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Thomas 2017 Atheism and Unbelief Among Indian Scientists - Towards An Anthropology of Atheism(s)
Thomas 2017 Atheism and Unbelief Among Indian Scientists - Towards An Anthropology of Atheism(s)
Atheism(s)
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Renny Thomas1
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Abstract
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Taking into account the specific contexts and cultural specificities lends
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article argues that Indian atheism(s) need not be, nor is it actually, iden-
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accepting that their lifestyle is very much a part of tradition and reli-
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Keywords
Atheism(s), unbelief, religion, India, scientists, culture, orientalism, West
1
Department of Sociology, Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi, New Delhi,
India.
Corresponding author:
Renny Thomas, Department of Sociology, Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi,
Chanakyapuri, New Delhi – 21, India.
E-mail: rennyjnu@gmail.com
46 Society and Culture in South Asia 3(1)
Introduction
‘As an evolutionary biologist I know what constitutes life, so I cannot
believe in God. A good scientist cannot believe in God,’ said Gracy
Gomez,1 an evolutionary biologist. Like Gomez, there are many ‘vocal’
and ‘passive’ non-believing scientists in Indian scientific research insti-
tutes and universities. Some called themselves ‘hard-core atheists’, some
‘agnostics’ and some ‘materialists’. This article tries to understand how
these scientists interpreted their unbelief and science. A cursory look at
some of the existing studies by historians and anthropologists reveals
lacunae in understanding the practices of unbelief or atheism among
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Indian scientists in particular and Indians in general. The dominant
orientalist constructions of India being metaphysical and spiritual have
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obfuscated any serious engagement with practices of atheism or non-
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belief. Given this gap in much of the existing scholarship, the article
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endeavours to ethnographically study the cultures of unbelief and athe-
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ism among scientists in India.
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One can argue that the dominant trope of Indian spirituality and
mysticism cast a shroud on a much needed engagement with ideas of
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1
Names of scientists have been changed to ensure anonymity.
2
Fieldwork was conducted for about 11 months from February to December 2012 at the
Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. I was affiliated with a laboratory at the IISc.
Using the identity as a lab member of IISc, I have also visited other scientific research
institutions in Bangalore and conducted interviews with scientists at the National Centre
for Biological Sciences (NCBS) and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific
Research (JNCASR).
Thomas 47
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(Subramanyam 1998). Historically, too, one can look at the life tra-
jectories of scientists such as M. N. Saha to understand the radical
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views he harboured on the question of ‘science and religion’, and on
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the supremacy of religion (Saha 1937). I met many scientists who
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called themselves ‘atheists’, ‘agnostics’ and ‘materialists’. However,
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as I will demonstrate, parallels cannot be drawn between their ideas
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Bernard Lightman shows that the idea of atheism and its alleged
connection with science varied in different time and space. He writes:
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Whereas Dawkins asserts that atheism lies at the heart of modern science,
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Sir Isaac Newton, the great hero of the seventeenth century scientific
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In the context of Britain, Lightman shows that during the time of Newton,
atheism was considered to be inimical to the scientific spirit and Newton
himself argued against atheism (ibid.: 252). He writes:
Dawkins and Newton illustrate the dramatic shift that has occurred over
the past three centuries in the ways scientists, intellectuals, and the public
perceive the implications of natural knowledge for religious belief.
At some point the close link between science and theism in Newtonianism
was severed, and science came to be associated with unbelief. (ibid.: 253)
48 Society and Culture in South Asia 3(1)
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The space in Britain created by Huxley, Spencer, and their allies for intel-
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lectuals to connect science to unbelief was somewhat unusual. Although
Western intellectuals in other national contexts attempted to create
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a similar space in their countries during the second half of the nine-
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teenth century, they were not as successful as their British counterparts.
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(Lightman 2011: 270)
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Taking into account the specific contexts and cultural specificities lends
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anti-religious sentiment does not apply in the Indian context. Though the
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Western sites due to colonialism and trade relations, it got changed and
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3
West is not used as a homogeneous category. West(s) has its own specificities. West here
simply connotes the dominant Western discourse.
