Sanal Edamaruku
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Sanal Edamaruku (born 26 May 1955) is an Indian author and rationalist. He is the founder-president and editor of ''
Rationalist International {{More citations needed, date=September 2007 Rationalist International is an organization with the stated aim to represent a rational view of the world. External linksRationalist International Homepage
Rationalist groups based in India Organi ...
'', the president of the
Indian Rationalist Association The Indian Rationalist Association is a voluntary organisation in India whose 100,000 members Bedi, Rahul." ''The Irish Times.'' 2009-07-13. Retrieved 15 August 2009 promote scientific skepticism and critique supernatural claims. It publishes b ...
and the author of 25 books and other articles. In 2012, after examining an alleged miracle at a local church in Mumbai and insulting the Catholic faithful, he was charged under India's hate speech laws, prompting him to move to
Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
.


Early life

Edamaruku was born in 1955 in
Thodupuzha Thodupuzha (തൊടുപുഴ) is a municipal town located in Idukki district, Kerala, India, that covers an area of . It lies on the banks of Thodupuzha river, which merges with the Kaliyar and Kothamangalam rivers at Muvattupuzha to f ...
,
Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
to Joseph Edamaruku, an Indian scholar and author, and Soley Edamaruku. Born in a Christian-Hindu mixed marriage, he was brought up without any specific religious influence. At his parents' insistence, he was the first student in India whose official school records listed "no religion". He became a rationalist-atheist activist at the age of 15, after seeing a neighbourhood athlete's death after her family refused medical treatment because they believed in
faith healing Faith healing is the practice of prayer and gestures (such as laying on of hands) that are believed by some to elicit divine intervention in spiritual and physical healing, especially the Christian practice. Believers assert that the healing ...
.


Rationalist activism

Edamaruku has been active in the
Indian Rationalist Association The Indian Rationalist Association is a voluntary organisation in India whose 100,000 members Bedi, Rahul." ''The Irish Times.'' 2009-07-13. Retrieved 15 August 2009 promote scientific skepticism and critique supernatural claims. It publishes b ...
(IRA) from the age of 15. Before becoming the president in 2005, he served as the General Secretary beginning in 1983, and has been the editor of its publication ''Modern Freethinker''. His many books and articles deal mainly with rationalistic thoughts and against superstition in India. His writings in ''Rationalist International'' are translated into English, French, German, Spanish, and Finnish. In February 2011, Edamaruku was elected as a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. (USA) and is an Honorary Associate of New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists and
Rationalist Association The Rationalist Association, originally the Rationalist Press Association, is an organization in the United Kingdom, founded in 1885 by a group of freethinkers who were unhappy with the increasingly political and decreasingly intellectual tenor ...
of UK (formerly Rationalist Press Association). Edamaruku conducted investigation and campaigns in Indian villages, targeting mystics, god men and practices he deems superstitious. He refers to this as "Rationalist Reality Theatre." The documentary film ''Guru Busters'' shows Edamaruku and a team of rationalist campaigners on the road in Kerala demonstrations of how to perform supposedly supernatural stunts. He has helped in building Indian Atheist Publishers, which is now Asia's largest atheist publishing house. He convened the three International Rationalist Conferences held in 1995, 2000 and 2002. In December 2013, Edamaruku launched a new quarterly English language magazine ''The Rationalist'' on his blog.


''The Great Tantra Challenge''

On 3 March 2008, while appearing on a panel TV show, Edamaruku challenged a ''tantrik'' to demonstrate his powers by killing him using only magic. The live show on
India TV India TV is a Hindi news channel based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. The channel was launched on 20 May 2004 by Rajat Sharma and wife Ritu Dhawan. The channel is a subsidiary of Independent News Service, which was co-founded by Sharma and Dha ...
where the tantrik chanted mantras and performed a ceremony received a large boost in ratings. After his attempts failed, the tantrik reported that Edamaruku must be under the protection of a powerful god, to which Edamaruku responded that he is an atheist.


Weeping crucifix investigation

In March 2012, Sanal Edamaruku investigated a report that a crucifix at Our Lady of Velankanni church in Mumbai was dripping water from the feet. This incident, though not recognised by the Catholic Church as a miracle, was believed by locals to be one. Sanal Edamaruku was invited to investigate by TV9 of Mumbai with the consent of the church authorities. He went with an engineer to the site where the alleged miracle had happened, and traced the source of the drip to the rear side. Edamaruku found that the water was seeping through the feet because of
capillary action Capillary action (sometimes called capillarity, capillary motion, capillary rise, capillary effect, or wicking) is the process of a liquid flowing in a narrow space without the assistance of, or even in opposition to, any external forces li ...
and faulty plumbing. Moisture on the wall where the statue was mounted seemed to be coming from an overflowing drain, which was in turn fed by a pipe that issued from a nearby toilet.


