Sanal Edamaruku
From Philosopedia
Edamaruku, Sanal (1955— )
Edamaruku has written widely expressing his concern about the conflicts between Hindus and Muslims in India. He is of the opinion that any solution needs to involve an insistence upon keeping India a secular state as well as liberalizing and modernizing its society.
He has written sixteen works, including two novels and several hundreds of articles, on various aspects of rationalism, humanism, secularism, and ethical politics. His magic shows have helped expose the Babas and the Guru-politics nexus of India. With the numerous volunteers he has trained, he undertakes “walks on fire” to disprove Babas claims. Edamaruku appears regularly in the media and is an active symbol of the ongoing fight for scientific temper in India.
A second generation rationalist, he is the son of Joseph Edamaruku and Soley Edamaruku, who were pioneers of the rationalist movement in Kerala, the southern state of India. He joined the rationalist movement as a student activist in 1970 and was the convenor of the Rationalist Student Movement. Moving to Delhi in 1977, he became active in the rationalist movement. At his insistence, a 1980 All-India Conference for rationalists was organized at Mumbai (Bombay) for the purpose of rewriting the constitution of the Indian Rationalist Association.
In 1983, he was elected as the youngest General Secretary of the Association. In 1981 he started Indian Atheist Publishers, which has published numerous rationalist books including several translations of western freethought classics and contemporary books. The Indian Rationalist Association joined the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) in 1992 upon his initiative. Edamaruku has been a Board member of IHEU since then and has addressed gatherings and conferences in Europe and America. In 1995 at New Delhi, the First International Rationalist Rationalist Conference was hosted by Edamaruku and the Indian Rationalist Association. An International Alliance Against Fundamentalism, of which Edamaruku was Founder President, was inaugurated during this conference.
In 1996, his novel, Sanmarganishtante Ikkilikal (The Ticklings of the Moralist), was published. In Birmingham, England, at the centenary conference of the Rationalist Press Association in 1999, the year he became an Honorary Associate, he spoke on “Rationalism in the Third World in the 21st Century.”
Edamaruku signed Humanist Manifesto 2000.
On 10 March 2012, according to N. D.Pancholi, Convenor, Sanal Edamaruku Defence Committee, Edamaruku became under attack in Mumbai for exposing an Catholic "miracle" about a crucifix that for some days had had droplets of water trickling from Jesus's feet. As he exposed the “miracle” of the drippling Jesus in Mumbai, revengeful Catholic Church leaders vowed to harass Edamaruku with an array of blasphemy cases. Meanwhile, hundreds came every day to pray and collect some of the “holy water” in bottles and vessels. Edamaruku, however, identified the source of the water (a drainage near a washing room) and the mechanism as to how it reached Jesus's feet (capillary action). What followed was a heated debate shown on TV-9 between Father Augustine Palett, the priest of Our Lady of Velanlammo Church and representatives of the Association of Concerned Catholics (ADCC) demanded that Sanal apologize. He refused, and they threatened and then filed a blasphemy case against him. YouTube has an abridged version:
Edamaruku's supporters, who know he has been exposing miracles and superstitious beliefs for more than three decades, appealed to Indians to oppose the reprehensible steps of the Maharashtra police in filing charges against him.
{WAS, November 1998}
