For over three years now, Sanal Edamaruku, the president of the Indian
Rationalist Association, has lived in Helsinki, ever since he challenged
the Church and had to flee the country facing a case of blasphemy as
well as several death threats. Speaking over the phone from Finland,
Edamaruku says M M Kalburgi’s murder and the threat to his own life are
an outcome of growing intolerance in India to critical enquiry, with
extremists from across religions becoming “increasingly aggressive and
increasingly violent”.
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He still gets threatening messages, Edamaruku adds. “One such message
says that if I don’t apologise to the bishop, I will die a very painful
death.”
The government can send a message, he believes. “The simple thing is
for the national political class to issue a statement. If the Prime
Minister was to say that critical, scientific temper and rationalism are
part of our ethos, and that the attacks on rationalists will not be
tolerated, it would be a good beginning. But I have seen no such
statement.”
‘All PM Narendra Modi has to do is call rationalism part of our ethos’ | The Indian Express
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