“Rationalist” meaning someone whose actions and decisions are based on reason rather than emotions or beliefs
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| Gauri Lankesh(Rationalist) |
Narendra Dabholkar - Rationalist – Killed in Feb 2013
Govind Pansare – Rationalist – Killed in Feb 2015
Malleshappa Kalburgi – Rationalist – Killed in Aug 2015
Gauri Lankesh – Rationalist – Killed in Sept 2017
Narendra Dabholkar - Rationalist – Killed in Feb 2013
The series of murders of
rationalists and critic of Hindutva brigade began with the murder of Narendra Dabholkar on August 20, 2013.
Narendra Dabholkar was the founder-president of Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samilti (an anti-superstition
group).
Dabholkar was killed in
cold-blood while he was out for his morning walk in Pune. The Congress was in
the government in Maharashtra then. As police failed to make much headway in
the case while media pressure was sustained, the state government, in May 2014,
transferred the case to the CBI.
Govind
Pansare – Rationalist – Killed in Feb 2015
Govind Pansare
was a CPI leader in Maharashtra and a rationalist like Dabholkar. Both
campaigned against superstition and
self-proclaimed godmen from all over the country.
Like Dabholkar,
Govind Pansare was also shot when he was out for morning walk with his wife in
Kolhapur on February 15, 2015. Pansare succumbed to his injuries on February
20. His wife Uma Pansare received bullet in her head but survived. Uma,
however, suffered paralysis due to bullet injury.
Malleshappa
Kalburgi – Rationalist – Killed in Aug 2015
MM Kalburgi was the former
vice-chancellor of Kannada University. He was killed outside his residence in
Dharwad on August 30, 2015 - 10 days after Govind Pansare was killed in
Maharashtra.
A member of politically dominant
Lingayat community - usually considered as supporter of the BJP in Karnataka,
Kalburgi was critical of the Hindutva
groups. His murder case was initially probed by the local police, which
made no progress in investigation.
Gauri
Lankesh – Rationalist – Killed in Sept 2017
Known for her fearless and
outspoken attitude, Lankesh was the editor of ‘ Gauri Lankesh Patrike’ a weekly
Kannada tabloid, besides owning some other publications.
55-year-old Gauri was a staunch
critic of the right-wing Hindutva politics. In 2003, she
opposed the Sangh Parivar's alleged
attempts to Hinduise the Sufi shrine Guru Dattatreya Baba Budan Dargah located at Baba Budan giri. In 2012, while participating
in a protest demanding a ban on communal groups
in Mangalore, she stated that Hinduism was not a religion but a "system of hierarchy in society"
in which "women are treated as
second-class creatures".
Gauri was known for advocating freedom of the press.
She had written about the wrongdoings of the Indian National Congress leader, D. K. Shivakumar, a close associate of the
former Chief Minister of
Karnataka, S. M. Krishna. She was
opposed to the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) and broke her 35-year old friendship with Prakash Belawadi. In November 2014, the
Congress-led Karnataka government appointed Gauri as a member of a committee
aimed at convincing the Naxalites to give up violence and surrender. However, a
delegation of BJP leaders accused
her of being a Naxalite sympathiser and demanded her removal from the
committee.
Gauri was openly critical of the caste system.
In 2015, some Brahmins accused her of criticizing
the novelist S. L. Bhyrappa and Brahminism during the 81st Kannada Sahitya
Sammelana (Kannada literary conference) held at Shravanabelagola. At the conference, Gauri
remarked that the low-caste author Perumal Murugan was criticized by
right-wing Hindu groups for depicting a childless Hindu couple who indulged in
consensual sex rituals outside of marriage in order to have children. She then
pointed out that the Brahmin
novelist S. L. Bhyrappa had
also depicted the similar Niyoga practice in his novel Parva, a retelling of the Hindu epic Mahabharata. She clarified that she
was supportive of both these writers, and asked why the Hindu groups who were
offended by Perumal Murugan were not offended by Bhyrappa. On 19 February 2015,
protesters from the Hassan Zilla Brahmin Sabha ("Hassan district Brahmin Association") organized a
rally against her, urging the police to register a First Information
Report against her.
“The idea of
examining moral values is not palatable to some people. Actually, the stand one
should take should be, “’feel free to examine my morality. It will stand your
test and if it does not it won’t be morality.” Why should one stick to things
that don’t stand the test? A piece of gold is never afraid of being tested in
the furnace, because it is confident that going through the test will make it
more lustrous. Same is the case with morality. It easily stands the test of
time eternal.” – Narendra Dabholkar
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