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There is only a
thin line between superstition and faith. People who are frightened and confused
about life and death want a crutch, even if it is shaky. The new law on
superstition, however, is necessary, as it will stop some horrible, cruel
practices
If the bill on
superstition was passed 45 years ago, Satya Sai Baba would have attracted
arrest. He was successfully cashing on the gullibility of people by claiming to
be an avatar — endowed with supernatural powers. What he actually did was some
cheap tricks like getting watches and kumkum from nowhere. Yogi L.S. Rao, a
contemporary, wrote in a newspaper that the rascal knew how to impress people. A
baba or sadhu had to first perform some miracles in order to attract attention.
When once they were won over, nothing could change their faith.
Yogi Rao – from
Bangalore – was a big hit with newsmen. The beedi-smoking yogi told me: “First
you have to create an image, you can’t be a sadhu if you wear trousers and
jacket. In India, you have to wear saffron or pale-orange brown clothes. No
shirt – the torso remains exposed. And then, you must spread the word you went
to the Himalayas and kept your head at the feet of the guru. Nobody will check
of course whether you have actually been to the Himalayas. That Himalaya tag is
very important. And then, armed with powers extraordinary, you descend to the
plains and begin performing miracles.”
“I can do
better than that rascal. I can drink nitric acid, drink water and bring it out
of the nose, walk on burning embers,” the yogi said.
He did hold a
demonstration before newsmen. It was so convincing.
And then, he
failed in one demonstration.
He charged a
fee for the public for the performance of a unique feat. It was at Versova – at
that time almost deserted – that he dug a large pond. He said he would walk on
water. He had a small kutir at the place. I was with him the previous night and
I strongly advised him not to perform the water feat. He would not listen and
strangely enough, he appeared to be quite confident.
Technical
failure
Next day — in
the evening — he stepped into the water and went down. There were loud protests,
but everyone was pacified and told to collect the ticket money from a newspaper
office. The crowd dispersed and the yogi looked at me pathetically and said:
“The bubble burst in the arse. It was a technical failure.” A bubble in the arse?
Very few people
went to the newspaper office to get back their money. The yogi made a neat pile
and went to Bangalore.
“Are you not
doing something wrong — cheating people?” I asked him once. “It is not cheating.
People want this. They want to believe in miracles. They are confused and
afraid. They all want a crutch. I am doing this for a living. My life is simple,
but I have to support three wives. That rascal down south is doing the same
thing — but in a big way. He is scared of me because I can expose him.”
Yogi Rao was
not the only one who could expose Satya Sai Baba. There was a rationalist in
Bangalore, who at a big public meeting, did all the “miracles” of Sai Baba and
proved they were all just tricks.
We have
thousands of babas in our country who perform all such miracles and earn their
living. What will happen to them if the new bill is passed and becomes an act?
It is a fact they are cheating and they need to be stopped.
No human being
has seen a ghost, but go to a village, which at night is pitch dark and silent:
ghosts – many and varied kinds – are said to roam round the village. The
villagers say they can hear the frightening moans and wailing of the ghosts, the
sound of the bells round the ankles of the ghost and sudden flashes of light
etc. you tell the villagers there is no ghost on earth and they will not believe
you.
With ghosts
ensconced in their minds, they become easy victims of unscrupulous village
chiefs and hoodlums. When the fear of the ghosts is put into them, they are
prepared to do anything.
And very loud
rituals take place to force the villagers do what the chiefs want. A man with
painted face and torso does a vigorous dance, salivating and muttering something
all the time — until the Goddess or the ghost enters his body. Then he does a
frightening act-shuddering from head to toe. Then he issues orders – calls out
names and ask that it — the demon within him — be given rice, money. And he
orders fiercely that someone the landlord does not like, must go out of the
village for a month.
And rebellious,
cheeky, inconvenient young men are bashed up till they fall unconscious because
demons inside them have to be punished. Every now and then, there are reports of
women charged with practicing witchcraft being exposed to cruel punishment. The
women are stripped naked and paraded through the village — getting beaten up all
the time. Women receive such humiliating and cruel punishment because of false
charges that they are practicing black magic, that rains do not come because the
rain God does not like them, crops perish because of their very presence in the
village.
The
superstition with regard to “sati” sees quite a few women on the burning pyre
with their husbands. It is nothing but murder, but thanks to prevailing
superstition, the burning horror takes place.
It looks like
there is only a thin line between faith and superstition. A priest tells a man
who has lost a dear relative that the latter cannot enter heaven until certain
pujas are performed. The man has to feed Brahmins, pay the priest money and
incur expenditure on certain other items. Will the priest be liable for
arrest under the new act?
Out of over 100
crore people in the country, at least half of them are ignorant, illiterate and
superstitious. Our country is fertile ground for superstition. Our knowledge of
the superstitions is limited. Even rationalists are dumbfounded sometimes how
actually action based on superstition results in harmonious, better collective
living. There is nothing wrong with being superstitious, but what is wrong is
its exploitation by unscrupulous men. And all of us — even the rationalists —
are in some way on the other superstitious. There is nothing surprising about
this. The life and death mystery frightens people. There is no answer. There are
things beyond reason — many things we cannot explain. So we cling to
superstition — like the sophisticated, educated folks rely on spirituality. Both
indicate a certain helplessness, a certain attempt to find some meaning. A
crutch.
Clean cheat
And today, we
see the unique phenomenon of those who derive mileage from superstition and
fears in the minds of innocent, gullible people, making it big. Once their own
survival is ensured, they start building towns.
They start
colleges, hospitals, charity institutions, industrial units and other
enterprises. They use the huge money they get from worshippers as well as from
foreign sources to build a township. People then forget about the cheating and
exploitation and give them a clean chit. It will be said they did not misuse the
funds but utilised it for collective good. And if they did the tricks, they were
done deliberately as per a definite vision.
Nobody will
arrest Satya Sai Baba today.
And I will end this piece with
a Chinese joke. A China man was placing some rice at the grave of his relative
in Beijing. A foreigner from Europe laughed derisively as he placed a bouquet at
his friend’s grave and said: “Ho ho, will your dead relative come to eat the
rice?” The China man replied: “Tell me whether your dead friend come to smell
the flowers?”
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