‘We only exposed a few things’: Rationalist Dissentiments and the Ambivalent State

Abstract

This paper draws on research on atheist, rationalist and secularist activism in India over the length of almost two decades. It discusses the impact of the assassination of the rationalist icon and leader of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti (Maharashtra Committee for the Eradication of Superstition), Dr. Narendra Dabholkar, in 2013. This murder did not only have repercussions on the rationalists’ “dissentiments”, it also indexes overarching continuities and new developments concerning the political performances of hurt religious sentiments combined with threats of violence in the country. On this basis the paper argues that the Indian discourse on secularism and communalism needs to be expanded from questions of ethno-religious identity and conflict to how nonreligious individuals and other deviant positions represent and belong to contemporary India.