Customs and traditions suppress reason leading to obscurantism. Do you agree? (UPSC IAS Mains 2020 General Studies Paper – 1)
- Obscurantism is described as the practice of deliberately presenting information in an imprecise and complicated manner so that a smaller number of people understand and investigate further on the subject matter. In other words, it is the way to limit transfer of knowledge beyond certain limits. Obscurantism has remained a common feature in almost all religious beliefs.
- Custom and tradition refers to a common way of doing activities and which are being practiced for a long time. These activities vary from marriage, divorce, way of worship to other rituals and ceremonies. It has been noticed that some of the old customs and traditions are neither logical nor even reasonable in modern context and therefore are also not acceptable in the morals of contemporary society.
- The modern reformers demand to do away with such customs and traditions and put an end to long perpetuating orthodox dogmas. But to avoid any changes in old customs and traditions and to maintain their authority the so-called religious pundits try to practice obscurantism so that information about customs and traditions of a religion is less delineated and hence less reform in the religion is demanded by the society.
- For example, the evil traditions of nikah halala and triple talaq propagated for so long in India despite the tradition being illogical and unreasonable, just because of obscurantism by the Muslim Personal Law Board. Similarly, customs like Sati and child marriage were perpetuated for long because of obscurantism. The tradition of animal sacrifice in ceremonies is still practiced in many religions. The custom of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is still practised by few communities. Similarly, the customs like polygamy and polyandry are still a common practice in many cultures because of obscurantism.
- Nevertheless, customs and traditions form an important part of human civilization and help people to align themselves in closely knit bonds. Further, these customs and traditions are not cast in stone. By their very nature, they are supposed to evolve constantly and meet the changing requirements of time and social contexts. Humans have intrinsic rights to decide which customs and traditions to preserve or revise or even discard.
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