Basava Premanand was India’s leading skeptic and humanist; he published The Indian Skeptic and was a teacher, debunker,and performer.People compare him to James Randi, but it might actually be more appropriate to compare Randi to him.
I met him once, when Lewis Jones did an interview with him for The Skeptic. Seeing him was the same kind of mind-blowing experience that seeing Randi for the first time was. He *looked* like a guru; he performed the miracles that India’s gurus use to attract followers; and then he explained exactly what he’d done like Agatha Christie. Simply brilliant.
The thing that has always stuck in my mind from the interview was that he said that debunking miracles was very important in India because miracles are how religions/religious leaders sell themselves (with the implication that once they have sold themselves all kinds of exploitation become possible). This seems to me an important point to keep in mind when someone asks, “What harm can it do if people believe…?”
The Times did a pretty intelligent writeup of his work in 2003: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article1152564.ece
And the BBC here, in 2004: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_world/3813469.stm
Premanand took a lot of risk in trenchantly opposing gurus he believed to be fraudulent. I hope among his many admierers are some who can carry on his work.
Wendy Grossman www.pelicancrossing.net
