The Kerala nun rape case was in the news recently where Bishop Franco Mullakal, who headed the Roman Catholic diocese of Jalandhar, was accused of raping a nun on a number of occasions between 2014 and 2016. He was charged with wrongful confinement, rape, unnatural sex and criminal intimidation. In 2004, another well-known religious head, Swami Jayendra Saraswathi, then pontiff of the Kanchi Mutt, was accused in the murder of Sankararaman, a manager of another temple in the same city of Kanchipuram. There are many other cases where religious figures were and are tainted by such charges.
In both these cases, the accused were acquitted by the respective courts. Though the courts have absolved the accused of the charges, it is nevertheless discomfiting to note that the dark cloud of criminality hangs over custodians of religious institutions. The very idea of these custodians even to be associated with such a taint of profanity should be disconcerting to the apologists of religious practice and institutionalised religion. The very association mars the sacredness usually associated with religion. It also disturbs and distorts the commonly-held received view that the domain of religion extends over morals, meaning and value.
Though this is a commonly-held view, ethics and deliberations on meaning and purpose of life constitute independent domains of discourse and questions in these domains need not have their source in religion. Douglas Cowan, a scholar of religious studies, terms “the erroneous but remarkably widespread belief that goodness, morality and decency are essential characteristics of religion, that they help us define what religion as “the good, moral and decent fallacy”. Further, he notes that there is “precious little historical or sociological evidence” to attribute goodness and morality to religion.
One can be moral, think of morality and theorise on justice and meaning of life, independent of one’s religious attitude. It is more than possible for an atheist to be moral and examples are legion of religious people being unethical.
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Therefore, both these points – on the domain of religion and the above mentioned taint of profanity associated with the custodians of religious institutions – raise the larger axiological question about the value-impact of religion as practice as well as an institution. The revolutionary freedom fighter Bhagat Singh and the rationalist Narendra Dabholkar raised questions of this sort on religion and appealed to reason to argue for the valuelessness of religion.
Bhagat Singh wrote a pamphlet “Why I am an Atheist” in prison in 1930. The notion of godhood is very much central to most religions. Such an idea is pervasive in the public consciousness and also well entrenched. In fact, in different forms, the meaning and nature of godhood, god’s existence and its relationship to man constitute an important part of the default religious discourse. These are, Bhagat Singh says, popular feelings. Criticisms of such popular feelings, he remarks, are never answered in a rational way.
He, it must be said, was very polite to people having such feelings as he considers them only unable to engage in critical thinking because of their “mental insipidity” but not violently harmful. Coming to Dabholkar’s time, such people are no more harmless. In fact, it his criticism in the form of a rational view of the valuelessness of religion that led to his murder by extremist elements.
The very thought of dismissing the idea of godhood and god’s existence, also as something unreasonable to hold, would be regarded by believers or the so called theists as some kind of vanity and pride and invites wrath from them. That’s what exactly happened to Dabholkar when this wrath took a violent form in some vengeful extremists who shot him dead.
Bhagat Singh strongly advocates an atheistic position. Atheism, according to him, is not to have belief in an “Almighty, Supreme Being who created, guided and controlled the universe”. Such an idea “had no sound foundations.”
He, in the beginning of his pamphlet, states that some of his friends construed his atheism to be a result of his foolishness and an “outcome of vanity”. Believers, influenced by faith peddlers of god and religion, often criticise atheists for their vanity. He goes on to dispel this idea of there being any connection between atheism and vanity and concludes:
“Society must fight against this belief in God as it fought against idol worship and other narrow conceptions of religion. In this way man will try to stand on his feet. Being realistic, he will have to throw his faith aside and face all adversaries with courage and valour. That is exactly my state of mind. My friends, it is not my vanity; it is my mode of thinking that has made me an atheist. I don’t think that by strengthening my belief in God and by offering prayers to Him every day, (this I consider to be the most degraded act on the part of man) I can bring improvement in my situation, nor can I further deteriorate it.”
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The “mode of thinking”, one that is based on experience, reasoning, perception and inference, seems to have shrivelled away when it comes to matters of belief in god and religion. The origin of the idea of god, as Bhagat Singh opines, is that “man created God in his imagination when he realised his weaknesses, limitations and shortcomings”. An exactly similar idea is echoed by the famous scientist Albert Einstein in what is now known as the ‘God letter’ that he wrote to the German philosopher Eric Gutkind: “God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses.” This letter of the scientist was sold in the year 2018 for $2.9 million at Christie’s auction.
