Statement of Scientists

The scientific community is deeply concerned with the climate of intolerance, and the ways in which science and reason are being eroded in the country.

It is the same climate of intolerance, and rejection of reason that has led to the lynching in Dadri of Mohammad Akhlaq Saifi and the assassinations of M M Kalaburgi, Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare. All three fought against superstition and obscurantism to build a scientific temper in our society. Kalaburgi was a renowned scholar and an authority on the Vachana literature associated with the 12th-century reformer Basava, who opposed institutionalised religion, caste and gender discrimination. Similarly, Dabholkar and Pansare promoted scientific temper through their fight against superstition and blind faith.