The Assassination of an Anti-Superstition Activist

Words by Azania Imtiaz Khatri-Patel

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In the 1920s, travel posters, made for steamship lines and airlines, became extremely popular. The style changed notably in the 1920s, to focus attention on the product being advertised. The images became simpler, precise, more linear, more dynamic, and were often placed against a single color background. They conveyed a sense of power and safety – basically, what travellers were supposed to feel boarding liners and trains and visiting new destinations. (Available now as print)

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The Assassination of an Anti-Superstition Activist  

Narendra Dabholkar

In 2013, Narendra Dabholkar, India's leading anti-superstition activist who had campaigned to enact anti-black magic laws and take down false Godmen, was shot dead by assailants on a motorbike. His killers have still not been found guilty. 

“If I have to take police protection in my own country from my own people, then there is something wrong with me. I'm fighting within the framework of the Indian constitution and it is not against anyone but for everyone," said Narendra Dabholkar when asked why he had been refusing police protection in the face of furious and frequent death threats. 

An ordinary Maharashtrian man, with a frail frame, balding head, and twinkling bespectacled eyes, physician Narendra Dabholkar was an unexpected public hero in 1980s India. Despite not having a formidable build or Bollywood glamour to back him up, Dr. Dabholkar had won hearts across the desi heartland with his resilient campaign against a silent yet deadly killer within the nation- superstition. 

Indians are a believing people, in a democracy where religion shapes most public discourse around law, temples, and mosques dot streets across cities and villages, it isn’t unexpected for this belief to sometimes take a nefarious turn. Sacrificial killings, witch-hunts, and deaths at the hands of dubious babas and tantriks have been rampant in the sub-continent.

India is filled with gurus, babas, astrologers, godmen and other mystical entrepreneurs. In the photo,  a man administers live sardines smeared with secret herbs, believed to be a cure for asthma, to a patient in Hyderabad, India. Every June, hundreds of thousands of asthma sufferers gather in Hyderabad to swallow live sardines smeared with secret herbs, convinced the ritual will cure them.

These consequences of occultism have been the subject of many recent media investigations and explorations. To reference a popular piece of media, the 2021 Netflix documentary House of Secrets took a close look at the brutal consequences of these beliefs, following the ritualistic suicide of 11 members of a Delhi family.