The story so far of “New” Atheism from Kerala


P Z Myers recently wrote a post-mortem on “New” Atheism of USA. Reading that I realised what happened in my own state of Kerala in India was very similar, though late by few years.

The “Old” atheist movement of Kerala focused its criticism mainly on superstitions, sorcery, primitive religious rituals and astrology. Many atheists of that generation were fans of homeopathy, naturopathy, yoga and Ayurveda. Many of them were Communists and believed that Dialectical materialism was a Science. Remember this is the state where the communist party won power through a ballot for the first time.

The “New” atheism in Kerala began about 10 years ago and was inspired by the Dawkins book , “ The God delusion “. The ideas from the book were popularised through the projection of power point slides in hundreds of meetings all over the state.
The new movement in contrast to old one were critical of the pseudo science in medicine. (Being a medical professional I became a part of it.) It also began criticising Dialectical materialism and claims of scientific socialism.
But soon the rifts became very evident. It started with the issue of women in atheism. A section of the “New” atheists began projecting wives as a stumbling block preventing the propagation of atheism in the family. They expressed abhorrence to the word feminism and propagated the myth that women are inherently irrational. When their misogyny was criticised they portrayed their critics as people pretending to be feminists to get sexual favours. This lead to a split in the movement with the anti feminists on one side and the pro feminist atheists on the other.

The next split came on the issue of caste. India’s ancient and oppressive caste system gave rise to affirmative actions by the government after independence. A major measure was reservations of seats in the government educational institutions and offices for “depressed” castes. A section of the new atheists were adamant that if someone has to be considered as an atheist, he/she should not avail the job reservation benefits because according to them caste is based on religion and atheists are non religious. They also opined that caste should not be discussed in atheist meetings claiming that will perpetuate caste system. A quote by a famous Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman which implied if one stopped talking about race it will cease to be a problem was presented as evidence.

Many atheists did not agree with this view. They pointed out that a person cannot get rid of their caste like a belief in God. Caste is a social construct that is imposed on a person regardless of his/her wishes. An upper caste person enjoys almost all of the caste privileges even if he/she is an atheist. Similarly a depressed caste person will be seen by society as a person of inferior birth even if he/she renounces their religion. So by insisting that atheists should not avail caste reservations in jobs and educational institutions is regressive and against social justice. It is a casteist view that will prevent depressed classes from entering atheist movement. Also they reiterated that highlighting caste based injustice in the society was part and parcel of a humanist atheist movement.

Thus the new atheist movement in Kerala state of India is now a divided house with one section championing social justice, and the other taking an alter Right view trivialising gender and caste oppression.

Comments

  1. Socialist Fox says

    A “Fatwa” was issued by the “Pope” of New Atheist Kerala Gang that atheists belonging to so called lower caste and availing reservations need not attend atheist meetings in future. LOL

  2. says

    I have had a brief contact with Kerala gang of new Atheism. I was put off by the tribalism involving symbols (or lack there of) on an event which even featured a talk on the evils of “religious” tribalism. A physics student being given short shrift due to his penchant for sandalwood paste or something.

    Lots of “not atheist enough” accusations flying around. Rational thinking is the measure of rationalism not whether I boycotted my best friend’s wedding because it happened in a church.

    Cherry on the crappy sundae was a bit of homophobia going around too.

  3. Jacques Fornage says

    Insightful twitter discussion:

    Steven Pinker@sapinker
    Belief in an afterlife is a malignant delusion, since it devalues actual lives and discourages action that would make them longer, safer, and happier.

    Chloé S. Valdary @cvaldary
    ·Believing that you know for certain what would make others happy is itself a malignant form of arrogance of the highest order and proof that you may not understand how happiness works.

    Ben Esler @BenEsler
    People who are too dogmatic about their atheism risk falling into an intellectual trap. They’re so confident in the stupidity of religious folks that they seldom need to refine their own arguments. It encourages complacency.

    Bob Kresse @RobertKresse2
    I’m an atheist but I support people’s right to worship as they see fit. I understand why people believe what they do. And for good measure; Fk the Left.

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