Yesterday I attended the book release of ‘Timiratuni Tejakadey’ by Dr Narendra Dabholkar, founder of Anti Superstition movement in Maharashtra, Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti. My notes & recordings from the event. I appreciate that the tweets / notes are currently in fairly raw form, hope to edit into more readable paras when I have some more time on hand. Do check out the recordings of the speeches by Narendra Dabholkar & Mohan Agashe.
Had a brief interaction with Dr Dabholkar after the event –
Me – How is the Samiti looking at reaching out to people from my & next gen, who hardly ever read Marathi?
Dabholkar – We could publish in English, but do you think they would read English either?
Me – Right. Maybe not. I suppose blogs, facebook & twitter is where the current generation is.
Dabholkar – We appreciate that and have a website and also want to build a blog, but that unfortunately hasn’t happened as yet. Hopefully it will soon.
Notes
- Low attendance considering the distinguished speakers on stage. Event opened with mobile phones buzzing away. Limited youth in the crowd. Most are 50+.
- Dabholkar has been working in this field for 25 yrs. The organization has been around for 20 yrs.
- People expected superstitions to end as more of India got educated. That hasn’t happened
- Amruta Subhash says that superstition spawns from inability to tackle insecurity. One needs to take responsibility for one’s own emotions and no use superstition to escape emotions like fear or uncertainty.
- She spoke of how terrorist Ajmal Kasab being told that he will get jannat if he succeeded in his mission to kill 100s of innocents is also a form of superstition.
- She also told tales of how producers have 10s of superstitions and how at times they pick actors based on their birth dates & advice from astrologers
- R G Jadhav says that although the goal of eradicating superstition is an utopian idea, yet it needs to be pursued. He adds that artists / creative people can make great contributions to taking the movement forward. He felt that many intellectuals are still numb to this movement which needs to be changed. Often activists alienate public as they seem to get on a high horse, Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti activitst needs to be aware of this.
- What can be seen by experiment & observation is the truth, all else is superstition was one definition provided.
- Prof. Dhanore says that modern activism is beyond a class or community. Religion gives legitimacy to tradition. We need to check the assump that scientific temp is anti religion. Ethics is an important part of religion and so this aspect is beneficial to society. Is all prayer superstition? he asked. Only inspecting religion is not suff. but all aspects of society need
- From 24 April DD Marathi news to carry segments on rampant superstitions in Maharashtra.
- Also on 24th April – 6pm – gandhi memorial lecture will be held at the SM Joshi hall in Pune.
Could not take down notes from Dabholkar & Mohan Agashe’s speech as my phone would not let me record & write at the same time.
Dr. Narendra Dabholkar’s Speech
lalchand nagdeo,chopda.i like dr. dabholkars style
It seems Amruta Subhash is ill informed! whatever Kasab did was not a mere “superstition” , in fact whatever he did was as per his religious teaching.He was not “superstitious” person , he was “religious” person at the time of crime.Just check the details youself too.. to understand this subject better. However She must be congratulated for citing non-Hindu example!