Killing a Rationalist: Silencing Reason

September 10, 2015

The killing of Professor Maleeshappa Madhivallapa Kalburgi on 30th August 2015 came as a severe jolt to all those who are for an open, liberal society, who uphold the values of reason and are against blind faith. Prof. Kalburgi was a renowned scholar with over 100 books to his credit. He had brought to fore the ideology of Basavanna; the 12th Century poet saint of Kannada; and had supported the idea that Lingyats, the followers of Basavanna be given the status of religious minorities as they do not belong to the Vedic tradition. His study of Vachanas, the teachings contained in the verses of Basavanna, was a profound contribution to the rational though. Kalburgi

It was his forthright reminder of Basavanna’s teachings, criticism of idol worship and Brahmanical rituals, which earned him the wrath of Hindutva groups like Bajrang Dal. As there are many traditions within the broad pantheon of Hinduism, the atheist tradition has its own existence from centuries, Charvak being the one from ancient times. Even opposition of idol worship is not new to Hindu traditions as Swami Dayanand Sarswati, founder of Arya Samaj, had given the call to stop the idol worship.

Incidentally as we are receiving the news of this killing, the neighboring Bangla Desh has witnessed the murder of three young secular bloggers in recent times (2015). In Syria a Scholar Khaled al-Assad has been put to death by ISIS fanatics. Maharashtra was shaken by the murder of a rationalist of repute Dr. Narendra Dabholkar nearly two years ago. He was instrumental in getting the law against black magic and practices related to blind faith passed in Maharashtra. Another well respected activist, Comrade Govind Pansare was killed just a year ago. Pansare was working on many issues; anti-blind faith campaign being one of them. He is also the author of well known tract on Maharashtra’s revered king Shivaji. Contrary to the communal presentation of Shivaji as anti Muslim king, Pansare shows that Shivaji was the king who was very sympathetic to the farmers (rayyat) and that he was respecting all religions. This interpretation of Shivaji is a great eyesore to the Hindutva politics.

On the back of the murders of these two rationalists, comes the murder of Dr. M.M. Kalburgi on 30th August 2015 in his home in Dharwad. Prof Kalburgi was a very well accomplished man, ex Vice Chancellor of Kannada University in Hapmi, and recipient of National and Karnataka Sahitya Academy Awards for his writings. The learned professor had deep study of Virshaiva, Basavanna tradition amongst others. The opposition to him was due to his criticism of idol worship, Brahmanical rituals and ritualization of Basavanna tradition by Lingyats. Controversies followed him and so did the threats from conservative forces. The first one of which, was the publication of Marga treatise on Kannada folklore including articles on Virshaiva, Basavanna. Due to the death threats to him time and over again police protection was given. This police protection was withdrawn on his request recently. He supported U.R. Anathmurthy on the issue of stopping idol worship. When he invited VHP leaders and the pontiff of Vishveshra Tirtha Swami for a public debate; another controversy followed. His support to Karnataka bill against practices of superstition invited anger of Bajarang Dal and associate organizations and he had to face protest; where his effigy was burnt.

There is a pattern in the murders of Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi. Though there are some differences in the broad range of field of their social engagement, the similarity is very striking. They were rational, they made their voice abundantly clear and many threats were received by them. Another stark similarity is that all these three murders took place in early mornings by those who came on motor cycles, one person driving the bike and the second one pumping bullets. Strangely despite a long lapse of time the killers of Dabholkar and Pansare have not been nabbed so far.

After the murder of Kalburgi one Bajrang Dal activist Bhuvith Shetty tweeted, ***"Then it was UR Ananthamurthy and now MM Kalburgi. Mock Hinduism and die dogs (sic.) death. And dear KS Bhagwan you are next" .*** This tweet was later withdrawn. Also many a person’s related to Hindu right wing organizations started saying that Kalburgi had insulted Hindu gods, so anger among Hindus and so such murders. This is a subtle justification of the intolerance which our society is being gripped with. As such the attitude of communal elements in different religions is very similar. One recalls the threat to Salman Rushdie, the type of intolerance shown to Taslima Nasreen and the murder of bloggers in Bangla Desh and also murder of Salman Taseer in Pakistan. Taseer had stood in defense of a Christian woman who was accused of blasphemy.

