Recently, 121 people died in a stampede in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras. Most of these were women, mostly Dalit and poor. It was at the Satsang (Holy Discourse), organised for Bhole Baba, short for Narayan Sakar Hari. He was earlier in the police force. It is alleged that he had charges of sexual assault 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. With this background too, he clicked later; as a successful Baba (God man) with increasing number of followers, wealth and Ashrams.
While many of his subordinates have been named in the current episode 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 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.
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 ‘Baba’ phenomenon is neither unique nor exclusive to India. Though of course their following has gone up in recent times. While some Babas come to be known for specific reasons, there a big breed of them scattered all over the country. The notorious one’s such as Asaram Bapu and Gurmeet Ram Rahim Insan are cooling their heels in jails for charges like rape and murder.
The other successful Babas such as Baba Ramdev have been reprimanded by the Supreme Court for his confident undermining of Modern medicine, Sri Sri Ravishankar was involved in damaging ecology of river Yamuna, Jaggi Vasudev’s Ashrams have various criminal charges as well. What is common among these Baba’s 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 too, such Charismatics (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 identifying and taking advantage of the weaknesses of followers is phenomenal.
The other side of this is why do people throng to them? The salesmanship of Baba 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 Baba treads, or by subjugating themselves to the Baba, or by following some advice which 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 when many BJP ministers visited Gurmeet to take his blessings.
The insecurity aspect of followers is the key to understanding their psychology. More the insecurity, more the submission to Baba, and common sense or rational thinking is given a total go bye by the followers. Insecurity aspect can be properly understood when we see the global scenario.
In the countries where economic and social insecurity is less, religions are seeing a decline in their active followership. Key finding from Global Research by PEW shows that, “The United States is far from alone in this way. Western Europeans are generally less religious than Americans, having started along a similar path a few decades earlier. And the same secularising trends are found in other economically advanced countries, as indicated by recent census data from Australia and New Zealand.
Center for Political Studies Michigan’s Inglehart in “Giving up on God,” (pages 110-111) 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 fraud self-styled godmen is not easy. Contrary to the Values of Constitution, Article 51 A (h) under the Fundamental Duties, “[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?
At social level in India there are active groups who 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 alleged conservative groups such as Sanatan Sanstha. Similarly the murders of Com Govind Pansare, Gauri Lankesh and Prof. Kalburgi were also done by similar forces. After the murder of Dr. Dabholkar, 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 the social policies are planned keeping the last person in the line; in mind That alone can bring in a sense of security in society.
Ram Puniyani is president of the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism.
