthik N, VII C
Coimbatore: Perks M.H.S. School
About the school...
Started in 1971 with 47 students under a thatched roof, the Perks
complex is now spread over 30 acres.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/quest/200209/1308indx.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/quest/200209/stories/2002091401160300.htm
Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 12, 2009
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version
Tamil Nadu - Chennai
“Sarvajna represents the best in spoken Kannada”
T. Ramakrishnan
He slammed superstition and bigotry in his works
The statue of Sarvajna, Kannada poet
CHENNAI: Saint-poet Sarvajna, whose statue will be unveiled at
Aynavaram here on Thursday, is regarded as one of the important
figures who symbolised the strength of the Kannada mind.
“He represented the best in spoken Kannada,” says veteran writer and
critic U.R. Ananthamurthy, adding that Sarvajna was more a teacher
than a poet.
[Originally, the decision to install statues of Thiruvalluvar and
Sarvajna in Bangalore and Chennai was taken nine years ago during
veteran Kannada actor Rajkumar’s kidnap. On Sunday, Tamil Nadu Chief
Minister M. Karunanidhi unveiled the statue of Thiruvalluvar.
Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa will unveil the Kannada
poet’s statue on Thursday.]
Sarvajna, a wandering monk, penned around 2,000 triplets, focussing on
subjects such as philosophy and moral values. In his works, he came
down heavily on superstition and bigotry. His verses were didactic all
through but, in essence, their expression was poetic, according to the
Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature (Volume IV) published by the
Sahitya Akademi.
There are varying versions regarding the period in which he lived. The
encyclopaedia states that a manuscript containing his verses was dated
1643. This is why many scholars place him in the 17th century A.D.
Even with regard to the place of his birth, there is no certainty. The
people of Abaluru and Masur, in Hirekerur taluk of Haveri district,
claim that he was born in their respective villages.
In September 2006, the then Karnataka Chief Minister, H.D.
Kumaraswamy, unveiled a bronze statue of the saint-poet in Masur. On
the occasion, referring to the ambiguity on the birthplace of
Sarvajna, he said experts would arrive at a decision through
discussions and research.
The details of the poet’s parentage and religion are matters of
conjecture. But, one can see the influence of the Veerasaiva
philosophy in his works, says C. Krishna Bhat, former professor and
head of the Kannada department in the University of Madras. His verses
could be called poetic prose.
The present Head of Kannada department in the university, Tamilchelvi,
says like Thirukural, Sarvajna’s works have universal relevance.
http://www.hinduonnet.com/2009/08/12/stories/2009081259610400.htm
http://thetruthwholetruthandnothingbuttruth.blogspot.com/2010/04/hindu-superstion-sid-harth.html
...and I am Sid Harth