Rationalism Logicalism

We have helped villagers get out of the superstitions and believe in logic.Through our campaign we have promoted rationalism and scientific temper.We have managed to get people out of the age-old obsolete and harmful practice of witchcraft.We tried to inculcate among people the habit of taking medical help instead of creeping to pseudo god men.

During the discussions to chose the idea for DFC,many students cited Poverty as the reason but when stimulated further to go into the cause of poverty, they realize that despite poverty their parents readily spends their hard earned money on superstitions. We all felt the need to educate people about the role of superstitions in the misery and backwardness of the village

The Reasons behind the Idea1.Witchcraft Also known As Bhootni women suffers a lot. They are subjected to severe cruelties in the name of ridding them of ghosts. 2.Death many young children due to lack of medical care as people attributes many illness to the curse of Gods.3.Many Tantriks have found the village as a great place for their business to flourish and have established permanent abode.4.People are illiterate and ignorant.

The village is blindly besieged in the superstitions. The scenariois common in all the adjoining villages like ………………………………….People in the village are going to Tantriks to seek solution to the problems which requires urgent medical attention.The blind belief in the Tantriks and Babas have created many social problems

We imagine a campaign where some thing solid and authentic is required to divert the attention of the masses from the superstitions. Our campaign against this social evil was fraught with dangers as a group of people were benefitting from these practices. Scientific logic against false miracles has to be provided to counter the propaganda of the Tantriks.The campaign must focus on the innate ability of every human beings to ask for reasons.

We campaigned to cast aside illogical apprehensions about science

1.Students were divided into teams.2.Literature regarding fake miracles & their reality was procured and students were briefed about it.3.The entire plan of seven days was discussed and made ready for implementation.

Classification of Superstitions:1.Mild in nature causing no harm 2.Serious & cause bodily harm.

Superstitions causing harm1.Declaring a woman as witch.2.Some girls considered as cursed.3.Chaining mental patients in Ashrams.4.Cruel rituals performed on humans and animals by Tantriks.5.Promoting animal and human sacrifices to please Devi.6.Causing mistrust in society in the name of Jaadu Tona.

Sufferings of WomenMany a times innocent women are classified as witches and made to suffer great brutalities. They are not allowed inside the village and most of the times are raped and tortured by the Tantriks. These women are considered as impure and cause of misery for the village. Their sorrow can not be documented.

We started the campaign by organizing a Science Mela in the school with the help of Tarkshakti Society,Jodhpur.In the Fair ,many science facts were displayed through experiments. Many acts performed by Tantriks or Baba & believed as miracle by villagers were shown as simple science activities.

Science Mela act as an ice breaker & the Scientific facts on display opened up their minds for logic

A science based play presented by students to

show the negative impact of Superstitions on people life's

It presented a clash between two views prevailing in the same family.One represented rituals while other stands for logic & rationalism. The second one ultimately triumphs over the first.

18th Sept 2012Students & volunteers took out a huge rally from Rajgarh to ………….village where the there is ashram of a Baba.High pitch slogans & corner meeting inspired the people to join our campaign.The Rally culminates with a public meeting addressed by………………local & influential leader.The rally was an announcement from our side that superstitions will have to end, if village wants to progress.The Nukkad Natak performed helped us to strike a chord with the ability of human beings to seek reasons.

20th SeptemberSlogan writing at different places in the village was to make people aware of the problem.Door to door meetings were held with the villagers to make them understand harms of superstitions and provide them logic of our campaign.22nd SeptemberWe tried to present the real face of Tantriks to the people by making perform the miracles of Tantriks as simple science experiment. This act boosted the confidence of the common man and gave him courage to think against age old beliefs and practices.24th SeptemberWith the help of doctors from the CHC,people came to know that there is cure for illness and Goddess has nothing to do with it. Many people agreed to take their children to hospital in the city.

The journey of Change

25th September10Our approach to deal with the people as individuals paid off. The students were very happy on 25th Sep as today Mr. ………… visited the village.He shows to the people how through the use of some chemicals miracles like things can be done like walking barefooted on fire, causing fire from water, blood coming from stone etc.The students and the community enjoyed his tricks very much.He talks about the harmful effects of believing in things having no logic.

Tantrik Bhoma Ram becomes the biggest challenge as he intensified his activities by calling our activities as anti religious and warn villagers of an impending

destruction. He also tried to influence our campaign by recruiting a few greedy people to misguide the community & defame us.

Many factors contributed to the change brought by us. We targeted 50 families and were able to convince about 23.The rally, Skit and individuals meetings played a role but the use of technology and demonstrations decoding the pranks of the Tantriks helped us a lot.Our biggest achievement is to dispel fear from the people mind about questioning the act of Tantriks.The Science Camp was very helpful as real experiment were successful in building a rapport with the people.The support extended by Tarkshakti Society was immense as they got people realize the intentions of Tantriks in keeping the village glued to illogical & harmful practices.Above all our desire for change and belief in human ability to reason, question and seek logic helped us to make people drift away from age old obsolete notions.

School leader: Mr Rameshwar Sharma Mentor Teacher: Narendra, Sawai Singh, Rajendra, Inder Singh, Ramdan Students: Class 5th Students:-Tejpal Solanki ,Leela Devi, Shailendra Singh, Jasu Kanwar, Devi Kanwar, Raveendra Singh, Prem Kanwar, Hanuvant Singh, Jethu Singh, Samudra Singh Inda, Bhagwan Singh Inda, Jethi Kanwar, Anu Kanwar, Mangu Kanwar, Kanvaraj Singh Inda, Usha, Swaroop Singh, Karan Singh, Dalpat Singh, Pinku Kanwar, Santosh Kanwar, Jeev Raj Singh, Kuldeep Sharma, Moomal Kanwar, Bhawani Singh, Mahendra Dan, Jaswant Singh, Parvat Singh, Chandan Singh, Rekha Kanwar, Sumera Ram, Khaman Singh, Manohar Singh, Viram Singh, Rawal Kanwar