Pune:
Narendra Dabholkar trained to be a doctor and could have led a different life. But he chose to lead a movement, for the last 25 years, that fought superstitious practices garbed as customs, traditions and religious beliefs.
His crusade won him many admirers, but also many detractors, who variously accused him of being "anti-religion" and some even "anti-Hindu." Undeterred, Narendra Dabholkar continued to battle against the industry of
babas and godmen that thrives not just in India's interiors but also in many cities, feeding on fear and superstition.
On Tuesday, out for his daily morning walk, the 69-year-old was gunned down by two men who rode up on a motorcycle and hit him in the head and chest with two of the four bullets they fired before driving away. People poured out on the streets in anger, disbelief and grief all over Maharashtra.
Mr Dabholkar was a simple man. He always wore a
khadi shirt, cotton pants and
chappals or slippers, which lay scattered beside his body as he bled to death near the Omkareshwar Bridge in Pune yesterday.
He did not criticise any religion, but tried to rationalise and expose those who exploit people using superstition and rituals as their tools of trade. He advocated inter-caste marriages and fought caste panchayat diktats that prohibit marriages outside one's caste or community.
And he practised what he preached. A Hindu brahmin, Mr Dabholkar named his only son Hameed, a Muslim name. Hameed, too, is a doctor.
Narendra Dabholkar's will asks that his organs be donated. But that was not to be as his violent death necessitated a post-mortem at Pune's Sassoon hospital. There were no religious rituals and last rites were performed in Satara, 120 km from Pune, where he belonged.
Top government functionaries, including Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and Home Minister RR Patil, attended the funeral. They hadn't given him much of an audience when he asked for a law against propagating superstition.
The two unidentified men shot Pune's much-loved Narendra Dabholkar at point-blank range. The government and Pune police have announced a Rs 11 lakh reward for anyone who can help nab the assassins.
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