The opposition to the voices of reason has been going on in History all through. One can as well begin with Charvak, who opposed the Brahmanical understanding about the world, divine nature of Vedas in particular. Charvak said Vedas are manmade, social in nature, and was persecuted. Gradually with the power of clergy the imposition of faith on society became more institutionalized. Even teachings of Gautam Buddha, who was agnostic, and talked about the social nature of human problems, were attacked. This had led to the wiping out of Buddhism from India. The medieval Bhakti saints were also more for rational thinking, critical of the imposition of various social practices-rituals in the name of faith. Many saints like Tukaram in Maharashtra had to face persecution at the hands of those who were close to social power, the clergy.

Globally one can see the same pattern in Europe. In Europe the scientists, rational thinking had to face the opposition from organized Church, which condemned Galileo to hell for stating that the Earth is round etc. Similar was the fate of many scientists who had to face inquisitions and punishments of various types. Clergy hid behind the façade of ‘divine authority’: faith, and tried to stall the process of social change and halt the scientific thinking. The society over a period of time overcame the opposition to the rational thinking and so we saw the rooting of science and scientific inquiry. Clergy had maintained that they are the repository of whole knowledge; as knowledge is already there in our ‘Holy books’. This is a part generalization and it manifested in different cultures and religions in diverse ways. In Pakistan, some Maulanas asserted that the problems related to power can be solved by doing research on djinns, who are power houses of infinite energy; this was presented as part of the religious knowledge.

In India with freedom movement, those standing for social change and transformation did stand for rational thinking and critiqued the scriptures from that angle. The traditionalists, who wanted to retain the old social equations; resorted to ‘our glorious heritage of knowledge’. Faith based understanding was counterpoised against the spirit of scientific inquiry. With independence, with Nehru being at the helm of affairs, the notion of ‘scientific temper’ came up in a big way paving the way for establishment of institution of higher learning and research; leading to the national growth and transformation towards democratic structures. This was the time when the nation was looking forward to all round progress and rational thinking was duly promoted. The national science resolution; based on reason and logic was passed unanimously in 1958.

Things start changing in the decades of 1980s. The politics in the name of religion came up in a very assertive manner and faith not only continued to be the emotional support system in the times of social anxiety but some political forces started asserting identity politics, faith based politics. Identity issues and faith based politics started getting more legitimacy. The social conservatism and undermining of rational thought went hand in hand. Incidentally it is around this time also when the groups promoting rational thought, scientific temper, groups to oppose blind faith, came up. The most prominent of these groups was Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad. Later in Maharashtra Narendra Dabholkar took the lead to establish Andhshraddha Nirmulan Samiti (Committee to oppose Blind faith).

This took the Maharashtra conservative elements by storm as the volunteers of this organization started going from village to village and started demonstrating the science behind the magic tricks which were being practiced by hoards of God men and other of their tribe, who were taking full advantage of the social insecurity of poor villagers and exploiting them. Pansare, in addition to opposing blind faith was also disseminating the values of Shivaji, presenting him as a person respecting all religions, which Shivaji was. The right wingers could not stomach it; neither could they oppose the logical formulations presented by him. In Karnataka individual like U.R. Ananthmurthy articulated against idol worship and blind faith. Kalburgi not only supported U R Anathmurthy; he also went on the support the bill against the practices promoting blind faith. He did author papers/books to disseminate his ideas.

