Where cats can't cross your path

At a time like this, we are forced to question ourselves: Are we, as Indians, really progressing? With our overrated and exaggerated stories of ‘development’ and ‘scientific progress’, are we still not an ancient civilisation immersed in cruel rituals and the unthinking folly of practising religious pilgrimages in hordes?

Along with a shining photo of INS Vikrant, we have to witness a picture of scores of pilgrims lying dead beside a railway track in a remote village. They got run over by a speeding train. They were waiting on the track — unaware of the danger. The number of dead is not one or two — it’s between 30 and 40. Such things keep happening.

If we go through regional newspapers we can still find, at sickeningly regular intervals, incidents of witch-hunting, human sacrifice and child sacrifice, leave alone child marriages, honour killings and dowry deaths; many of them find a place in national English newspapers. But nothing happens after that. Only some stray science clubs and rationalist organisations, led by a handful of fiery workers, try to address the vice. They try their best to book the culprit, save the victim or educate the people in general.

This — exactly this — three-pronged attack is needed for real progress. And since that rarely happens — the state rarely takes initiatives — we can say for sure that India is still a superstitious nation. Individuals who try to act are either suppressed or maligned in many ways, through a joint effort of various groups with vested interests. Narendra Dabholkar had to face the extreme consequence.

Here, various cults showing miracles thrive without opposition.

Those who dare to oppose are treated as anti-establishment or anti-religion, even though there are laws like the Drugs and Cosmetics Act and the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act.

Our administration has forgotten that great thinkers like Albert Einstein and Rabindranath Tagore perceived religion as ‘humanism’ — that is, true religion should teach us to be more humane.

And religion, as practised by individuals, is supposed to be absolutely personal, and can in no way interfere with that of others’. Religion as a group activity is becoming more and more powerful, which is just the reverse of what should have happened, especially in a secular country.

A scientist doesn’t think of killing another scientist who thinks differently. A rationalist may work differently from another rationalist from a different region, but they cannot be enemies. That would be against the basic tenet of freethinking. As Voltaire said: I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight till the end for your right to say it. People of our country will take another 100 years to even understand the essence of these words. But what about our leaders?

People have different ideas — in a way, it adds charm to a multicultural nation like ours. But who gave them the right to kill or harm in any tangible way someone who thinks differently? By saying “I will kill you if you if you think or speak differently”, don’t we betray our own weakness? Doesn’t it show how flimsy our religious sentiments are? Those who take up arms against a social worker betray their own cowardice and expose their possibly vested interests. If our government cannot book the culprits, it should take stern action against cruel and meaningless occult practitioners, and make serious efforts to educate people on having a rational and scientific outlook. Until that happens, India, with all its so-called developmental activities, will remain a regressive, superstitious nation.

The writer is president of Humanists’ Association and ex-president of Science & Rationalists’ Association of India.