Pinarayi VijayanKochi: Rulers are acting in violation of the constitutional oath that mandates development of scientific temper as one of the fundamental duties of the citizen, said Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. He went on to say that they are often acting the opposite, becoming the agents of superstitions and dogma, myths and make beliefs, in violation of the sub clause of Article 51 A that lays down the fundamental duties of the citizens.
Concerted efforts are being made to establish a religious state by reviving the values of the dark ages, decadent beliefs and systems and an obsolete caste system. The need of the hour is a joint fight against these dark forces, the chief minister exhorted.
He was speaking after presenting the MC Joseph memorial award constituted by Bharatiya Yuktivadi Sanghom to Prof. MK Sanu in Kochi.
Need to work together
In order to achieve the professed goal of the rationalist movements' of doing away with human suffering and evils, they should be able to join hands with political parties which stand for social change. If the rationalists limit their work in exclusive cubicles of their own, without engaging in social and political issues, their work will shrink into an exercise in pure rationalism alone.
Communist movement has always chosen to disagree with rationalists for limiting the scope of their ideology to a rarefied lifestyle and idealism by ignoring the tremendous potential to use it as a political weapon for social transformation. The fervent ideological debate spearheaded by people like EMS Namboothirippad and Pavanan in the past could never be forgotten at this juncture, Pinarayi said.
As far as the rationalist movement remains aloof from the political struggles to improve the living conditions of the common people, it would not gain the confidence of the public. This would only help the agents of the dark forces which indulge in superstitions and dogmas to brand the whole rationalist movement as blasphemous. And this will in turn drive away a good number of believers from the idea of rationalism itself.
Social reformation and political freedom
Pinarayi said that the rationalists should be able to win over the believers psychologically and transform them into a major force in the fight against the dark agents. This is what the time asks for. The intellectual freedom for which the rationalists stand for cannot exist without material and political freedom. The intellectual and individual freedom cannot survive without political liberty, the Chief Minister said. He also urged the rationalist movement to go for a serious introspection, keeping this correlation between political freedom and intellectual freedom in mind.
People like MC Joseph tried to expose the irrationality of superstitions before a people who were trapped in a fantasy world of beliefs with no rational basis. Through their strategic silence and indirect support, religious leaderships tried to keep the people under the grip of social evils forever. But social reformers tried to expose these superstitions, Pinarayi opined.
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