The ruling Congress Government led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah wanted to bring an anti-superstition Bill replicating Maharashtra Model since 2013 has been on the back burner. In a surprise tweet Siddaramaiah on Wednesday blamed vested interests for stalling the efforts of Government to introduce the Bill in the Assembly.
In his tweet he said, “We have not been able to bring into effect the anti-superstition Bill, because of some vested interests.” The Opposition BJP has opposed to this Bill. So far the Bill has not been able to be tabled in the Assembly which led to Siddaramaiah blaming the vested interests in stalling his effort to bring this Bill.
Karnataka Cabinet which had discussed the proposed ‘Karnataka Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and Other Inhuman Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Bill’ during its sittings in July had referred it to a Cabinet sub-committee headed by Revenue Minister Kagodu Thimmappa. It was then said that most of the Ministers wanted the Bill to be studied in detail before coming to any decision. Besides Thimmappa, the committee consists of Health Minister Ramesh Kumar, law Minister TB Jayachandra, Environment Minister Ramanath Rai and Social Welfare Minister H Anjaneya.
Stating that the proposed bill was similar to the Act on the subject in Maharashtra, Ministerial sources had said that the word superstitious has been omitted from the proposed bill, which was earlier named as Evil, Inhuman and Superstitious Practices Prevention Bill.
An official said that the proposed bill is similar to the one in Maharashtra; the difference is that the Karnataka bill has schedules. The schedules categorise the practices that can be tolerated and those that need to be controlled. There are about 24 practices in the bill that come under the ‘to be controlled’ category. Noting that there are about 24 practices in the bill that come under the to be controlled category, they said these include sacrificing a human being for gain or appeasing deity, spreading belief in human sacrifice, persuading others to perform human sacrifice, practicing black magic and extracting money in the name of miracles among others.
However, the Bill does not put a restriction on normal religious and traditional practices, they said consultations on Vastu, underground water source and astrologers has not been touched upon. Practices like made snana, a ritual where people roll on plantain leaves left by Brahmin priests after partaking lunch in some temples, were also part of the Bill.
The Government was under pressure from civil society groups to bring in an anti-superstition bill after the murder of rationalist MM Kalburgi.