Slightly back in time when the first NDA Government came to power with Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi as the MHRD minister, he introduced the courses like ritualism (paurohitya) and astrology (jyotish shastra) in the universities. This gave a big boost to the ‘faith’ based groups who were politically close to the politics in the name of Hindu religion. With the new Government coming to power (2014) again now the mythology is being promoted as history, the Pushpak viman, ‘plastic surgery in ancient India’ etc. is being promoted; at the same time so called fringe elements, which as such are part of the Hindutva politics, are becoming more assertive. The liberal open space is shrinking and the place of debate is being taken by physical violence. The liberal values which accept the validity of differences is being eliminated by force, intimidation and even partly by state support. The murder of these ‘saintly’ figures , Dabholkar, Pansare and Klaburgi, just goes to show that we are landing in a situation where those entrenched in the conservative values are becoming dominant and do not want the rational thinking to exist in our society.

The aggressive stance by the Hindutva right wing on those who are putting forward the rational thought, criticizing the ills of caste system, idol worship etc. is ideological supplement to the politics of Hindu right wing. The march of this politics in recent years has been built around identity issues like Ram temple or cow slaughter. Their whole assertion is built around the Brahmanical Hinduism, which upholds the caste hierarchy. The ideology being propounded by the likes of Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi stands closer to the ideology for liberation from the caste hierarchy, which is the root of HIndutva politics. This politics does target the religious minorities, while ironically Hinduism is so diverse with contradictory tendencies within same religious umbrella. Kalburgi’s murder is part of the larger scheme of things where the ideologies opposed to the present status quo are being hounded along with persecution of those who are struggling to uphold these values.

On the other hand there has been a tremendous opposition to these brutal acts. The social groups upholding pluralism and rationalism have been agitating against these murders and the ideology of those involved in these killings. Opposition of sections of society to the murders of Daholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi shows that there are still large numbers of people who are willing to uphold rational values and that gives a ray of hope for the times to come. In last couple of years after the murder of Dabholkar, various social groups have been coming together with a determination not only to oppose the intolerant conservative aggressive right wing politics, but also to take up the unfinished task of these slain pioneers committed to social change.

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Palghar lynchings and divisive propaganda

Ram Puniyani

May 2,2020

India has tragically witnessed the phenomenon of lynching becoming dominant during last few years. It was particularly around the issue of Holy Cow-Beef, that lynchings became more prevalent and two communities had to face the brunt of it, Muslims and dalits. The IndiaSpend data showed the rise of the incidents from 2014 and that close to 90% of victims were Muslims or dalits. Some notorious cases of lynchings were the one of Akhlaq, Junaid, Alimuddin Ansari, the beatings of dalits in Una. At another level it is during this period that the noted social worker Swami Agnivesh was also subjected to humiliating beating in the public. The communal color in India by now is so strong that many events, even before the details are known, are looked at from the communal color and false social noises start even before real facts are known.

Nothing can exemplify this more than the tragic lynching of two sadhus and their driver in Gadchinal village, near Palghar, a city nearly 110 Kilomenters from Mumbai. As the news of this tragedy spread the BJP leaders immediately started blaming Muslim minority for the crime. Nalin Kohli in an Interview to a German Channel said so. Not to be left behind Sambit Patra, the BJP spokesperson launched a tirade against the liberals-seculars for their silence on the issue. As the matter stands the truth comes out that those sadhus were travelling to Surat from Kandivli area of Mumbai. It is a period of lockdown and they did not have the permission so they were avoiding the highway travel and going through interior routes. On this route was a village Gadchinale, an Adivasi dominated village where this tragedy took place.

During the lockdown period due to Corona virus the economic and social deprivation of poor people is extreme. Many rumors are floating there. In this village the rumor doing rounds was that a gang of chid lifters is roaming in different guises. Thats what these Sadhus were taken to be. Since the victims were Hindus and culprits are deliberately presumed to be from the other community. One recalls that to trigger the Mumbai violence in 1992-93 the incidence of murder of two Mathadi workers (HIndus) and burning of Bane family (Hindu) in Jogeshwari area of Mumbai, both these were false, these incidents were used as the pretext for the attack on the minorities.

