Society Shrouded In Superstition

India, a country of thousand beliefs and faiths, has always had a huge inclination towards the shady territories of superstitions. This obsession can be testified by the fact that we are now using technology to further our superstitious beliefs. A great example of that is the usual WhatsApp forwards that one receives every couple of hours.

Now saying that all of these superstitions are fictitious and do not hold any logical explanation would not be right. But, there are a few that arouse some genuine logical concerns, for example, in our country if we are walking on the road and suddenly a black cat crosses our path, we avoid continuing on the same path.

There have been numerous cases where such baseless superstitions have had dire consequences. One such incident took place in the year 2014 when a group of men in Gujarat, killed three women over the suspicion that they were involved in the murder of two young men.

The villagers believed that these women were involved in black magic and termed them as ‘Dayan’. They believed that these women were feasting on the souls of those young men. This incident is a fine example of what misconstrued superstitions can lead up to. This is not a singular event, there have been many incidents where false beliefs have led to similar outcomes all across the country.

The 2017 case that happened in Karapa village, where three women named Rasamsetty Satyaveni (48), her sister Sathi Dhanalakshmi (45), and Dhanalakshmi’s daughter Vyshnavi Devi (18), had committed suicide in a room is another much recent example. According to the police report, the entire family celebrated Dhanalakshmi’s son’s birthday on Sunday. They went to the temple and after returning, they had a sudden uncanny feeling that God was calling them and then in order to fulfil this ‘divine calling’, they took their lives.

Another disturbing case was of a young engineer named Anand, who had committed suicide at his apartment.

According to the sources, Anand, a true Hindu by religion was upset by the inci~ dent of a crow perching on his head twice the same day. His mother advised him about visiting the temple and also lighten the lamp to eschew any fear but he found his mother’s advice to be useless as a result of which, he decided to commit suicide.

But the case that shocked the whole country was the incident that took place in the Burari area of Delhi where eleven members of the same family were found dead. The bodies were found hanging on an overhead wire but the 11th body was found lying on the ground.

The story starts in 2007 with the death of a family member, Gopal Das. His elder son Lalit was very much disturbed with his father’s death that he started to imagine his father’s soul and started doing various works according to his father’s instructions. His father’s instruction was providing him progress thus he and his family started following Lalit’s instruction blindly.

The mass suicide was the end of his father’s instruction that Lalit saw in a dream. The police also found that suicide was written step by step.

Such cases showcase how bad things can get because of baseless superstitions. Believing in God is not synonymous to believing in superstitions. One .can be religious and logical at the same time.