Thomas 49
of the period and place they emerge from, their reception must also
be temporally and spatially situated. (Livingstone 2003: 11–12)
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When I first met Rajiv Kumar at his office, he told me that talking to him
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on religion will be of no use as he does not believe in God, and said that
he is a ‘hard-core atheist’. When I told him about the nature of my work
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and that I wanted to listen to people who have different opinion on
religion and science, he narrated his views on religion and God in the
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course of three interviews. Kumar specialises in Molecular Reproduction.
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questions, based on what you see, the evidences that you get. Those
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new set of evidence, the old one is removed. That is about science. In
science, you have real logical–rational thinking. Religion is not like
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that. The Bible is not going to revise, never going to revise. Bhagvad
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Gita is not going to revise, Gita stands final for a Hindu, Bible stands
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If one wants to believe in God, one has to shut down logical thinking. I
don’t know why people go to the temple to see the stone and believe in it.
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institutes and universities promote religion and rituals in the form of
festivals. He said,
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I do not like religious practices in the institute and/or in the lab.
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There are designated places for worship (temples, churches and
mosques). Even at home, a religious guy does his religious act at
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a designated spot. He/she does not do it in the toilet. So, there are
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For him, atheism is the only way of life where reason is important.
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He said,
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as any other atheist is. His logic does not accept proof-less philosophy.
Kumar was very happy when I told him that he sounded like Richard
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I had met. When I said I had met more he appeared very happy, ‘Great,
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thing called spirituality or God. To say that anything that happens has a
consequence in the real worlds often have a physical and material cause.
I mean, the material might be extremely microscopic, but there might be
phenomena which involve the interaction of subatomic particles that we
can’t see and we can’t touch, but ultimately, these are physical entities.
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He said that being a materialist, the theory of evolution for him is the
best and convincing thesis on the existence of human life. As he said,
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Theory of Evolution is a theory as much as Newton’s Laws and
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Special Relativity are theories that explain why moving bodies move
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the way they do. I ‘agree’ with the theory of evolution in the non-
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dogmatic sense that it has a great explanatory power, and will continue
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equipped her to question the existence of God and the negative aspects
of religion. Darwin for her is an important hero figure. She argued that
being an evolutionary biologist, she is aware of the origin of religion.
She said,
Religion is the creation of society. I think religion serves a purpose. It
gives solace to people who are trying to deal with the sufferings of the
world. It gives them some level of comfort and safety. As an evolutionary
biologist, I think religion was a necessary creation of the human mind.
As an evolutionary biologist, I understand why religion was a necessary
creation. Once you understand how religion evolved and once you realise
that every culture has some kind of belief in religion and totem, you will
understand that it was important for people to survive in the society to
deal with difficulties and sufferings. It is also a safety valve for people
52 Society and Culture in South Asia 3(1)
She stated that once people realise the reality of life, they will start
questioning the existence of God like the way she did. She argued,
‘People believe because they are afraid. They are full of fear and it is
this fear which lead them to believe in God.’ Iqbal Rizwan is another
evolutionary biologist at the Institute. His lab focuses on the evolutionary
ecology of individuals, populations and species. Rizwan stated that he is
an ardent atheist. As we sat amongst the pictures of Darwin and posters
celebrating the 150th year celebration of Darwin’s Origin of Species that
adorned his office, Rizwan told me:
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I am completely non-religious. I see myself as an ardent atheist. I
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grew up confused, because my mother is a Christian and my father
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a Muslim. I have had a formal religious training in both religions.
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I went to Sunday school and I was also taught the Quran at home.
Neither of my parents was deeply religious. The reason I attended
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both religions is because my mother insisted that I should be given a
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chance to explore. As a result, you get to know about both, and I was
attracted to neither of them. Also, reading about evolution, reading a
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him to grasp the reality of life and universe. He was also very active
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in various nature clubs during his college and university days, which
helped him to be familiar with various rationalist thinking and writings.
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The scientists we have met so far clearly are not only influenced
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Even if provided with a scientific background, the next question that comes
to mind is: (a) Why did God create universe? (b) Who is he to create one?
Ramesh Iyer, an ecologist had similar views to share. Iyer was born
in a traditional Tamil Brahmin family. He had his doctoral training from
the United States of America. He joined the Institute as a faculty a couple
of years ago. He is also interested in environmental activism along with
his scientific career. When I met him at his office, we discussed about
rationality, religion and science. He said he is a ‘complete atheist’.
