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Opinion: A Tale of Two Eclipses in Odisha

Opinion: A Tale of Two Eclipses in Odisha

A composite photograph of a lunar eclipse in January 2019. Photo: Ramiro Martinez/Unsplash


  • During the lunar eclipse on November 8, a group of persons booked a venue in Bhubaneswar, allegedly to organise the public consumption of cooked food.
  • A group of persons whose religious sentiments were reportedly hurt indulged in vandalism, pelted stones, threw cow dung, etc. and clashed with the organisers.
  • The important question is not whether the rationalists had erred by holding such public events and provoking religious groups. Their actions were admittedly unwise.
  • The question is: if religious sentiments are hurt, can the normal laws of the land can be set aside and the aggrieved party given a right to indulge in violence?

It is a fairly simple lesson in science education as to how eclipses occur. While Earth is rotating about its axis while revolving around the Sun and the Moon is revolving around Earth, situations arise when Earth comes in between the Sun and the Moon. When that happens, the shadow of Earth falls on the Moon and that is called a lunar eclipse. Similarly, when the Moon comes in between the Sun and Earth, a solar eclipse takes place as the Sun is blocked.

A childhood joke used to be asking what happens when the Sun comes between Earth and the Moon. The answer is that that is impossible, as the Sun is about 8 light-minutes away from Earth whereas the moon is much closer, just over a light-second away from Earth.

Good work has been done over the last several years by a small group of science enthusiasts in organising awareness programmes for the youth, as one of the outcomes of the total literacy campaign of the 1980s.

The Odisha state government has set up a planetarium at Bhubaneswar in the name of Pathani Samanta Chandrasekhar, who made remarkable astronomical observations with simple tools in the 19th century, and documented his findings and formulae in a book entitled Siddhanta Darpana. The planetarium has regular events for safely viewing solar and lunar eclipses. A good number of school students have been participating in such events. But gone are the times of innocent science education.

Similar events were held for the partial solar eclipse of October 25, 2022. The state government declared the day to be a holiday just a few days prior, as it was not a normal holiday in the annual list of holidays. It was apparently an innocuous gesture, as there had been three successive days of leave and the government reasoned that employees will be happy to have a fourth successive day off as well.

But a group of enthusiastic ‘rationalists’ organised to publicly consume chicken biryani on that occasion, in order to dispel and debunk the popular notion that no cooked food should be eaten during the eclipse due to superstitions. This resulted in threats of legal action under Sections 295A and 298 of IPC for hurting the religious sentiments of people.

While the police was looking into the matter, the Moon continued to revolve around Earth and a lunar eclipse occurred on November 8. A group of persons booked the venue of the Lohia Academy at Bhubaneswar, ostensibly for a seminar. It was later alleged that they were organising the public consumption of cooked food. A group of persons whose religious sentiments were reportedly hurt indulged in vandalism, pelted stones, threw cow dung, etc. and clashed with the organisers. A criminal case was registered and eight persons arrested.

The important question is not whether the rationalists had erred by holding such public events and provoking religious groups. The question is whether such action – even if admittedly unwise – should result in such outcry and reaction. The affected party could have easily organised a peaceful protest and argued their point of view.

One is astounded by the reasoning that if religious sentiments are hurt, the normal laws of the land can be set aside and the aggrieved party has a right to indulge in violence, with no regard to the fact that people are assembled peacefully, without arms, to discuss an issue.

The shrinking space for rational discourse in a state that produced mathematicians and astronomers of the calibre of Pathani Chandrasekhar two centuries ago is truly a matter of concern. It is also illustrative that constructive work done patiently for over three decades could so easily be derailed by obscurantist elements.

Venugopala Sarma, IAS (retd.), worked in different assignments at the Centre, in Nagaland and in Odisha.

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