In that mode of thinking, Bhagat Singh poses two questions on the belief in “an Almighty, Omnipresent, Omnipotent God” who, according to the theists, created the universe. The questions are a) why, in the first place, did god create the universe and a follow up question b) If it be said, as the theists say drawing upon the scriptures, that he is bound by the law to create then he in no more omnipotent.
Further, the omnipotent god lacks the potency, argues Singh, because he does not stop a man from committing sin. He could not save the humanity of many a great calamity. Why does god “not infuse humanistic sentiments into the minds of the Britishers so that they may willingly leave India?”
These questions of Singh reflect a more philosophically polished atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell’s response to a question he was asked in a dinner meeting as follows: suppose your stand on the whole idea of god’s existence turns out to be wrong and that god does exist; suppose after your death you are face to face with god; how would you respond? Russell replied, “Well, I would say that you [god] did not provide much evidence.” Going by his argument where Bhagat Singh questions the potency of god it would be even more appropriate to say that not only is there no evidence of god’s existence but there is also evidence to the contrary.
The Case for Reason: Understanding the Anti-superstition Movement
Narendra Dabholkar
Translated by Suman Oak, Published by Westland/Context, September 2018
In a similar mode of thinking, but more articulate, Dabholkar wrote a a two-volume book The Case for Reason originally published in Marathi as Timiratuni Tejakade. In the first and second essay (titled “The Concept of God” and “Religion”) of the second volume of the book Dabholkar presents lineaments of the form of religion. There he states that it is imperative for a rationalist to be critical of religion and that a key component of Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti’s (MANS) activities at the grassroots level has this responsibility of criticism. MANS is an organisation founded by Dabholkar to eradicate blind faith and superstition.
Why is such a criticism warranted? He notes that every religion boosts the glory of one’s own faith and such “endeavours assume the form of hatred and contempt for other religions”. He contends that there has been rampant commercialisation of religion and the involvement of antisocial elements in organising of religious festivals. These engender parochial religious sentiments that trample upon all the values (moral and cultural) projected by, what he terms, a “public version of religion” (The recent Dharma Sansads in Haridwar and Raipur where hate speeches were made calling for Muslim genocide are an illustration of this point). To counter such ill effects of religion the Samiti “engages in the constructive criticism of religious sentiments”.
Dabholkar, on similar lines as that of Bhagat Singh, raises questions in his essay on the concept of god as the creator of the universe: “If god has created the universe, does the process of creation continue or has it stopped? What’s the next step after the creation of the universe?” He says, “Nobody has any answers to these.” Dabholkar also maintains that the concept of an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent god is full of contradictions.
By framing these questions, both Bhagat Singh and Dabhokar present a rational view of the valuelessness of religion and its associated idea of godhood. They also discuss about the hidden agenda of religion where the privileged class invents false theories within a religious framework and brings about an exploitative system.
It is the tendency of the common man to subscribe to faith that religious institutions exploit unabashedly. Matters of faith become too sensitive to be touched by reason and rationality. Thanks to ‘faith’ that such irrational beliefs are held by the naive to the advantage of devious opportunists to further their commercial and other interests.
Upton Sinclair in his Profits from Religion An Essay in Economic Interpretation (1917) distinguishes between the two senses of religion; i) an honest sense and ii) the institutionalised sense. It is the latter sense that prevails today and it is the thesis of Sinclair’s book that religion “in this sense is a source of income to parasites, and the natural ally of every form of oppression and exploitation.”
We need the likes of Bhagat Singh and Narendra Dabholkar to rehash these questions in the public sphere to drive home the point of the irrationality and the irrelevance of religion and, in particular, the institutionalised and communal form of religion.
However, Dabholkar had to pay a price as some fanatical elements could not accept his stand on anti-superstition. He was shot dead in 2013 by youths belonging to a section of a religious denomination. These elements were against his fight against superstition. His murder at the hands of religious extremists should prompt one to think whether, at a deeper level, the nature of such an opposition to anti-superstition actually betrays the view that religious tradition itself is, in some strong sense, nothing but superstition and, therefore, valueless. Further, the taint of profanity on custodians of religious institutions is another point to ponder over the value-impact of religion.
S.K. Arun Murthi taught Philosophy in the Humanities and the Social Sciences department, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, Punjab.