At a personal level, basically, I am a complete atheist. I have not had or
engaged in any form of religious practices as far as I remember. I don’t
go to religious places; I don’t engage in any rituals in any form. I am
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shocked by the fact that knowledge plays such a small role in shaping
peoples’ ideas. I am amused by the fact that Richard Dawkins thinks
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that he can make a logical argument for the non-existence of God and
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expect that people would believe him because it is logical. Unfortunately,
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that’s clearly not how knowledge is transmitted in our society. I find
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it frustrating to realise that people respect religion and not knowledge.
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This has been the standard arguments for scientists who don’t want to
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give up religion. They would say that science doesn’t have the power
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subscribe to their argument that one cannot use rationality and scientific
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call themselves spiritual when they actually believe in God. I think the
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Calling these scientists religious doesn’t do justice to truth. Indian scientists
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are not religious, they are deeply Brahmanical. Brahmin tradition of science
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in this country is very strong. Most of these scientists come from hard-
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core Brahmin tradition. They hold on to the priesthood of Brahmanism
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and not religion. Brahmanism is the problem in India. IISc, for instance, is
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known as Iyer Iyengar Science Campus. The scientists’ wish for the return
to Indian culture is actually a wish for the return of Brahmin supremacy.
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the Institute, told me that he is totally irreligious and stated that he finds
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and many irrational activities. He stated that his parents were not very
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religious, and the upbringing in a less religious family helped him along
with his training in science to critically see religion and the idea of God.
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rich tradition of atheism, and they are inspired by some of these schools
of thought.
Poornima Vasudevan, who has done important work in the area of
molecular reproduction and genetics, said,
I am an atheist. I am a complete atheist. I don’t think you need God
to be a good person. I honestly believe that much of the natural
phenomena will be explained by science. I don’t think there is
anything beyond that. In that sense, I am a true atheist. I don’t think
there is any need to invoke superior being; neither do I think you
need a God to be a good person. You can be a good person and a
good atheist. I don’t think I am a bad person because of my atheism.
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She went on to criticise religious practices and rituals in the Institute,
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We don’t practice any kind of rituals in lab. I banned Ayudha Puja4 in my
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lab. I have nothing to do with Ayudha Puja. I have nothing to do with any
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festivals on campus. We stopped it in the lab long back. I find it ridiculous.
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I think our department was one of the first departments to stop it. I
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certainly don’t allow my lab to practice it. Office people still do it. I think
in my laboratory, and in quite a few laboratories nothing happens during
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Ayudha Puja. We work as normal. When people come and ask donation
for Ayudha Puja, I say ‘I am sorry, I can’t give.’ I don’t donate for any
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find it ridiculous when some scientists say that Ayudha Puja is a working
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class festival and one should let them do and participate in it. That is
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nonsense. They have to educate the working class rather than justifying
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do that. I tell them that what they have done is a human activity. So I ask
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them to keep their faith with them and not mention God in the thesis.
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4
The worshipping and honouring of machines and instruments in laboratories and
workshops.
56 Society and Culture in South Asia 3(1)
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No. Do I feel bad about not doing it? No. Does it mean that I will never
do it? No, if I will be interested in attending tomorrow, I will do it. At this
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point of my life I am not seeking God, and I don’t want to also. In that
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sense, I see myself as an agnostic. IA
Though some of these scientists argued that it is their training in
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Western science which helped them to question the existence of God, they
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did not believe that it is merely their Western education which changed
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their understanding of God. They strongly stated that one can very well
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and materialism did influence them deeply and they were very proud
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various articles on Indian philosophy in international journals. During
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the conversation, he lamented about the fact that Indians themselves did
not value their traditions. He made it clear that he had no empathy for
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the Hindu right-wing forces who argue that everything existed in the
Vedas. He feels that those forces are actually anti-knowledge. After his
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systems. He argued that these concepts were part of the various Indic
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It was 20 years back that I started looking at Indian texts seriously once I
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some surprising discoveries which many people had not noticed before.
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I found things which surprised me. I call the old texts Indic. Because
if you say it is Hindu, it excludes others. Hindu is not our word; it is
somebody else’s word. The term ‘Hindu’ is not sufficiently inclusive.
