The Freethought Party of India (FPI) has objected to the proposal of opening a Chair for poet Bhima Bhoi who was a votary of the Mahima Dharma in the Central University of Orissa, Koraput. Recently, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan while attending a programme of the Mahima Dharma Charitable Trust at Kalarahanga, Bhubaneswar, stated that a Santhkabi Bhima Bhoi Chair would be established at the CUO with the UGC’s consent. “This is nothing but wasting of the public money as the obsolete ideas of Bhima Bhoi are opposed to the Fundamental Rights of the Indian Citizens,” said FPI general secretary B Ramchandra CST Voltaire.Each individual is to have his dignity and his existence can never be belittled. “Bhima Bhoi said ‘Mo Jiban Pachhe Narke Padithau, Jagate Uddhar Heu.’ What is this ‘Uddhar’? Who will do this Uddhar when there is no God?” he said.
Concept of God and allied ideas like heaven and hell died out in 1543 following the discovery of the solar system by Nicolaus Copernicus, (1473-1543), an astronomer of Poland. So, the matter has been settled 480 years back, he said.