In Hathras in Uttar Pradesh in a stampede nearly 121 people died. Most of these were women, mostly Dalit and poor. It was at the Satsang (Holy Discourse), organized for Bhole Baba, or Narayan Sakar Hari. He was earlier in the police force. It is alleged that he had charges of rape against him. Later he took voluntary retirement 28 years ago and turned to preaching.
There is an incident when he claimed that he can bring back the life back of a girl who had died of cancer. The girl could not be revived and her stinking body made the neighbours complain to the police. Yet he managed to become a successful baba (godman) with increasing number of followers, wealth and ashrams.
In the current episode while many subordinates have been named and are to be charged, Bhole Baba is not in the list of those who are guilty. The reason for the stampede was the propagation that the earth where the baba treads is a cure for most of the diseases.
As he was leaving the satsang, people rushed to collect the earth where he had put his feet, and a stampede took place, and people died in the process. The popularity of the baba can be gauged from the fact that there was permission for 80,000 people but 2.5 Lakh people turned up.
As such the baba phenomenon is neither unique nor exclusive to India, though their following has gone up in recent times. While some babas come to be known for specific reasons, there is a big breed of them scattered all over the country. The notorious ones like Asaram Bapu and Gurmeet Ram Rahim Insan are cooling their heels in jails for charges like rape and murder.
The other successful babas include Baba Ramdev who has been reprimanded by the Supreme Court for his confident undermining of modern medicine; Sri Sri Ravishanker who was involved in damaging ecology of river Yamuna; Jaggi Vasudev whose Ashrams are under scanner for various criminal charges. What is common among these babas is their astounding self-confidence, wealth and promotion of blind faith.
In India while strict correlations are difficult it can be safely said that their prowess and impact has risen during the last few decades. It will not be easy to correlate their increasing prowess with the rise of politics in the name of religion. It is true that in other countries also such Charismatic church in US and holy preachers in some Muslim countries do exist, but the impact of such people is phenomenal in India.
These preachers do wear the garb of religion. They do not belong to the formal clergy, which is part of institutional religion. Most of them are self made and their intelligence in mind reading and taking advantage of the weaknesses of followers is huge.
The other side of this is why do people throng to them? Babas' salesmanship is very intelligent but the followers have their own weaknesses which land them up in the lap of these frauds. Mostly people with severe problems, not easily solvable, look for soothing words, somebody who gives them confidence which tells them that their problems will be solved by the earth where the baba treads, or by subjugating themselves to the baba, or by following some advice which the baba gives etc.
The followers throng to these babas mainly due to their own insecurity in the society. There are many other aspects of success of babas, their nexus with the political class being one such. Just as an example, Gurumeet Ram Rahim has been mostly on parole, especially when elections are due. One recalls Manoharlal Khattar took his whole Cabinet to Gurmeet to take his blessings.
The insecurity aspect of the followers is the key to understanding their psychology. More the insecurity, more the submission to a baba, and common sense or rational thinking is given a total go bye by the followers.
Center for Political Studies, Michigan’s Ronald F Inglehart in Giving up on God tells us:
“From about 2007 to 2019, the overwhelming majority of the countries we studied, 43 out of 49, became less religious. The decline in belief was not confined to high-income countries and appeared across most of the world. Growing numbers of people no longer find religion a necessary source of support and meaning in their lives. Even the United States -- long cited as proof that an economically advanced society can be strongly religious -- has now joined other wealthy countries in moving away from religion.”
The challenge of combating this is not easy. Contrary to the values of the Constitution, Article 51 A (h) under the Fundamental Duties states, “[It shall be the duty of every citizen of India] to develop scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform”. Babas flagrantly violate this clause, and those protecting or promoting them do the same.
In India at the social level there are active groups which oppose the babas scattered all around by practically exposing them, especially their tricks of taking out ash from hand or walking on fire. Maharashtra has seen Andhshraddha Nirmulan Samiti (Committee for Eradication of Blind Faith) associated with Dr Narendra Dabholkar. He was brutally murdered by activists of conservative groups probably like Sanatan Sanstha.
Similarly, the murders of Govind Pansare, Gauri Lankesh and Prof Kalburgi were also done by similar forces. After the murder of Dr Dabholkar, the Maharashtra Assembly passed a law against blind faith and magic remedies.
We need to have similar laws all over the country and promote scientific temper. At the core, can we march towards social and economic security for one and all? The present system where the poor are becoming poorer and rich are becoming richer needs to be substituted by Mahatma Gandhi’s vision where social policies are planned keeping the last person in mind.
That alone can bring in a sense of security in society.
---
*Political commentator
Comments