1. Basava Premanand was an Indian skeptic and rationalist from Kerala, India.
17 Facts About Basava Premanand
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Basava Premanand organised many tours around rural India for the promotion of scientific thinking, exposing alleged miracles and scams carried out by various charlatans and godmen while spreading awareness of dangerous superstitions.
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Basava Premanand was strongly influenced by Helena Blavatsky in his early years and in 1976 met the Sri Lankan skeptic Abraham Kovoor during his Miracle Exposure lecture tour in India.
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Since then, Basava Premanand became a critic of Theosophy, and succeeded Kovoor after he died in 1978.
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Around 1975 Basava Premanand started publicly denouncing the Indian godman Sathya Sai Baba, and devoted his life to exposing godmen and paranormal phenomena.
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Basava Premanand was arrested in 1986 by the police for marching, with 500 volunteers, towards Puttaparthi, the town where the guru's main ashram is located; in the same year he sued Sathya Sai Baba for materializing gold objects in violation of the Gold Control Act.
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Basava Premanand claimed that he survived four murder attempts and bore injuries from beatings for his activism, and was known as one of Sathya Sai Baba's most vocal critics.
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Basava Premanand used his skills as an amateur magician to try to give a natural explanation for some of the alleged miracles of gurus and godmen.
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Guru Busters, the documentary by the British filmmaker Robert Eagle, features Basava Premanand displaying and teaching his own interpretation and explanation for many supposedly supernatural stunts, such as levitation, flesh-piercing and live burials.
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Basava Premanand took an active part in the Vigyan Yatra organised by Maharashtra Lok Vidnyan in 1982 to popularise science and scientific thinking, as well as in the Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha held in 1987 espousing the same cause.
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Basava Premanand is credited with the formation of the Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti in 1989.
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On 7 February 1997, Basava Premanand founded the Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations, which tours Indian villages to spread his natural explanations of gurus and fakirs whom he considered frauds or self-deceived.
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Basava Premanand was the convener of Indian CSICOP, a Tamil Nadu-based skeptic group which is an affiliate of CSICOP.
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Basava Premanand was the owner-publisher-editor of the monthly magazine The Indian Skeptic, which "publishes articles on the scientific investigation of apparently paranormal occurrences with a special emphasis on cases from India".
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Basava Premanand was diagnosed with cancer in 2006 and underwent major surgery.
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Basava Premanand died on 4 October 2009 at Podanur, Tamil Nadu and, according to his wishes, his body was donated to a local medical college.
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Basava Premanand was succeeded by Narendra Nayak and his property, assets and the copyright of his 26 books were given to The Federation for Indian Rationalists Association.