Comments and aftermath

During a television show held to discuss the investigation, Edamaruku accused Christian priests of regularly
scam A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers hav ...
ming devotees and
defrauding In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compensa ...
miracles to make money, and build bigger and newer churches and convents, and the Pope of being "anti-science" and scoffed at Christians for worshipping the cross. A Catholic lawyer asked Edamaruku to apologise whilst on television, which he refused to do. Such
defamatory Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
statements lead to the
Catholic Secular Forum Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) is a Mumbai-based Catholic institution. As of 2008 the General Secretary was Joseph Dias. It has been outspoken on a range of issues. The CSF said that "''The Da Vinci Code'' is offensive as it hit certain basic foundat ...
filing
First information report __NOTOC__ A first information report (FIR) is a document prepared by police organisations in Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asian countries including Myanmar, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan when they receive information about the commissio ...
s under Section 295(A) of the
Indian Penal Code The Indian Penal Code (IPC) is the official criminal code of India. It is a comprehensive code intended to cover all substantive aspects of criminal law. The code was drafted on the recommendations of first law commission of India established ...
in April 2012. The All India Catholic Union said the law was being applied incorrectly. Colin Gonsalves, the founder of the India Center for Human Rights and Law, stated his opinion that no criminal offence had been committed.
Vishal Dadlani Vishal Dadlani (born 28 June 1973) is an Indian singer, songwriter and music composer. He is one half of the duo Vishal–Shekhar, Front Man and vocalist of one of India's leading rock bands called Pentagram. As a singer he has sung various ...
, and
James Randi James Randi (born Randall James Hamilton Zwinge; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American stage magician, author and scientific skepticism, scientific skeptic who extensively challenged paranormal and pseudoscientific cla ...
publicly spoke in Edamaraku's defense while others accused Edamaruku of being "as much of a missionary seeking converts for his particular “ism” as the Church is for its own belief." The Catholic Archdiocese of Bombay, which was not associated with the criminal charges, called for Edamaruku to apologise and for the prosecution to drop the charges. Edamaruku refused and on 31 July 2012 moved to Finland.


Views

Edamaruku is a frequent critic of
Hindu astrology Jyotisha or Jyotishya (from Sanskrit ', from ' “light, heavenly body" and ''ish'' - from Isvara or God) is the traditional Hindu system of astrology, also known as Hindu astrology, Indian astrology and more recently Vedic astrology. It is one ...
and other practices he deems superstititious. He also has accused Indian Godmen of mostly being
charlatan A charlatan (also called a swindler or mountebank) is a person practicing quackery or a similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, power, fame, or other advantages through pretense or deception. Synonyms for ''charlatan'' include '' ...
s amassing wealth and property from supposed miracles. Edamaruku also has been a critic of Mother Teresa, publicly attacking her legacy in
Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...
. He has spoken out against the Catholic Church's veneration of Mother Teresa and the miracle cure of Monica Besra, who was reportedly cured after a medallion was placed on her by nuns. Edamaruku said that her cure could be reasonably ascribed to the treatment she received in a government hospital in Balurghat and the
North Bengal Medical College and Hospital North Bengal Medical College and Hospital (NBMC&H) is located in Sushrutanagar, on the outskirts of Siliguri, West Bengal, India. It is the largest and the oldest healthcare teaching institute in North Bengal region of West Bengal, serving as a ...
. After investigating her care record the former health minister of West Bengal, Partho De, has agreed her recovery was attributable to her months of medical care. Edamaruku describes the miracle as an "obvious fraud." Edamaruku considers the Indian rationalist movement an "inspiring example for many western rationalists to awaken, activate and rejuvenate their own organisations", with India's rationalists being "on the frontline of the battle between science and superstition". Edamaruku has been critical of India's blasphemy laws, describing them as "relics of colonial legislation" which have been abused to "hound and silence" intellectuals and artists who question religious beliefs. He considers it dangerous that any person may register a complaint of blasphemy against another, leading to an arrest and prolonged imprisonment until the suspect is acquitted by a court of law. Edamaruku argues that the real danger here is less the verdict and more the "pre-trial punishment".


References


External links


Sanal Edamaruku's home pageIndian Rationalist Association
* ttp://WWW.THEHINDU.COM/OPINION/LEAD/ARTICLE3391109.ECE "India's god laws fail the test of reason" Praveen Swami's article on Sanal Edamaruku on "The Hindu" newspaper {{DEFAULTSORT:Edamaruku, Sanal 1955 births Critics of Christianity Cultural critics Indian atheism activists Indian emigrants to Finland Indian humanists Indian rationalists Indian sceptics Indian secularists Jawaharlal Nehru University alumni Living people Malayali people People from Idukki district Indian social commentators Social critics University of Kerala alumni