Significance of Arya Samaj in Eradicating Superstitions and thus Safeguarding the Nation

Arya Samaj, a religious system was formed by Sanyasi Dayanand Saraswati in April, 1875 at Bombay. It was developed with a purpose of bringing about social reforms in the society and to inculcate the strong value and ethics system in youngsters. Academician and researcher D. Vablei mention that Dayanand Saraswati, a strong leader in Indian history, wanted to promote Vedas and Vedic way of life. Similarly, Dr. K.P. Jaiswal validated the concept and evolution of Arya Samaj. He laid stress on the foundation of the Arya Samaj.According to him “Arya Samaj brought the reformation in society by making vital changes in the societal concepts. This overhauling led to changes in the mindset of the people of India as well as followers of different religious and educational organization. This National movement was endorsed by the vast number of nationalists. In the contemporary era, Arya Samaj has maintained the stance of strong Vedic culture in followers. In today's parlance, the well-educated people are also influenced by planetary positions and follow methods to overcome the ill effects of planets. Many a times, rituals are observed as a part of the tradition or out of fear; without trying to understand the need, cause or effect. Arya Samaj strongly objects to blindly following rituals without understanding or without any logic and scientific reasoning. This research paper has been developed with a purpose of discussing the wider perspective of Arya Samaj in fighting the superstitions spread in society, in the form of societal norms.This paper aims to examine the following objectives: - • The role of Arya Samaj in removing superstitions; • The significance of the efforts made by Arya Samaj in safeguarding the nation; and • Whether superstitions can be removed from the society through logical and scientific outlook.This is primarily a qualitative research paper based on secondary data and personal interviews with people associated with Arya Samaj, both as a believer as well as critique.