In this case not only BJP leaders, the RSS itself also jumped into fray along with Sadhu Samaj. A vicious atmosphere started building up.

As the incident took place, Palghar case dominated the usual media channels and large sections of social media. The Government of Maharashtra (Shiv Sena+NCP+Congress) stood on the solid ground of truthfulness and arrested nearly 100 culprits, none of them being a Muslim. Interestingly the local body of the village is controlled by BJP and the chief of this body Chitra Chowdhari is a BJP leader. While the Maharashtra Government is standing on the solid ground of the facts of the case, it has also given the warning that those spreading falsehoods will not be spared.

The cruelty of those taking law into their hands is shocking. During the last few years taking law into the hands of the mobs is becoming close to normal. The real reasons are many. One of this being the lack of proper punishment to those who indulge in such dastardly acts. Not only that many of them are in the good books of the ruling establishment and many of them are honored despite their despicable role in such incidents. One recalls that in case of Mohammad Ikhlaq lynching, one of the accused died in the police custoy due to incidentlal disease. Then Union Central Minister Mahesh Sharma landed up to drape his body in tricolor. In another such case of Alimuddin Ansari, when eight of the accused got bail, the Union Minister Jayant Sinha garlanded them. What message it sends down the line?

The other factors contributing to the rise in intensity of violence is the overall social frustration due to life generally becoming more difficult. The rule of BJP has also encouraged intolerance, where people with differing opinions are looked down upon and called anti- Hindu, Anti National etc. Swami Agnivesh who criticised the blind faith, the statements like ‘plastic surgery in ancient India, or divine nature of Barfani Baba in Amarnath was humiliated in public.

The core issue is the dominance of sectarian mindset promoted by the ruling party and its parent organization the RSS. They are waiting to jump at any event which can be given communal color or where the minorities can be demonized. Few news channels, who are playing the role of loud speakers of divisive politics are adding salt to the wounds. The degree of Hate spread in the society has further taken the aid of innumerable social media networks to spread the false hoods down to all the sections of society.

The need for law against lynching needs to be brought in. All those participating in such dastardly violence need to be punished. Before that the whole atmosphere of Hate mongering and feeling that those talking law into their hands can get away with it, needs to be countered strongly. While a prompt police action against such incidents is the need of the hour, those who have made spreading hate as their business need to realize that no country can progress without the feeling of fraternity. Demonizing weaker sections may give them higher TRP, but it is also undermining our path of peace and progress.

Respect for Indian Constitution and rule of law needs to be restored. The fact check mechanisms like AltNews need to be activated much more. And lastly one must applaud the steps taken by the Government of Maharashtra to ensure that justice is done and Hate spreading is checked right in its tracks.

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Beautiful article. We need people like you- the need of the hour.

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By the way, are Adivasis Hindus?

Ram Puniyani

February 13,2020

Forthcoming Census and RSS campaign

Currently massive protests are going on against NPR, NCR and CAA. At the same time we are going to begin the process of decadal census in 2021. Already RSS is active in promoting NPR, NCR and CAA. At the same time RSS wants that Adivasis should register themselves as Hindus rather than ticking the column of ‘Others’. As per their spokesperson in the 2011 census many Adivasis groups ticked that column because of which the population of Hindus came down to by 0.7 percent point to come down to 79.8 %. This has sent signals to this Hindu nationalist organization and is planning to ensures that Adivasis tick the column of Hindus in this census.

