Sanal Edamaruku
Sanal Edamaruku is an Indian author and rationalist. He is the founder-president and editor of Rationalist International, the president of the Indian Rationalist Association and the author of twenty-five books and other articles. In 2012, he was charged by the Catholic Archdiocese of Mumbai with blasphemy for his role in examining a claimed "miracle" at a local Catholic Church in Mumbai. He moved to Finland to evade his arrest.
Early life
Edamaruku was born in 1955 in Thodupuzha, Kerala, India to Joseph Edamaruku, an Indian scholar and author, and Soley Edamaruku. Born in a Christian-Hindu mixed marriage, he was brought up without any kind of specific religious influence. At his parent's insistence, he was the first student in India whose official school records listed "no religion".
He became a rationalist-atheist activist at the age of fifteen, after seeing a neighbourhood athlete's death after her family refused medical treatment because they believed in faith healing. In 1977, he obtained a master's degree in Political Science from the University of Kerala. In 1980, he received his MPhil degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi at the School of International Studies. While writing his thesis towards his doctorate, he began working for the Afro-Asian Rural Reconstruction Organization. He gave up his job in 1982 to focus more on the Indian Rationalist Association and publishing his own works. He also has a diploma in journalism.
