Govind Naratab Deodhekar

From Philosopedia

Deodhekar, Govind Naratab (Dev) (March 1919—1997)

Deokhekar, formerly a left-wing activist in India, moved to the United Kingdom in 1951 and played an active role in the British humanist movement for over three decades.

He was from Bombay and had worked in Maharashtra, India, to combat superstition. In New Humanist (October 1992), he described the variety of superstitions he had found in India. These included the following:

• magicians, or godmen (who allegedly trace lost relatives or promise to cure AIDS);

• lucky stones (which are worn to ward off the evil effect of one planet or another); : possession of spirits (which really are mental disturbances but some exorcists have been successfully prosecuted for fooling people that they can rid the spirits);

• ghosts (which have scared entire communities into leaving their village for one day);

• bhanamati (in which stones fall on roofs or things move around a house, always traceable, however, to human hands; animal sacrifices (in return for expected favors, and an estimated 500,000 goats are sacrificed, along with chickens and even buffaloes);

• masochistic rituals (in which mini-spears are inserted under the bare skin of the back);

• devdasis (whereby girls who develop a strand of tangled hair, or dreadlocks, are dedicated to some Deity and serve the carnal needs of visitors); and

• astrology (which is especially liked by upper and middle-class Hindus).

ANIS, which is something like PSICOP in the United States, is an organization devoted to exposing god-men and their tricks in front of large audiences in James Randi style.

In 1992, Deodhekar retired as chairman of G. W. Foote & Co., publishers of The Freethinker, and as treasurer of the National Secular Society but remained a director. After his death in Muscat Oman from a heart attack, a memorial meeting was held at Conway Hall, at which many spoke: Bill McIlroy; Jim Herrick; Daniel O’Hara; David J. Williams; Peter Brearey; Keith Porteous Wood; Terry Sanderson; Nicolas Walter; and Denis Cobell. Deodhekar was praised as a freethought stalwart on two continents.

{New Humanist, March 1997}