There’s no shortage of godmen in India, and in Indian jails. Every few weeks, a new self-proclaimed Messiah appears, and gullible individuals throng to them to shove their prayers and money into their hands. Over the last decade, news of godmen like Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and Asaram Bapu, and their nefarious activities, have captured primetime television slots. And even though reports of such gurus being implicated for crimes like murder, rape, tax evasion and fraud are uncovered, India’s unhealthy obsession with these babas continues.
When I was a kid, religiosity was a way of life for my family. My mother would often drag me to evangelical retreats, where full-grown adults screamed and shouted God’s name, and where “healing” sessions involved the priest driving evil spirits out of people. As a young boy, I’d witness this in absolute terror because these seemingly normal people were suddenly speaking incomprehensibly and bouncing all over the place. For me, it was the stuff of nightmares. It’s only in retrospect that I realise I was exposed to cults guised as religion.
Videos by VICE
The various scriptures read by the people in India speak of men and women who could perform unspeakable miracles. Humans who were better than others in every way, put on a pedestal by helpless herds looking for a saviour. Finding solace and togetherness in cults is decidedly human. But in India where a sprawling network of these gurus and babas exists—often with deep political connections—it’s the fact that even the vile ones can get away that makes this breed of demigods thrive.
“We Indians are great believers in miracles and feel that somebody can get us out of our miseries,” Prabir Ghosh, general secretary of the Science and Rationalists’ Association of India, told DW. “This is the prime reason we fall for these godmen.”
With shows like the just released Aashram focused on such cults today, one would assume people would be wiser by now. Yet in a nation marred with economic troubles and a million gods to pick from, we still hear cases of people being duped or physically harmed by the organisations they put their trust in. One such Baba was Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insan, a man whose popularity was as difficult to comprehend as his name.
Though he was actively building a following through the late 90s and early 2000s, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh became a household name only in the past decade. Between 2015 and 2017, the “messenger of god” starred in a total of five films, almost all of them written, produced and directed by him. There was no escaping the TV promos with songs like “Love Charger”, which made people cringe with confusion.
Troy Ribeiro, an independent film critic, recounts his experience watching Gurmeet Singh’s second film, MSG-2 The Messenger. “Though I wasn’t uncomfortable while watching the film, it served as an eye-opener to me,” he tells VICE. “I felt that the godman was a megalomaniac desperate to make his presence felt.” Ribeiro isn’t alone in feeling this way. Almost every critic panned the film for being unnecessarily over the top with no narrative or plot whatsoever. In his original review of the film, Ribeiro called it “an obnoxiously crafted propaganda film that lacks finesse.”
However, at the height of his fame, Baba Gurmeet Singh was brought to court by two of his former female disciples, who accused him of rape. It took them 15 years to get the case rolling. Horrifyingly, Gurmeet Singh was also accused of the murder of journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati, the man who first tried to break the news of sexual assault within the Dera Sacha Sauda, the organisation then helmed by Singh in Sirsa, Haryana. In 2019, he was convicted and charged with life imprisonment, bringing an end to the Dera Sacha Sauda’s three-decades-long run.
But while there are naysayers, there are also followers of the Dera who wholeheartedly believe that Gurmeet Singh is innocent. One of those is Dr Avnish Gupta, a surgeon who lives in the north Indian state of Punjab. He was introduced to the Dera at a young age by his friends, and by his own admission, is a teetotaller and vegetarian, all thanks to the Baba. “Babaji only taught us to speak sweetly to everyone and never hurt anyone,” he says. “I never saw anything clandestine happening within the organisation.” Gupta also treated patients at the Dera and says that he was in utter disbelief when the scandal broke out.
Scandals surrounding godmen aren’t rare in our country. Apart from Dera Sacha Sauda, another organisation that has been embroiled in allegations is the Art of Living run by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. K (name withheld on request) spent nine years climbing the ladder within the intensive Art of Living, and has some shocking truths to share about her experience there.
“I got involved at the age of 23 after my father passed away,” she says. “I needed some peace of mind and so, I joined the five-day basic course. Before I knew it, almost a decade had passed.” K started off practising the breathing technique of Sudarshan Kriya taught at the Art of Living ashrams, but over time she also noticed something was amiss. “At every point through the course, we were reminded of the importance of having a Guru like Sri Sri and how subservient we should be to him. It’s very subtly done but it happens for sure. I got involved with more courses over time and even lent my talents as a musician to them. Mind you, every course is paid and voluntary. But they keep convincing you to do more courses. But it’s when I was sent to Gujarat to stop a Christian conversion that I felt something was wrong with what I was doing.”
She still carried on and signed up for a course to become a teacher at the ashram. That’s when things went sideways for her. K identifies as queer but her teachers were not having it. “They would say the most hurtful and homophobic things to me—commenting about my appearance, my haircut, asking me whether I have a girlfriend. This despite Sri Sri being vocally pro queer rights! I realised how toxic this atmosphere had gotten for me.”
Many believe that Indians flock to these godmen because they believe that mainstream politics and religion have failed them. So with no politician or priest to alleviate their miseries, they turn to gurus and shamans for succor. “In many ways the rise of gurus like [Ram Rahim] Singh tells us something about how conventional politics and religion have been failing a large number of people,” sociologist Shiv Visvanathan told BBC. “So they turn to unconventional religion to seek some dignity and quality. Such groups have arisen in many parts of the democratic, modern world.”
That is probably the reason a doctor was recently duped into buying “Aladdin’s magical lamp” for a whopping sum of a quarter of a million dollars, by a sorcerer. And, in July this year, why a godman convinced a family to beat two of their own to death in an exorcism ritual. Maybe this is the reason the list of blacklisted godmen in India continues to grow.
“As a country, we have always believed in miracles,” says sociologist Pranali Kakkar. “We often trust them more than even our own family member. While you can pray to a god, with these so-called godmen, you can have two-way communication, which gives their followers more hope.”
She said the Hindu tradition of “blindly and totally following the guru makes the work of an Indian godman far easier” too.
“Here, they can not just influence people but also powerful politicians and hold entire cities to ransom, as we saw in the case of Ram Rahim’s followers indulging in violence when he was convicted in a rape case. Ultimately, it’s all just good business in a country that allows such businesses to flourish. Not just good business but the best business.”
Follow Navin on Twitter.
