The 'Vehm-Andhshradha' Nirmulan Program

As a part of the centenary year celebrations, Charotar Education Society organized an event on the blind faith with the noble motive of bringing awareness in the society. The event was organized in the Bakrol village on 25^th June 2015. On the occasion, Shri Anilbhai Patel, founder member of the Nisarg Community Science Centre; Gandhinagar discussed about various beliefs prevalent in the society based on blind faith and how various fake people take wrong advantage of this ignorance of the people by practical demonstrations.

Anil Bhai said that the main reason of the blind faith prevalent in our society is the ignorance of the people due to the lack of scientific temperament. Even well educated people also still believe in such blind beliefs just like uneducated people and don’t think of thinking logically as they fear it will go again the religion and faith. Thus due to such strong and blind faith in the religion, we get daily a new religious preacher; a bhuva; tantric or a mataji; out of which majority of them just fool people on the name of religion.

Anil Bhai stated that behind every such miracle, there lies some scientific logic, like blood coming out of coconut, ‘Mataji na pagla padya’ (steps of goddess), chundadi coming out of coconut and like that much more. For instance, in the case of Mataji na pagla, a thin solution of turmeric and water with some chemical is prepared and applied on tiles before devotees start arriving. Then due to the constant passing of the people, due to their foot impressions, red footprint arises on the floor, which are propagated as Mataji’s pagla and people are fooled and money is collected from them in wrong way. Similar is the case with other such blind faith rituals. Moreover, there is no scientific logic behind beliefs like  black cat crossing your path harms you and other such beliefs.

Talking about science and religion, Anil Bhai said that there is nothing wrong in believing in God or religion. “Dharma” actually is a way to live the life. Remembering god or chanting god’s name gives peace to both heart and mind. But religion today is mostly taken in a wrong way and due to high level of blind faith wrong concepts are now deep rooted in people’s mind. Due to excessive blind faith amongst people and incomplete knowledge about the religion & logic, people are wasting more and more productive time in religious practices instead of engaging in fruitful work activities.

Today, India has around 30 lakh people who in the name of customs and religion do not work and are dependent on begging and related activities for their survival. Such people who exist in large number are like a burden on the economy of our nation and tax payers who work hard day and night. If such people engage themselves in some skill based activities, they can help in our economy.

People in our nation still lack scientific approach in their behaviour in spite of increasing rate of education. Our main motive is now to bring awareness among people, both educated and uneducated as well as urban and rural people.  People need to understand the difference between religion, spiritualism and blind faith. Real development is only possible when each and every citizen of India will develop scientific temperament and logistic approach. Because where there is science, there is development.