Maharashtra Rationalist Association was an organisation dedicated to spreading rationalism and humanism in Maharashtra, India, [1] and was an integral part of the rationalist movement in Maharashtra. [2] The organisation is succeeded by Mumbai Rationalist Association, which in turn has paved the way for Sunday Sapiens.
The Maharashtra Rationalist Association was an offshoot of the broad social and religious reformation movement in Maharashtra which traces its origin to the nineteenth century in the thoughts and actions of Jyotiba Phule and Shahu Maharaj, Jawaharlal Nehru, Ramaswami Naicker, B.R. Ambedkar, M.N. Roy, Goparaju Ramachandra Rao 'Gora' and Sahodaran Ayyappan moulded the rationalist mode of thinking in India in the 20th century. Among the first rationalist organisations in India were Rationalist Association of India which was set up in 1930, and Yukthivadi Sangham which was registered in 1935. The Atheist Centre launched by Mahatma Gandhi's follower Goparaju Ramachandra Rao "Gora" in Andhra Pradesh in 1940, and the Indian Rationalist Association (IRA) set up in Chennai with R.P. Paranjpye as founding president were among the other important organisations in the Indian rationalist movement. Maharashtra Rationalist Association was one of the first rationalist organisations in Maharashtra.
It was headed by noted personalities like Justice Raghavendra A. Jahagirdar, [3] a retired judge of the Bombay High Court who passed several landmark judgments. Yahya A. Lokhandwala, who also served as the president of Indian Rationalist Association, and Rajeev Joshi were other prominent leaders of Maharashtra Rationalist Association. Lokhandwala wrote about rationalist activities in India in international publications like American Atheist Magazine .
Maharashtra Rationalist Association was the fulcrum of organised rationalism in the state. It played a pivotal role in mobilising support for irreligion in India well into the 1980s. Activists of Maharashtra Rationalist Association and two other organisations demonstrated on Tuesday, 12 May 1981 against self-styled godman Sathya Sai Baba and against the participation of O.P. Mehra, the Governor of the secular state of Maharashtra, in a religious function at Dharmakshetra, Mumbai. [4] They shouted slogans such as "Sai Baba is a trickster!" The activists were arrested and taken to police station. The next day, the Governor invited Lokhandwala to his official residence and expressed regret for the arrest and the misbehaviour of his staff. The event received wide publicity in the media and cemented Maharashtra Rationalist Association's position as a formidable force in the renaissance movement in Maharashtra.
Bombay Rationalist Association (BRA), which worked among the Malayali emigrants in Mumbai, merged into Maharashtra Rationalist Association. The association was very active during the period before the rationalist movement split into several organisations. Maharashtra Rationalist Association became inactive over time for unspecified reasons.
Maharashtra Rationalist Association is the predecessor of Mumbai Rationalist Association, which has since paved the way for Sunday Sapiens in order to broadbase its scope into a wide range of activities such as environmentalism, LGBT rights and human rights. Sunday Sapiens is a registered non-profit organisation affiliated to Humanist International, London, and Atheist Alliance International, Washington, D.C., which have special consultative status at the United Nations. [5] The organisation conducts events and runs campaigns under the better known banner We The Sapiens, and is headed by its chief executive Manoj John, [6] who is also the Development Director of Atheist Alliance International. [7]
Basava Premanand was an Indian skeptic and rationalist from Kerala, India. He organised many tours around rural India for the promotion of scientific thinking, exposing alleged miracles and scams carried out by various charlatans and godmen while spreading awareness of dangerous superstitions. Premanand was the founder of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations, the convener of Indian CSICOP, and the owner-publisher-editor of the monthly magazine The Indian Skeptic, which investigates paranormal claims in India.
Samyukta Maharashtra Movement, commonly known as the Samiti, was an organisation in India that advocated for a separate Marathi-speaking state in Western India and Central India from 1956 to 1960.
Abraham Thomas Kovoor was an Indian professor and rationalist who gained prominence after retirement for his campaign to expose as frauds various Indian and Sri Lankan "god-men" and so-called paranormal phenomena. His direct, trenchant criticism of spiritual frauds and organized religions was enthusiastically received by audiences, initiating a new dynamism in the Rationalist movement, especially in Sri Lanka and India.
Goparaju Ramachandra Rao, popularly known as Gora, was an Indian social reformer, atheist activist and a participant in the Indian independence movement. He authored many books on atheism and proposed atheism as self-confidence. He propagated positive atheism by his articles, speeches, books and his social work. He is the founder of Atheist Centre along with his wife Saraswathi Gora and a few volunteers. Social reformer G. Lavanam, politician Chennupati Vidya, and physician G. Samaram are his children.
Sanal Edamaruku is an Indian author and rationalist. He is the founder-president and editor of Rationalist International, the president of the Indian Rationalist Association and the author of 25 books and other articles. In 2012, after examining an alleged miracle at a local church in Mumbai, he was charged under India's blasphemy law, causing him to voluntarily exile to Finland.
The Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations (FIRA) is an umbrella body of 83 rationalist, atheist, skeptic, secularist and scientist organisations in India.
