Back to the dark ages

As an young boy, I watched in awe the elaborate puja conducted before our new bus was handed over to us at the TVS body-building workshop ...

As an young boy, I watched in awe the elaborate puja conducted before our new bus was handed over to us at the TVS body-building workshop at Madurai. The ritual was over only when six lemons were crushed under the tyres of the bus before we set out on our long journey. Later, an elaborate prayer in the best Syrian Christian tradition was organised with the priest waving the incense burner and filling the bus with the fumes of frankincense. Yet, on its maiden regular service linking two famous temples in Central Travancore, the engine stalled and it required the expertise of TVS8217; own mechanic to restart it. But before the bus could ply again, four precious days were lost. Clearly, neither the puja nor the prayer had propitiated God for the bus met with three accidents in succession and ruined us financially.

What I narrate is nothing unusual in this country where the hold of superstition is much more than all the religions put together. In fact, there is reason to believe that religions thrive on the superstitious beliefs of the people. Yet, it was surprising that the West Bengal police thought it necessary to arrest Sabal Karmakar, the father of four-year-old Anju, who was married off to a dog, Bullet, to quot;ward off evil spiritsquot;. He was so considerate a father that he even thought of the possible widowhood of his daughter if she was married to a goat as was originally planned and the goat found its way into the butcher8217;s hands. Instead, a dog was chosen as her bridegroom, although the life span of a dog is less than 10 years. He did all this in the belief that it would ensure a better future for his daughter, on whom he doted. In a country where female infanticide is common and the Tamil Nadu government had to devise a scheme to save female infants from meeting an early death at the hands of their parents, heshould have been honoured for his paternal concern. Contrast this with the report about a village in Rajasthan, notorious for female infanticide, which witnessed the first quot;baaratquot; in 100 years. The police are never learnt to have arrested a single person guilty of foeticide or infanticide in this village or anywhere else. Yet poor Karmakar is forced to cool his heels in jail.

Of course, the father is guilty of a superstitious practice in a country whose the Constitution enjoins upon the state, in the chapter on Directive Principles, to build the scientific temper among the people. A few days after the police struck at Karmakar, the Indian Navy acquired its most sophisticated Russian-built submarine Sindhushastra which can detect enemy movement within 10 nautical miles and fire anti-ship missiles with precision. The handing-over ceremony was not complete at the Russian shipyard without the chanting of Vedic hymns and the breaking of coconuts. If the new UGC chairman has his way, very soon there will be qualified, exportable pujaris who can serve the Indian diaspora and bring in precious foreign exchange. He is also toying with the idea of introducing a superspeciality course in Vedic astrology to fulfill the needs of people who can predict with precision when, for instance, the Kargil heights will be reoccupied by the Pakistanis and the appropriate time when they should beejected. Come to think of it, in the 16th century, the Rajputs could have aborted Babar8217;s dream of building his empire in India. Under Rana Sangha8217;s leadership, they had surrounded Babar8217;s much smaller force at Khanua. Defeat stared Babar8217;s army in the face. But Rana delayed his attack under astrological advice even as Babar8217;s forces mustered courage. Otherwise, the history of India would have been different. Of course, Rana8217;s astrologer did not have the benefit of training under the UGC!

Why blame Karmakar when the dashboard of every other Maruti car is a sanctum sanctorum with idols and pictures of gods and goddesses, when Amitabh Bachchan goes on a pilgrimage to pray for the success of his son8217;s maiden film while his own enterprise is in a shambles Harivansh Bachchan is not known to have gone on a pilgrimage before Sholay was released, when even senior politicians encourage yagyas, when cricketer Kirti Azad reverentially touches a cow8217;s tail before filing his nomination papers against Sheila Dikshit in Gole Market constituency and when every film producer organises an elaborate muhurat before the first clap is shot? It8217;s selfishness, not religiosity or love of God, that is on display.

It was for this very reason that Madhya Pradesh Speaker Srinivas Tiwari took the lead in a yagya at the new Vidhan Bhavan in Bhopal in the belief that it was the quot;construction and layout of the buildingquot; that was responsible for the death of 12 legislators after the Assembly moved into the new building in 1996. A few years ago, N.T. Rama Rao had the gates of the State Secretariat changed to suit the Vastushastra specification, only to die of quot;exertionquot; in the bedroom a few days later. If, instead of changing the gates, the Andhra Pradesh government had repaired the Governor8217;s house in time, the ugly spectacle of the ceiling fan falling on the governor8217;s wife and injuring her could have been averted.

Why only politicians? An editor I know was fond of flaunting a ring a godman had quot;produced from nowherequot; why not a pumpkin, which can8217;t be hidden so easily, is a different question and who wrote in his column about the godman8217;s ability to be present in two places at the same time. I saw another prostrating before a smaller, though well-connected godman.

Twenty years ago, A Statement on Scientific Temper was released among others by P.N. Haksar and Raja Ramanna which stated, inter alia, that quot;the role of reason is to apply scientific knowledge to problems, to grapple with them through the methods of scientific inquiry and to work for social transformation inspired by scientific temper. The first Indian, perhaps, to work for the scientific temper was Rammohun Roy, who in a memorandum to the British opposed the government8217;s move to start a Sanskrit college in Calcutta and said quot;the Sangscrit system of education would be the best calculated to keep this country in darkness.quot; But two centuries later, the Centre8217;s emphasis is on popularising Sanskrit quot;so difficult that almost a life time is necessary for its perfect acquisition, is well known to have been for ages a lamentable check on the diffusion of knowledgequot; as Roy put it and such esoteric subjects as Vedic astrology.

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Instead of reformers like Rammohun Roy, Ishwara Chandra Vidyasagar and Akshaykumar Dutta, we have a plethora of organisations, all claiming to belong to a joint family, which want to reintroduce outmoded forms of worship to provide jobs for pujaris and astrologers. They have not said one word to condemn the superstition inherent in the man-canine marriage because it will not suit their long-term interests. It is easier to arrest Karmakar than to fight superstition in this country.