SUPERSTITION IN THE 21ST CENTURY INDIA
Ø In a shocking incident, a daily wage labourer named Afizuddin Ali married his teenage daughter and made her pregnant, citing "divine sanction" at Kashiajhora village in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal recently.
Ø A rickshaw puller in Chennai committed suicide so that his eyes could be used to restore vision to his blind brother. Tragically it was found out after his death that his eyes could anyway not have been used on account of medical reasons.
Ø A woman psychiatrist killed her elder son in order to use his blood for transfusion into the body of her younger son so that the latter could become as intelligent as his [ now dead] brother. The father who looked on at the horrendous and bizarre operation was a doctor himself. All this was done at the behest of a swamiji.
One can submit any number of such macabre but true stories in support of the contention that we are a superstitious nation. I have done some research into such bizarre stories in the media and found that this cuts cross boundaries of religion, caste economic status, and even nationalities. Even in the US some superstitions abound thereby suggesting that educational and material progress alone may not eliminate this problem.
Scientists are also prone to having their untenable beliefs despite their eminence in their field of specialization.
The dividing line between superstition and mistaken beliefs based on racism etc is not clear. Thus a Harvard dean announced that he believed women were genetically inferior to men in the study of mathematics. Even as this raised a storm another eminent American scientist said that Africans were genetically inferior and as such Africa could never progress.
I happened to talk to an American scientist who derided Indian scientists for their superstitions. I asked him for an example of this superstitious behavior. He replied that his Indian scientist friends went to a temple and offered worship before starting an experiment. I asked why he considered this to be a superstition. He said that praying to false Gods was a superstition. I then asked him what his definitions of ‘ superstition’ and ‘true God’ were .‘Anyone other than Jesus is a false God’ he said.
It struck me that even a scientist can err in such matters as religion. Clearly one man’s belief is another man’s superstition.
This scientist went on to define superstition as a belief that can be negated by common sense or scientific knowledge based on evidence. He then reminded me that the ‘milk drinking Ganesha’ that springs up occasionally even in a so called ‘educated city’ like Mumbai was a superstition. I had to agree on that point. But I cornered him by asking if there was any ‘ scientific’ evidence of the biblical miracles. To his credit he switched the topic. I could reach the same conclusion I have cited earlier—one man’s belief…’..
Does education help remove superstitions? Not necessarily as we have seen in the case of the doctor couple and many such cases. . Does economic development help? Not necessarily as the case of the same doctor couple and millions of other such stories indicate. In the US the number 13 is considered unlucky. The highest paid astrologer in the US and maybe the world is not an Indian but a woman called Marjory Orr.
Religion may in fact fuel irrational beliefs. In this respect no religion is exempt. Some of the most basic beliefs of most faiths can be classified as superstitions if the test of common sense and evidence is applied. I am sure that if I were to list them here I would be inciting a riot!. By the way many riots –religious or not --begin with the irrational divide between them and us.
Extremist ideology of the left or right have something in common—the tendency to divide people into two camps, the effort to demonise the other, the effort to create hatred of the other and the appeal to irrational emotions to fuel violence. At this point of time people suspend logic, common sense and common human considerations to kill. The Gujerat riots whose true dimensions are unfolding these days is just one example. Stalin and Mao are two of the moist heinous men apart from Hitler who will go down in history for their getting irrational behavior from ordinary people to kill millions of innocent people. Perhaps this proves that atheists are also superstitious. Ideology not religion is the basis for their brand of superstitions.
How then can we eliminate superstition? I am afraid there is no answer to this question.
When I look back at human behavior over the entire course of evolution I am afraid I cannot resist coming to the conclusion which fortunately none less than Einstein endorses---
OVER THOUSANDS OF YEARS OF EVOLUTION, EVERYTHING HAS CHANGED EXCEPT THE WAY WE THINK.
There seems to be something in the human condition, in the thought process that makes us surrender even humanitarian considerations and turn to even close neighbours to harm or kill them and to believe in the unbelievable. The primordial emotions of man have remained the same over millennia—fear, greed, hatred, envy, anger, desire. Every religion asks us to conquer these but to no avail.
No Prophet, saint or holy man or woman has made much of a difference to humanity at large in our conquest of these negative emotions . Maybe a few people have been converted and have been able to conquer the worst forms of inhuman behaviour —it is this conversion that ought to be the goal of all men of all religions rather than the superficial transformation from believing one ‘God ‘ to switching to believing in another ‘ God’
The Rationalists Association has done some work to eradicate superstitions .Unfortunately in India at least they have been selective in their choice of people to ‘ expose’ with the result that they are clubbed with
‘ pseudosecularists’. Maybe they too have some irrational beliefs .
I can only conclude that superstitions will be with us even in the distant future.
All that we can strive for is to guide our family members to abjure superstitions that harm others physically or emotionally. Harmless superstitions—like wearing a shirt of a particular color whenever we attend an interview-- may be ignored.
A friend of mine says only God can deliver us from superstitions.
This leads us to a critical question--Is belief in God itself another superstition?
This is my 13th blog. Wish me good luck!
K.R.RAVI
USA
Close
wish u good luck and try reading some of my blogs, if u have time thanks ravi...
Reply | | Report Abuse
In a shocking incident, a daily wage labourer named Afizuddin Ali married his teenage daughter and made her pregnant, citing "divine sanction" at Kashiajhora village in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal recently.