Indian CSICOP is a well-known rationalist group based at Podanur, Tamil Nadu, India. Founded by Basava Premanand (1930–2009). Indian CSICOP is in the forefront of the rationalist campaigns in India which attempt to expose perceived miracles and to eradicate superstitions.
The Atheist Centre is an institution founded by Goparaju Ramachandra Rao and Saraswathi Gora (1912–2006) to initiate social change in rural Andhra Pradesh based on the ideology of Gandhism and atheism. Founded in 1940 at Mudnur village in Krishna district in Andhra Pradesh, India the Centre was later shifted to Vijayawada in 1947. As a member organisation of the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations, the Atheist Centre endorses the Amsterdam Declaration 2002. The institution received the International Humanist and Ethical Union's International Humanist Award in 1986 for pioneering in the field of social work. After the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Atheist Centre worked with the Institute for Humanist Studies to provide aid to the victims of the disaster.
The Science and Rationalists' Association of India is a rationalist group based in Kolkata, India.
Kerala Yukthivadi Sangham is a rationalist organization based in Kerala, India. The organization says it stands for rationalism and humanism. It is the initiator of the umbrella organization for rationalism and humanism, Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations.The Rationalist Movement in Kerala had started with the Sahodara Sangham, formed by K. Ayyappan on May 29, 1917 at Cherai, in Ernakulam. This fraternity forum propagated 'Mishra Bhojanam', which was unthinkable as well as very revolutionary at the time. These movements paved way for a rationalist organization which started functioning in 1967. Kerala Yukthivadi Sangham is the continuation of this parent avatar. The organization started functioning in 1967. It has units in all the districts in Kerala and in the Union Territorial district of Mahi. Yukthirekha, a monthly in Malayalam, is the official magazine of Kerala Yukthivadi Sangham, which has been in circulation since 1983. KYS has a youth wing, Humanist Youth Movement, and a parallel wing, Kerala Misra Vivahavedi, a sub-organisation for the cause of inter-religious and inter-caste married lives. KYS also manages A T Kovoor Trust and Pavanan Institute. KYS is an associate organization of International Humanist Ethical Union, now Humanist International, headquartered in London.
Godman is a colloquial unisex term used in India for a type of charismatic guru that is often raised to a demigod-like figure by their cult following. They usually have a high-profile presence, and are capable of attracting attention and support from large sections of the society. Godmen also sometimes claim to possess paranormal powers, such as the ability to heal, the ability to see or influence future events, and the ability to read minds.
The Indian Rationalist Association is a voluntary organisation in India whose 100,000 members promote scientific skepticism and critique supernatural claims. It publishes books and magazines, organises seminars and lectures and its representatives regularly appear in television and print media exposing superstitions. The present president of Indian Rationalist Association Sanal Edamaruku was elected in 2005. He was the General Secretary of the association from 1984 till 2005.
Narendra Achyut Dabholkar was an Indian physician, social activist, rationalist and author from Maharashtra, India. In 1989 he founded and became president of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti. Triggered by his assassination in 2013, the pending Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Ordinance was promulgated in the state of Maharashtra, four days later. In 2014, he was posthumously awarded the Padma Shri for social work.
Sir Raghunath Purushottam Paranjpye was the first Indian to achieve the coveted title of Senior Wrangler at the University of Cambridge, and became a university administrator and Indian ambassador.
Rationalist Association of India (RAI) is an Indian rationalist organization that was established in 1930. Dr. D' Avoine was the President of the Rationalist Association of India (RAI) from 1938 to 1944. It is a full voting member of International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), a global representative body of the humanist movement, uniting a diversity of non-religious organisations and individuals.
Around 0.7 million people in India did not state their religion in the 2001 census and were counted in the "religion not stated" category. They were 0.06% of India's population. Their number has significantly increased four times, from 0.7 million in the 2001 census to 2.9 million in the 2011 census at an average annual rate of 15%. According to the 2012 WIN-Gallup Global Index of Religion and Atheism report, 81% of Indians were religious, 13% were non-religious, 3% were convinced atheists, and 3% were unsure or did not respond. While a demographic study by Cambridge University Press in 2004 found that around 2–-6% of Indians identified as atheists or irreligious,
Pralhad Balacharya Gajendragadkar originally from Gajendra-Gad, a historic fort and town in southern India was the 7th Chief Justice of India, serving from February 1964 to March 1966.
The Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013 is a criminal law act for the state of Maharashtra, India, originally drafted by anti-superstition activist and the founder of Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS), Narendra Dabholkar (1945-2013) in 2003. The act criminalises practices related to black magic, human sacrifices, use of magic remedies to cure ailments and other such acts which may exploit people's superstitions.
Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti is an organisation dedicated to fighting superstition in India, particularly in the state of Maharashtra. It was founded by Narendra Dabholkar in 1989. since 2010, the organization has been headed by Avinash Patil.
Shyam Manav is a rationalist and social reformer who leads the Akhil Bharatiya Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (ABANS) organization that fights superstitions. He established ABANS in 1982 along with other rationalist activists from India. He also runs his YouTube channel where he discuss issues like rationality, superstitions, personality development.