What do you do with Buddhist and Jain texts and Islamic contribution
then? So I call it Indic. So I talk about Indic science, not Hindu or Indian
science. I found out when I was looking at those texts that the old Indic
philosophers and scientists were not superstitious or irrational. Of course,
their methods and techniques were very different. If one looks at them
seriously one finds scientific philosophy, it has to do with epistemology.
All of this took time to understand. I began to understand that there were
large numbers of scientists in classical India. If you look at classical
scientists like Aryabhatta and Caraka, there are limited references to
58 Society and Culture in South Asia 3(1)
God in their texts. I found it fascinating. In fact, far less on God than in
the Western literature right down to Newton’s times. It was a revelation
to me. In Aryabhatta’s text, there is only once where he mentioned the
word spiritual; that is a reference to Brahma. It is fascinating, isn’t it?
Samkhya philosophy, for instance, is very radical. My theory is that in
one way or another, many of these classical Indic philosophers followed
Samkhya philosophy. Samkhya was known as Nireeshwara Samkhya. It
is not ‘atheist’ as such, but it is non-theist. It doesn’t say there is no
God. It says, ‘It is not necessary to know God.’ It says that there is no
evidence for Easwara. It does not say that there is no Easwara. What
I want to tell you is that rationalism and idea of non-belief is nothing
new to Indic tradition. One doesn’t need to go to the West to find them.
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Shastry’s narrative problematises the orientalist understanding of
classical Indian philosophical texts as lacking in rationality and science.
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He argued that one has to study the Indic systems of thought seriously to
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understand how rational and radical Indian schools of thought were. As
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he said, he doesn’t identify himself as an atheist since Samkhya doesn’t
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say that there is no God, but it says that there is no evidence for God.
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stand the Indic ideas of rationalism and atheism in order to understand the
practice of non-belief in India today; rather than looking at the Western
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understanding of atheism. Every culture has its own ideas and practices
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argues, is an extension of scientific atheism that emerged in the Victorian
period (ibid.: 81). The New Atheists, LeDrew argues, wield the Victorian
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discourse of an eternal conflict of religion and science (ibid.: 81). Terry
Eagleton in his book Reason, Faith and Revolution calls the new atheists
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or scientific atheists like Richard Dawkins, or Christopher Hitchens as
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‘liberal rationalists’ (Eagleton 2012).
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so too are there spaces of unbelief’ (Livingstone 2011: 284). Unlike the
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Western scientific atheists, they are not against the idea of God or against
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Science
As discussed above, the scientists who claimed to be atheists still lead a
life based on their religious or cultural ethos. They participated in vari-
ous religious festivals and celebrations and perceived it as cultural. The
usage ‘cultural’ in the Indian context is never independent of its reli-
gious and caste affiliations. Thus, even though they called themselves
atheists, the Hindu scientists, for instance, did not find much contradic-
tion in following the lifestyles or their rules of religion. This meant that
they practiced vegetarianism, wore the sacred thread (in the case of
Brahmins), admired classical songs in praise of Hindu gods and god-
desses, and participated in traditional life cycle and seasonal rituals.
60 Society and Culture in South Asia 3(1)
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and historically relevant pilgrimage places, especially when they go
with their family; ‘to make them happy’. Likewise, the Christian scien-
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tists who called themselves non-believers attend Church service as they
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claimed it as an important part of family life. They argued that they
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wouldn’t question the religious beliefs and practices of people and pro-
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fessed that it is a personal choice to be religious or non-religious. They
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also felt that religion and belief in God provide psychological succor to
believers in their hardships and one should not oppose it. Many of the
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atheist scientists think that festivals such as Diwali or Ayudha Puja are
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cultural events.
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against the beliefs of others, and said he wouldn’t mind visiting religious
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have any problem with their belief. I have problem only when they try
to connect science with religion. If a person develops a good personality
by practising religion, one should encourage it. There is no problem in
doing it. I don’t think God or religion is a bad concept. Both are concepts.
