By Manmohan Dhar

India is a land of saints, sufis, religious gurus and yogis.Though we have reached the era of modern science and technology certain old beliefs, customs and superstitions have not yet changed. There are still many superstitions and blind beliefs prevailing in India. And that is very serious and disturbing.Ignorant man cannot understand the cause of certain things in life. He invents an imaginary explanation for the happening. He thinks that some unseen power is behind these natural events. There are people who believe in ghosts and spirits. They also believe in witch-craft. They think that the power of mantras controls everything. So ignorance is the cause of superstition. Most of us are superstitious in some way or the other.

 Even scholars and learned people also fall an easy prey to the religious trap set by the so called religious gurus.  People are not able to overcome the traditional snag of the past.

Blind Faith is what shapes and formulates the religious physche of crores of people all over the country. Blind Faith and godman culture is nowadays order of the day. People from all walks of life, from almost all communities and from different sections of the society repose their faith in the self proclaimed religious gurus who are cropping up like mushrooms in India.

Ancient traditions, supercitition and illitracy are the root cause of believing the unbelievable. Innocent people from small towns and villages are being attracted to the self proclaimed religious gurus.

Something which needs to be addressed with utmost importance, that too on the administrative level, is eradication of  the menace of blind faith. Which in turn can minimize the effect of these dharam gurus and the vast sections of society can be freed from the clutches of fraudsters, who exploit them in the name of religion.

Their influence on the people is so predominant, that at times they succeed in making them even change their religion.

Very recently India has suddenly come under the grip of this religious menace resulting in convertions, forceful intercaste marriages and more alarmingly international flesh trade. This is surely not a very healthy state of affiars.

We are taking care of cleaning the urban as well as the rural environment on national level through various governmental schemes. We are taking care of saving the girl child. We are using governmental resources in motivating the international countries to invest in India. But have we ever thought of dealing with this social menace of blind faith. If like other social evils, blind faith in self styled godmen, is seriously being addressed by governmental agencies with the aim of putting an end to this social evil, it will undoubtedly change the hard core mind set of some stubborn sections of the society, who think attending the big bogus religious congegrations organised by these godmen is  part of their life.

Though very hard to deal with, as India has been home for all sorts of religious gurus since ages, but if thought of with a strong will to do away with, we can unroot the menace of blind faith and  religious evils.

 The recent Revelations about some deras and madarsas have been very astonishing and disturbing. And the planning done by the chief runners of such religious places, is no less than treason, backstabbing, business, disloyalty, double cross, faithlessness, falseness,  infidelity, sellout, treachery and betrayal.

Several notable self-styled gurus have faced criminal action or are presently lodged in various jails across the country in numerous sexual assault cases.

And if we don’t nip the evil in the bud, ( I think this proverb doesn’t fit here, as the menace is not at the stage of bud, it has already grown into a giant evil tree. But anyways…) we are bound to face more difficulties in putting our nation on the track of progress and prosperity. Because these Godmen have already made the minds of crores of people uninventive, unsocial and ineffectual and idle. And idle brain is devil’s workshop. that’s what they have reduced these innocent people to.

Something is to be done. And it can not be ignored. Because if we do that we have to be ready for the serious repercussions that will emerge on account of inaction.

A proper scanning is needed in identifying the fake and misleading religious places in order to  bring them to book.

We may not reach the level where the European and American countries are, but we can still try to help our own people to get rid of this religious slavery, and make them contribute in nation building and their own prosperity and happiness.