It’s time the Left parties introspect where they had floundered, and developed a lingo to address the aspirations of the new middle class, Hamid Dhabolkar, son of the slain anti-superstition campaigner Narendra Dhabolkar and a leader of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti that works towards eradicating superstitions, has said.
“They must ask themselves and find out where they went wrong. As to whether they were not adequately appreciative of the new role of the middle class that emerged in the 1990s,” he said in an interaction with The Hindu on the sidelines of the DYFI national meeting which he addressed on Thursday.
Dr. Dhabolkar, a psychiatrist by profession, feels that Left politics for some reason had taken the back seat in national polity in the 1990s and the vacuum thus created was soon captured and filled by the far Right communal forces with a flourish. “It is therefore important that the Left in India remain sensitive to issues of culture, which are political as well, and address them as part of their pro-poor agenda,” he says.
To cite an instance, sorcery and black magic have been used time and again by opportunistic, self-proclaimed godmen to exploit the poor, he says. While his father had led the struggle for legislation against black magic, Maharashtra promulgated an Act after his father fell to the guns of bigots in 2013.
Dr. Dhabolkar is happy that the Kerala Sastra Sahithya Parishad has taken up the cause for such an act with the Kerala government.
Sabarimala temple
If the anti-superstition body that he is part of had successfully led a struggle for entry of women into the Shani Shingnapur temple in Maharashtra, he now would want the same to be allowed at Sabarimala temple.
“The case is coming up for hearing in the Supreme Court on February 20, on the second anniversary of communist leader and rationalist Govind Pansare’s murder by anti-nationalists,” he says.
It pains Dr. Dhabolkar to think that justice has not been delivered yet in the murders of Narendra Dhabolkar, Govind Pansare and M.M. Kalburgi; trial has been rather slow and the actual shooters are absconding. But it is important that the message left by them go far and wide.
Megha Pansare
Govind Pansare’s daughter-in-law Megha Pansare thinks combating superstition is as important as the fight against globalisation. “By opposing superstition, you are promoting rationalism, scientific temper, and freedom of thought,” says Dr. Megha, an activist with the National Federation of Indian Women and a lecturer in Russian at the Shivaji University in Kolhapur, Maharashtra.
Govinda Pansare was a cultural activist and a politician and deemed cultural activity as part of his political commitment. He was gunned down when he was on the morning walk with his spouse. Now, as an act of resistance, Dr. Megha is organising morning walks by people on the 20th of each month.