If one practices good things in the name of God or religion, that is fine. If
one is in turmoil and if no one is there to calm them or if they don’t want
to disclose it to others, then God is a very good concept. If one relaxes
after sharing their worries with God, then it is absolutely perfect. If that
is what religion does, I have no problem with religion. I have no problem
if anybody practices religion. I had been to many temples and religious
places with my family. Of course, I don’t pray with them. I spend time
looking at the architectural beauty of the temple. I go to Sri Padmanabha
Swamy Temple but I don’t pray to the Swamy. I observe what people are
doing and then come back. I don’t do anything to offend them. I will be
Thomas 61
Baruah, the materialist atheist scientist, stated that religion and belief in
God is important for the believers, and he is not at all against it. He said,
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I would not say that I don’t believe that there is a higher power; I will
say that I have not seen convincing evidence in one way or the other for
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me to have a belief. Therefore, if you ask me how I understand religion,
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I would say that I myself do not have a religion in the conventional
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sense. But on the other hand, I can see why it is important in the lives of
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people; because I guess at the crudest level, religion might give solace
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the spectrum (perhaps not all of it) between extreme rationality and
totemism. Scientists are scientists third, humans second and animals
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some point of time that they are atheists. But, on further discussions, I
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sense that what they really mean is ‘agnostic’ when they say ‘atheist’.
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comfortable with their specifically atheistic and cultural lives as the
believers are with their religious and scientific lives.
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They, unlike the Western liberal counterparts did not question the
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significance of religion and belief for the believers. They said they respect
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others’ beliefs and practices. As a result, even though they call themselves
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atheists and materialists, they don’t object to all religious rituals and
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informed me that there had been a puja on the completion of the renovation
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priest officiated the function. When I enquired about it, boss said,
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I think religion serves a purpose; it gives solace to people who are trying
to deal with sufferings in the world. It gives them some level of comfort
and safety. It is also a safety valve for people who are not strong enough.
traditions (Dawkins’s position being the dominant one) and other social
and cultural sites.
Sociologist of religion, Grace Davie, argues that in Britain,
‘believing’ in religion persists while ‘belonging’ to a Church continues
to decline (Davie 1990: 455). Nonetheless, I would like to suggest that
atheistic scientists perhaps don’t ‘believe’ in God or religion, but they
‘belonged’ to the larger cultural framework of these religions. It is,
however, difficult to differentiate between believing and belonging
as both interfere with each other very often. Atheist scientists are
comfortable practising the lifestyle of a religion while identifying
themselves as atheists. While describing his identity Madhava Sastry,
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the atheist biologist stated, ‘I don’t believe in God but I certainly
belong to the culture and tradition.’
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In his lecture at the London School of Economics and Political
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Science (LSE), Slavoj Zizek discussed the notion of ‘belief without
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believers’. He said,
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I don’t think we really live in an atheist era. It is a much more complex
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field. We believe, may be more than ever, but are not ready to admit it
publicly, and we have a whole set of strategies of how to displace beliefs
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on the others. When I ask my Jewish friends, but the same goes for my
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catholic friends and so on, ‘Do you really believe in it?’, then you have
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category today. Certain beliefs can function socially without any persons
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today. I claim that they really believe but they are not ready to admit it.
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We really believe much more than we are ready to admit (Zizek 2014).
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place and read the discourse of atheism in its specific historical and intel-
lectual space (Lightman 2011, Livingstone 2003, 2011). One needs to
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see new age atheists like Dawkins in their contexts, rather than generalis-
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ing and expecting his views to be universalised. As Terry Eagleton in his
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critical review of Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion clearly puts,
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It belongs to a specific context. There is a very English brand of
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while accepting that their lifestyle is very much part of tradition and
religion. For them, following the lifestyle of a religion is not antithetical
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contradiction in following a religious lifestyle and simultaneously iden-
tified themselves as atheists or non-believers. No doubt it would come as
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a great surprise to the Western liberal rationalists and scientific atheists
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that these scientists did not find any contradiction in following a religious
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and cultural lifestyle and were simultaneously identifying themselves as
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atheists. The acceptance of a Western canonical understanding of athe-
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within the complex life worlds of Indian scientists. Any academic dis-
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Acknowledgements
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I would like to thank Prof. Susan Visvanathan for reading various drafts of earlier
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versions of this paper. Her timely interventions and comments have been critical
in shaping the paper. I thank Prof. Sasanka Perera for a meticulous reading of my
PhD thesis that helped me in the process of writing this paper. I also thank the
anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions.
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