A GUIDE TO THE RATIONALIST MOVEMENT
On Friday, a Pune court convicted two persons and acquitted three in the murder of rationalist-activist and author Narendra A Dabholkar. Dabholkar’s murder and the subsequent killings of Govind Pansare, MM Kalburgi, and Gauri Lankesh were a concerted attack on rationalist activism in the country. Whom does the movement threaten so much, and why? Dabholkar’s The Case for Reason (a two-volume series), originally published in Marathi, and translated to English by Suman Oak, who taught at the SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai, has some answers. In the first volume, Dabholkar outlines the theoretical foundations of the rationalist movement and documents its fight against superstition, pseudo-science, obscurantism, and revivalism. The second volume dissects faith and its continuing hold on populations. Against the backdrop of rising revivalism across communities and pseudo-science clouding scientific temperament even among the educated, Dabholkar’s book is an important guide to the rationalist moorings of modernity.