As such RSS has a very clever attitude in defining the term Hindu. The first formulation was by Savakakar who said that all those who regard the land east of Indus as their Holy land and Father land are Hindus. This left out Muslims and Christians, and brought all others in the ambit of Hindu fold. From the decade of 1980s due to electoral compulsions they have been trying to articulate that all those who are living in India are Hindus. Murli Manohar Joshi stated that Muslims are Ahmadiya Hindus and Christians are Christi Hindus. Recently there was a controversy when they restated that Sikhs are not a separate religion but are a sect of Hinduism. Many Sikh organizations stood up to say that Sikhism is a religion by itself and recalled the book of Kahan Singh Nabha, “Hum Hindu Nahin”

As far as Adivasis are concerned in contrast to what is being planned by Hindu nationalist RSS, many Adivasis groups have been meeting from last couple of years to demand just the contrary. As per them there should be a column where they can tick their identity of Adivasis. There are active campaigns among Adivasis groups to uphold their Adivasi identity in Census. As per them in the first census which was conducted in Independent India, the column, Aborigines, was there, which was later removed forcing them to club themselves with other religions.

After 1951 in addition to Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jain and Buddha, the column ‘others’ was also there which was removed in 2011. Even during British period if you look at the censuses of the British era (from 1871 to 1931); there was provision for tribes to choose Aborigine as an option. There are nearly 83 religious practices being followed by Adivasis. Few major of these are Sarna, Gondi, Punem, Adi, and Koya. What they share in common is that they are animists, worship nature and spirit of ancestors; do not have priestly class or Holy Scriptures and Gods and Goddesses characteristic of the broad Hindu pantheon.

RSS as per its political agenda of Hindu Nation regards them as Vanvasi. They pontificate that they have been part of Hindu society who were driven away to forests to escape the forcible conversion being done by the Muslim invaders. This concoction is contrary to the interpretations based on the studies from population genetics. The Hindu nationalist argues that Aryans have been the original inhabitants of the country from where they spread to other parts of the World. The book by Tony Joseph, ‘Early Indians’ tells us that away from the race theory, we are all mixed up. The first inhabitants in our land were the ones who emigrated from South Asia over Sixty thousand years ago.

The Indo-Aryans came here nearly three thousand years ago and they pushed the aborigines to the forests and hills and that’s what constitutes the Adivasi community of India.

Hindu Nationalists like all the nationalists who construct their nationalism around their religion claim to be the most original inhabitants of the land, and their interpretations of past are molded according to that. RSS right from beginning has not been using the word Adivasi, it calls them Vanvasi. As per its agenda it wants them to be part of Hindu fold, despite Adivasis themselves saying that they are not Hindus, they have beliefs and practices which are far away from Hinduism in whatever form.

To enhance its political reach from the decades of 1980s in particular its work in Adivasis areas has been intensified. While ‘Vanvasis Kalyan Ashram’, part of RSS Combine which was formed much earlier, it was in the decades of 1980s that their work was jacked up by sending more Pracharaks in Adivasi areas. We see that in Gujarat, Dangs and nearby area, Swami Aseemanand, in MP, centered around Jhabua-the followers of Asaram Bapu and in Orissa Swami Laxmananad stationed them. They saw Christian missionaries working in the field of education and health as an obstacle to Hinduization of Adivasis. Their propaganda against Christian missionaries led to the ghastly murder of Pastor Graham Stains. It was this propaganda which led to anti Christian violence in various forms, the most horrific being the Kandhamal violence of 2008.

In order to culturally co-opt them into the fold of Hinduism they began series of religious congregations, Kumbhs. Shabri Kumbh in Dangs and many other Adivasis predominant areas created an atmosphere of fear, Adivasis were asked to be part of it, saffron flags were distributed and they were made to put it in their houses. Two religious icons were popularized in these areas, one was Shabri and other was Hanuman. To cap it all, Ekal Vidyalayas, started spreading RSS’s interpretation of history in these areas. The other angle of the whole thing is that Adivasis are living in the areas rich in minerals, which the BJP supporter Corporate World wants to take over.

World over aborigines have similar pattern. They are animists and what they practice is a culture as such. Many have converted to other religions out of their choice for sure, but finally in these matters what is important is the self perception. Hemant Soren the Chief Minister of Jharkhand pointed out that “Adivasis are not Hindus. ”Keeping that in mind; the column of Aborigines needs to find its place in our census forms.

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