Hi:
It's fasacinating to consider this particular incident as 'superstition'. In this case is it fair to assume that "religion" is also "superstition"?
Is there a "religious basis" for what Mr. Ali did?
Reply | | Report Abuse
Dear Ravi,
Excellent blog. One man's superstition is another man's belief and vice versa. fear, greed, hatred, envy, anger, desire This is very true.
You asked: Even after thousands years of human evolution our mind is still unchanged. I can think of a possible answer.
You said that the six primordial emotions have not changed. In fact they have changed to the worse. Early man's primary emotion was only FEAR. This has remained unchanged and increased because of our so called development. We have wrongly assumed that increasing our possessions is development. No. More things we possess more is the fear of losing them. Satisfaction and contentment are confused in our mind. Contentment is the key for happiness. Satisfaction never ends. That is why greed, hatred, envy, anger and desire all take our mind.
Because human mind has become enlarged all these new emotions are accomadated. Sages like Buddha and Jesus and Ramana maharishi sought renouncing and middle path with contentment as the key. Buddha did not ask to renounce everything. He preached middle path. We should be like a primitive man with modern life. It is a difficult balance.
MKV
Reply | | Report Abuse
Good job Ravi: It is not superstitions that matter but what you do in spite of them. Benjamin Franklin, said 'trust in God but keep your powder dry' . If the Raja of Tanjore had organized his army and put pickets of soldiers around Tanjore he might have survived, whether he put Thulsi around his domains or not. Both Chrtistianity and Hinduism are matters of belief and both teach uplifting philosophies and both have extremely bigoted people in positions of power. I think that Professor you talked to was not worth talking to. You have bigots of his ilk in Sulekha too, following every religion.
GG
Reply | | Report Abuse
Mr.Ravi,
A well-meant article indeed. It is a vast subject to do real justice to in an article! You have done well.
But why do you have to think that man's thinking has not changed, for which you have quoted Einstein? Without thinking, we would not have made so much of progress in so many different spheres particularly in the last two centuries! We have come A LONG WAY INDEED thanks to our mind, our innovations.
Most social ills including superstitions, have sharply declined during the recent decades thanks to the phenomenal growth of science and technology. Religious rituals need not be necessarily taken as superstitions. Of course, I would condemn the killing of animals to please the gods. Things will change, things will have to improve. We are still a badly illeterate nation. The politicians and governments have not done enough to give the highest focus to good education.
With Mulayams and Lalus in the drivers' seats, we may be able to eradicate 90 percent of our superstitions by the end of this millennium. Just watch my word please!
v.s.g.
Reply | | Report Abuse
The first instance you cite reminded me of an absolutely horrendous case where a man had killed 12 or 13 members of his family (here in USA, somewhere in the midwest I think). It turned out his own grandchildren were also his children since he had taken all his daughters as "wives" and the women in the family had to cover their faces...turns out he was the member of some awful cult...and when he was at the risk of being found out, he killed them all---his daughters and their/his children...
I believe it's sick people who claim to "believe" in cults of this kind.
Your line "One man's belief is another man's superstition", reminds me of a comment I made on "The Bipolar Indian" by philippi where I said "One man's superstition is another man's faith." Just a coincidence I guess.
Reply | | Report Abuse
Fear of the un-known,traditional beliefs and the greed to achieve some thing that can not be achieved by physical and mental effort are some of the ingredients that go to make refuge in superstitions. Fear of reprecussions in questioning the very credibilty of such thought, since it is considered blasphemy, reinforces the continued belief. Our ancestors had to come to un-reasoned conclusions in the dark ages for want of knowledge in modern sciences and many things were written and believed when the earth was flat and the earth stood static with the sun going round it. Man has entered the cosmos and built a station there to monitor the earth and the planets beyond which may require increasing the grids in the horoscope but man will to continue to kill goats and chicken for offering to his Gods and break pumpkins on the road to ward off evil, on new moon day.
Reply | | Report Abuse
I think the concept of God is the most powerful of all superstitions. Sometimes it is beneficial to people as it gives them hope. But most recently, more and more people are acting out on their violent beliefs based on "word from God" i.e. their reverred holy books.
If all people were atheist (i.e. rational), I think many such deaths could have been avoided.
Reply | | Report Abuse
I have found that your 13th blog is as illuminating as others.I am confident that nothing will go wrong in your case.Superstitions are for the weak-minded.In life we want to achieve many things.When somebody tells us that by doing certain things we may achieve them faster, we simply fall in their trap because of our weakness.Educated people are trying to apply their rational and analytical mind and become rigid to discard false beliefs.
Your article was thought provoking.Wish you all the best.
Reply | | Report Abuse
Different strokes for different folks, but how thick the lines are matters. It may be true that some superstitions are harmless as Aditi Ray says, but that is at the top of the slippery slope ... how far and fast one would slide down is an ever presnt danger. It would be impossible to claim 100% sterilization from superstitions, but one must be cautious about categorizing them as harmful and harmless because the demarcation is never evident.
By the way, is the suicide case (eye donation) one of superstition or of how to go about doing what was needed to be done? I think it was the latter.
A meaningful issue to be tackled. Thanks.
Raghuram Ekambaram
Reply | | Report Abuse
- 1
- 2
Displaying 1 - 10 of 13 Blog Comments