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Press Clippings
From: "Rationalist International" <listmaster@therali.com>
Date: Wed, March 24, 2010 9:03 am
RATIONALIST INTERNATIONAL PRESS CLIPPINGS
www.rationalistinternational.net TimesOnline, 19 March, 2010
INDIA’S DAWKINS?
How one skeptic is taking on the
gurus
Sceptic challenges guru to kill him live on
TV
Pandit
Surender Sharma tries to kill Sanal Edamaruku live on television:
the rationalist
didn’t look too worried
After several hours of trying, Mr. Edamaruku was still
alive
When a famous tantric guru
boasted on television that he could kill another man using only his
mystical powers, most viewers either gasped in awe or merely nodded
unquestioningly. Sanal Edamaruku’s response was different. “Go
on then — kill me,” he said.
Mr Edamaruku had been invited to
the same talk show as head of the Indian Rationalists’ Association
— the country’s self-appointed sceptic-in-chief. At first the
holy man, Pandit Surender Sharma, was reluctant, but eventually he agreed
to perform a series of rituals designed to kill Mr Edamaruku live on
television. Millions tuned in as the channel cancelled scheduled
programming to continue broadcasting the showdown, which can still be
viewed on YouTube.
First, the master chanted
mantras, then he sprinkled water on his intended victim. He brandished a
knife, ruffled the sceptic’s hair and pressed his temples. But after
several hours of similar antics, Mr Edamaruku was still very much alive
— smiling for the cameras and taunting the furious holy
man.
“He was over, finished,
completely destroyed!” Mr Edamaruku chuckles triumphantly as he
concludes the tale in the Rationalist Centre, his second-floor office in
the town of Noida, just outside Delhi.
Rationalising India has never been easy. Given the
country’s vast population, its pervasive poverty and its dizzying
array of ethnic groups, languages and religions, many deem it
impossible.
Nevertheless, Mr Edamaruku has dedicated his life to
exposing the charlatans — from levitating village fakirs to
televangelist yoga masters — who he says are obstructing an Indian
Enlightenment. He has had a busy month, with one guru arrested over
prostitution, another caught in a sex-tape scandal, a third kidnapping a
female follower and a fourth allegedly causing a stampede that killed 63
people.
This week
India’s most popular yoga master, Baba Ramdev, announced plans to
launch a political party, promising to cleanse India of corruption and
introduce the death penalty for slaughtering cows. Then, on Wednesday,
police arrested a couple in Maharashtra state on suspicion of killing five
boys on the advice of a tantric master who said their sacrifice would help
the childless couple to conceive.
“The
immediate goal I have is to stop these fraudulent babas and gurus,”
says Mr Edamaruku, 55, a part-time journalist and publisher from the
southern state of Kerala. “I want people to make their own decisions.
They should not be guided by ignorance, but by knowledge.
“I’d like to see a post-religious society
— that would be an ideal dream, but I don’t know how long it
would take.”
His
organisation traces its origins to the 1930s when the
“Thinker’s Library” series of books, published by
Britain’s Rationalist Press Association, were first imported to
India. They included works by Aldous Huxley, Charles Darwin and H.G. Wells;
among the early subscribers was Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime
Minister.
The Indian
Rationalist Association was founded officially in Madras in 1949 with the
encouragement of the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, who sent a long
letter of congratulations. For the next three decades it had no more than
300 members and focused on publishing pamphlets and debating within the
country’s intellectual elite.
But since Mr
Edamaruku took over in 1985, it has grown into a grass-roots organisation
of more than 100,000 members — mainly young professionals, teachers
and students — covering most of India. Members now spend much of
their time investigating and reverse-engineering “miracles”
performed by self-styled holy men who often claim millions of followers and
amass huge wealth from donations.
One common
trick they expose is levitation, usually done using an accomplice who lies
on the ground under a blanket and then raises his upper body while holding
out two hockey sticks under the blanket to make it look like his feet are
also rising. “It’s quite easy really,” said Mr Edamaruku,
who teaches members to perform the tricks in villages and then explains how
they are done, or demonstrates them at press conferences.
Other simple
tricks include walking on hot coals (the skin does not burn if you walk
fast enough) and lying on a bed of nails (your weight is spread evenly
across the bed). The “weeping statue” trick is usually done by
melting a thin layer of wax covering a small deposit of
water.
Some tricks
require closer scrutiny. One guru in the state of Andhra Pradesh used to
boil a pot of tea using a small fire on his head. The secret was to place a
non-conductive pad made of compacted wheat flour between his head and the
fire. “I was so excited when I exposed him. I should have been more
reasonable but sometimes you get so angry,” he said. “I cried:
‘Look, even I can do this and I’m not a baba — I’m
a rationalist!’.”
Exposing
such tricks can be risky. A guru called Balti (Bucket) Baba once smashed a
burning hot clay pot in Mr Edamaruku’s face after he revealed that
the holy man was using a heat resistant pad to pick it
up.
The chief
rationalist was almost arrested by the government of Kerala for revealing
that it was behind an annual apparition of flames in the night sky —
in fact, several state officials lighting bonfires on a nearby hill —
which attracted millions of pilgrims. Despite his efforts, he admits that
people still go to the festival and continue to revere self-styled holy
men.
One reason
is that Indian politicians nurture and shelter gurus to give them spiritual
credibility, use their followers as vote banks, or to mask sexual or
criminal activity. That explains why India’s Parliament has never
tightened the 1954 Drugs and Magic Remedies Act, under which the maximum
punishment is two months in prison and a 2,000 rupee (£29)
fine.
Another
reason is that educated, middle-class Indians are feeling increasingly
alienated from mainstream religion but still in need of spiritual
sustenance. “When traditional religion collapses people still need
spirituality,” he says. “So they usually go one of two
directions: towards extremism and fundamentalism or to these kinds of
people.”
Since
richer, urban Indians have little time for long pilgrimages
orpujas (prayer ceremonies), they are often
attracted by holy men who offer instant gratification — for a fee.
The development of the Indian media over the past decade has also allowed
some holy men to reach ever larger audiences via television and the
internet. “Small ones have gone out of business while the big ones
have become like corporations,” says Mr Edamaruku.
But the
media revolution has also helped Mr Edamaruku, who made 225 appearances on
television last year, and gets up to 70 inquiries about membership daily.
Thanks to his confrontation in 2008 with the tantric master, the
rationalist is now a national celebrity, too.
When the
guru’s initial efforts failed, he accused Mr Edamaruku of praying to
gods to protect him. “No, I’m an atheist,” came the
response. The holy man then said he needed to conduct a ritual that could
only be done at night, outdoors, and after he had slept with a woman, drunk
alcohol and rubbed himself in ash.
The men
agreed to go to an outdoor studio that night — all to no avail. At
midnight, the anchor declared the contest over. Reason had
prevailed.
Jeremy Page, Delhi
From The Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7067989.eceMore
international articles about the Tantra Challenge since 19 March
2010:
Indian guru tries to kill man with tantric ritual live
on TV New York Daily News
Indian guru has killing in mind The Sun Sceptic challenges guru to kill him live on
TV Times Online
Tantric tries killing sceptic live on TV,
fails Times of India
Radio 4 should not change its tune
Telegraph.co.uk - Gill Hornby‎
Düşünce gücüyle
öldürecekti (video) Internet Haber‎
'Canlı yayında öldürürüm'
dedi ama... Milliyet‎
Śmiał się, gdy hinduski guru
próbował go "zabić" na wizji Wprost
Chciał "zabić" człowieka na
wizji Wprost
稱念力殺人
蘋果日報 (需訂閲)
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