Falling Between Two Stools Science Versus Superstition

Falling Between Two Stools Science Versus Superstition

1989 12 December 11-12 Falling Between Two Stools Science Versus Superstition (343) The Times of India of January 12, 1989, carries a picture on page one (reproduced below) showing a lean old man sitting on a platform, with one leg dangling so that his foot touches the head of a man standing below with feet bare and hands folded. The latter is none other than Mr. N.D. Tiwari, the former Chief Minister of U.P. The old man on the platform is a Hindu saint, Deoraha Baba of Vrindaban (a town in Uttar Pradesh). He does not actually live in the town but stays far away from human habitation on top of his platform. Those who can receive such a blessing from him are considered very fortunate.

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Such a practice is symbolic of conditions in India today, where leaders, still professing the same dedication to scientific progress as they did at the time of independence, regularly indulge in age-old superstitious rituals just as if they, and India, did not form a part of the modern world. Are they not aware that they are allowing themselves to be dragged down by superstition from the high intellectual plane on which they – as national leaders – ought to be functioning? How can science go hand in hand with superstition? Yet our leaders appear to be trying to pursue both goals simultaneously. In so doing, they are guilty of leading their lives by double standards. Iqbal Ahmad Suhail sums up the situation in his couplet:

“While the steps go forward, the eyes Iook back. The goal is known, but whither go they? The direction itself is ill-defined. What say you to the time’s vicissitudes?”

India will soon have been free for half a century, yet, in spite of so many years having passed since the country gained its freedom, and in spite of the vastness and diversity of India’s resources, it has yet to take its place among the developed countries of the world. The most obvious reason is that its leaders are like the hunters who try to chase two rabbits at once: they lose both in the general confusion.