Opinion Superstition slayer

Trained as a medical doctor,Dabholkar came from a family of somewhat illustrious elder siblings from Satara in southern Maharashtra. Born just before Independence,he belonged to the first generation of post-independence hopefuls inspired enough to take their idealism seriously. After completing his medical education in 1970,he initially kept balancing his professional career with the urge to engage with social issues. Finally,in the 1980s,he gave up his profession and took full time to social work. In doing this,he was only joining an impressive tradition from Maharashtra. In the late 1960s and early 1970s,many young professionals from Maharashtra had joined the “movement sector”. Those were the days of the first wave of disenchantment with parties and party politics.

Dabholkar joined that stream,but with a difference. Initially,he actively participated in the movement known as “ek gaon-ek panavatha” (movement for a common drinking water reservoir for the entire village). Clearly,the intellectual influences on Dabholkar were not only socialism but also the anti-caste movement. He belonged to the larger universe of social reform. He is known by a huge network of young activists and followers across the state through his organisation Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti (committee to eradicate superstition). While he was not the first to employ a rationalist frame to understanding popular practices and rituals,he was surely among the few to have linked these to the exploitation of the masses. In this,he was a true follower of Jyotirao Phule,by far modern India’s first radical social thinker to attend to questions of caste and equality.

The social reform movement in Maharashtra has always had three strands: a more radical anti-caste strand,a strident and rationalist way of looking at life and religion,and a strand of robust critique of religion. Sometimes,these are separate and at odds with each other. Through the 1980s,Dabholkar charted his own path of social reform,which was rationalist but not averse to trying to understand the power of religiosity; rationalist,but putting social justice at the top of the agenda; and secular,in order to ensure a democratic coexistence of communities. He took a position that,in the name of god (and religion),many malpractices end up in the exploitation of the devotees,mostly from vulnerable social backgrounds. So he mobilised a band of activists all over the state,who would try to convince ordinary men and women how some superstitions become exploitative. To begin with,there was definitely some amount of over-enthusiasm in the movement,in that it tended to “attack” the superstition. Gradually,Dabholkar’s work took a more nuanced turn. While he was busy fighting with a number of local godmen and swamis and babas (occasionally using empiricist strategies),Dabholkar realised that the real need was to ensure the idea of faith was not misused for commercial and exploitative purposes.

For the last decade,Dabholkar had been fighting for the passage of a legislation that would make certain exploitative practices illegal. Hence,forcing someone to follow those practices (by threat or allurement) would be a punishable offence. His tenacity,and the liberal atmosphere in the state,meant that successive state governments actually started drafting such a legislation — only to dither on its actual passage. Dabholkar’s secular stand also meant he was opposed to political Hindutva. But his steadfast criticism of exploitative practices earned him opponents not only from the political Hindu organisations but also from the more aggressive orthodox Hindu establishment in the state. He took this opposition in his stride. His argument was that he was not against religion and religious beliefs; rather,he was opposed to those practices that exploit women and the weaker sections of society by the hegemonic imposition of certain practices.

But to label him only with this one-point agenda would be to miss the personality of this indefatigable social activist. In 1998,he became the editor of the Marathi weekly,Saadhana (established by Sane Guruji,the veteran socialist). At that point,the weekly was on its deathbed and everyone expected only a few years before it breathed its last. Except Dabholkar. He turned around the weekly into a financially healthy publication,and a far more readable one. Only last week,he had organised two programmes to mark the 65th anniversary of the weekly. Ordinarily,no one celebrates the 65th anniversary of a publication. But Dabholkar knew well that he had to find occasions to publicise the weekly,and through it reach a wider public,on a wider range of issues. To his credit,he did not make the weekly a mouthpiece of his anti-superstition work. Also,in recent months,he was actively organising and propagating against the rejuvenated caste panchayats and their highhandedness in parts of Maharashtra.

Dabholkar’s death is not only the proverbial loss of a devoted social activist. Maharashtra has witnessed many bitter arguments in the past over social reform. It would be a tragic irony if,in this state,an activist had to die because his reform activity was not palatable to some. This suddenly opens up the dark possibility that Marathi society will be losing its self-confidence to argue and to tolerate differences of ideas.

NARENDRA DABHOLKAR (1944-2013)

The writer taught political science at the University of Pune