{IMPORTANCE= CURRENT AFFAIRS+SOCIAL ISSUES+PUBLIC POLICY}
INDEX
1. ANTI-SUPERSTITION ORDINANCE
2. WHY ALL OF INDIA NEEDS ANTI-SUPERSTITION LAW?
3. ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE LAW
4. SOURCE
5. PERSONAL INFO
The death of Narendra Dabholkar- Crusader against Superstition has brought the cause on the centre-stage. The Maharashtra govt has passed Anti-Superstition Ordinance and the need for national legislation on the issue has been felt.
ANTI-SUPERSTITION ORDINANCE
The Anti-Superstition Ordinance approved by the Maharashtra Cabinet has 12 sections, It provides for imprisonment of six months to seven years and fine of up to Rs 50,000.
The crimes described in the Ordinance are as follows:
* Physical assault, torture, burning shocks, forcing a person to eat faecal matter in the name of driving out evil spirits or ghosts from the persons body.
* Cheating somebody on the name of miracles.
* Any sinister (aghori) practice which endangers life or causes fatal injuries.
* Claims by persons of having supernatural powers and causing fear in the minds of others to cheat them.
* To perform Karni, Bhanamati rituals and claiming possession of supernatural powers or advertising such claim.
* To promise a woman that she will get child by claiming to possess supernatural powers or force her to have physical relations by claiming to be her spouse in previous birth.
* To exploit mentally ill patients by claiming to possess supernatural powers.
* To oppose scientific medical treatment and to coerce a person to accept aghori rituals when bitten by snake or dog or if the person is ill with cancer or other diseases.
* Claims of performing surgery with fingers. Claims of guaranteeing birth of child of desired gender.
* To isolate or punish someone by claiming he or she practices witchcraft or possesses evil power.
WHY ALL OF INDIA NEEDS ANTI-SUPERSTITION LAW
As Superstition is not state centric concern, it is prevalent in whole of India in different forms and rituals, EXAMPLE- plunging of red hot iron rods on childrens belly in Jharkhand in the name of killing worms, tossing babies from atop a temple in Karnataka, grave digging for rituals with human skulls in Mizoram or more common practice of witchcraft across India.
REASONS=>LOW LEVEL OF LITERACY, CULTURE OF NOT QUESTIONING MINDS, WANT FOR MALE CHILD, ATTEMPTING TO CURE ILLNESS WITH TANTRIKS etc.
Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have enacted laws to restrict witchcraft. But =FAILURE. Because these laws have provision of imprisonment for three months and Rs. 1,000 penalty only +supplemented by weak law enforcement.
A studyReport on Awareness & advocacy campaign against womens exploitation in the name of witchcraft and land entitlementclaims that a total of 452 women have been brutally killed in Jharkhand from 2001 to 2008 in the name of witchcraft(BY NGO Association for Social and Human Activities).
Rural Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK), had filed a public interest petition in the Supreme Court in 2010 for proper implementation of these Acts. The petition claimed that more than 2,500 Indian women have been killed in the name of witchcraft in 15 years.
After the death of Dabholkar, Akhil Bharatiya Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (ABANS) has asked for a National law on curbing superstition.
In June this year, the National Commission for Women (NCW) also emphasised on the need for a law which can curb violence against women in the name of black magic and witchcraft.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE LAW
* While in the case of exploitative superstition, the law could help but harmless rituals should not be targeted.
* Some experts ask if Science and Rationality are only modes of questioning, what we need is education to question all our fundamentals.
* Blind faith like religion is belief-system the line separating superstition from faith is thin, we need to differentiate b/w God-men who practice black magic and faith healers who bless or pray for devotees.
* Faith often acts like placebo effect, the placebo actually does not do anything, but belief in something makes us more likely to do the right things that will improve our chances of success. We all know that the mind influences the way the body reacts to disease or disability blind faith sometimes plays the same role in influencing the mind to deal with something that afflicts the body.
* The key aim of organisations like ABANS is to ban performance of magical rites in the name of supernatural power, but how do we define magical rites, and isnt all religious chanting or saying prayer about invoking a supernatural power, a.k.a. God?
* Another aim of ABANS is to ban claim possession of supernatural powers and to advertise this claim. This would outlaw all god men, sufi saints, or any sect claiming miracle potential in their particular patron saint, even when they do no particular harm. It would bring the Churchs efforts to confer sainthood on Mother Teresa or Sister Alphonsa into question.
But few people can quarrel with some of the major aims of Dabholkars organisation, including laws to prevent the beating and punishment of mentally ill patients in the name of driving out evil spirits, or preventing anyone from taking genuine medicine in the name of religious prohibitions.
Moreover, more bad laws are made with the backing of religion than without it. Would Savita Halappanavar have died in an Irish hospital without a church-backed law on not doing abortions? Why should polygamy laws be in the statute book at all? The reason is simple: socially accepted ideas sanctioned by religion have to be fought in the social space, and not always by law.
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SOURCE
1. Hindustan Times----1 September 2013.
2. www.sunday-guardian.com.
3. www.firstpost.com.
4. www.downtoearth.org.in.
by Shrey Khanna
