This week the headlines have been dominated by the events in Sirsa, Haryana following the conviction of Gurmeet Singh (Baba Ram Rahim). It already feels like the verdict on Triple Talaq & Right to Privacy by Supreme Court was eons ago. More on the best court judgements of past few weeks later on.
Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan is the current head of a religious organization called as the Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS). I shall refer to Dera Sacha Sauda as DSS in the blog below. DSS was setup in 1948 in Sirsa, Haryana by Mastana who was from Baluchistan (Pakistan). After his death in 1960, Shah Satnam Singh took over who later promoted Gurmeet Singh(Baba Ram Rahim) as his successor. In 1990, Gurmeet Singh at young age of 23 became the spiritual head of Dera Sacha Sauda. After he took over the DSS quickly grew from a modest 25 acre complex in Sirsa, Haryana to a now mammoth 700 acre complex. DSS claims that all this increase was due to donations by supporters & no one was forced to give up land. But there have been rumors of people being coerced to give up land. DSS went from few lakh supporters back then to today reportedly 6 to 7 crore followers or “premis” (as they like to refer to themselves). Their supporters are not only from India but also from far away countries like UK, USA & Canada.
However along with the organization’s explosive growth came the troubles. In 2002 a sadhvi who staying in the complex, sent an anonymous letter to then Prime Minister (A.B. Vajpayee),Home Minister, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Haryana Chief Minister, Sirsa Superintendent of Police, the National Human Rights Commission, newspapers and women's and social organizations. It was alleged in the letter that several girls had been subject to sexual assault/rape by Gurmeet Singh. After this matter came to light one of the journalists who steadfastly was investigating & reporting on the activities at the Dera was Ram Chandra Chatrapati, the 53-year-old editor of Poora Sach (Complete Truth), an evening daily from Sirsa, Haryana. He continued his reporting even in the face of death threats. On October 24th 2002 two men (allegedly by two supporters of DSS) approached him a on bike & shot him at point blank range. He battled for 28 days before succumbing to his injuries. He even gave a statement before his death about who was responsible for the attempt on his life but such was the political clout of Gurmeet that the police did not register an FIR against either DSS or Gurmeet. With the sexual assault case against Gurmeet between 2002 & 2007 CBI got nowhere with case. There was huge backchannel; political pressure to close the cases against him. CBI interviewed hundreds of women who were allegedly assaulted but only two would give sworn testimony to CBI. Both women were pressured & threatened by DSS supporters to recant their statements. As per the lead CBI lead officer on the case, one day few DSS supporters surrounded & harassed one of these women & they had go rescue her from that spot.
Due to all the obstacles & interference brought to bear by Gurmeet & DSS the case proceeded at a snail pace over 15 years while Gurmeet Singh’s (affectionately called “Pitaji” by his followers) popularity & reach grew exponentially. Unlike his two predecessors who were more of the ascetic “renounce the world / stay away from worldly pleasures” type, Gurmeet was the exact opposite: flashy, desiring fame/ publicity & the materialistic type. He launched couple of movies called MSG: Messenger of God where he was not only the hero but also the script writer, director, lyricist, producer, etc.: a true one man show. He even ventured into the music business where he recorded music with Universal Music. Yes ladies & gentleman this is true & not a typo: The Company (Universal Music) whose artists include Taylor Swift, Kanye West & Adele released not 1 but 6 music albums by Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. His last music album “Love Charger” was a super hit which sold 3 million copies in 3 days. All these antics earned him the moniker of “Rockstar Baba”. He also followed in the footsteps of Baba Ramdev, by moving into FMCG market. His brand was going to launch over 150 products (Honey, Bottled Water, Pickle, Noodles, Rice, etc.) in the market. On the education front he opened 10 schools, 1 engineering college & 1 management institute which is pretty impressive for the fact that is he himself is 10 standard pass. According to research by some news organizations all his enterprise were earning his Dera huge sums of money every year.
Fast forward to present where his supporters ran amok & rioted once he was pronounced guilty by the special CBI court. The images post-verdict were surreal to watch where the supporters were chasing the police instead of it being the other way round. Media was also not spared & bore the brunt of the supporter’s wrath as did common folk of Panchkula. The blame for this mess squarely lies at the feet of the local government in Haryana. In India where the policemen to population ratio are very low to begin with it is not possible to have police at all locations simultaneously to prevent untoward incidents. But this was a situation where not the only the location but also the time was known to all. Gurmeet came to the location with a 200 car convoy which meant that he had a ton of supporters already present over there ready to create trouble if he was convicted by the court. Haryana’s BJP government has made all kinds of excuses & gave bizarre statements like government made adequate arrangements but the crowd size was too huge to control, Sec 144 (which bars more than 4 people congregating in a single place at a time) was not issued due to clerical error, enough police were there or the riots would have so much worse, etc. Many people have said that the riots were engineered together by DSS in conjunction with the Haryana government under Manohar Lal Khattar which is currently close to Baba Ram Rahim & the DSS. However I would apply Occam’s razor principle [Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. the simpler one is usually the correct one]. This was more a case of negligence (maybe even criminal as lives were lost) by Manohar Lal Khattar government rather than him conniving with DSS to engineer riots. Chief Minister of Haryana Khattar who hasn’t had the best record with riots (2015 another Baba: Baba Rampal followers rioted when police tried to arrest him in a murder case & last year riots occurred when the Jats were protesting to get reservations) wouldn’t be looking to have more trouble at his doorstep. My friend who lives in Gurgaon said succinctly of the situation “We are averaging one riot per year in Haryana”, No Chief Minister however great his track record can survive in today’s hyper frenzy media world with a major riot occurring every year. What has let Khattar down is his inexperience in running affairs of the state. BJP never ruled Haryana before the inexperience of its leaders showed in the handling of the crisis. Compare this to Punjab where Congress led Capt. Amarinder Singh has been in power before & knows how to prepare for such situations. The Additional Director General of Police in Punjab said that they asked Haryana multiple times to inform them in advance of the date of the verdict. Punjab police had prior contact with Army before the verdict to seek their help if needed & called up 18,000 police personal on day of verdict. They called up Army within minutes of verdict & imposed curfew to keep situation under control as it was hard to make out among common men who is DSS supporter & who is not. This resulted in no deaths in Punjab in spite of several Dera facilities & supporters living in Punjab. Khattar’s reputation is fully tarnished at this point & the longer he stays he could very well stumble into another crisis dragging the party image down with him. Modi who was elected on the promise of good governance can’t like this distraction next door to New Delhi. The consensus cutting across various segments of society is that Khattar has to go after this debacle which has cast Haryana govt. again in poor light (which was just getting past the stalking case with BJP head’s son just a month ago). However they just can’t simply cave into opposition pressure & remove Khattar right now. This would set a bad precedent of opposition asking for resignation of a CM every time a riot would happen. In my opinion BJP would probably follow the Anandiben template from Gujarat where she was replaced not immediately after the Patidar agitation but later on when things cooled down a bit . Similarly BJP will let things settle down a bit & then push Khattar out at a later stage at a time of its own choosing. Most agree that the BJP government in Haryana will outlive Khattar as CM. The wheels for replacing Khattar would have started turning in 11 Asoka Road in New Delhi with Amit Shah not only looking for an exit strategy for Khattar but also a suitable successor.
Another interesting fact to glean from the opposition reaction to the riots that it’s fury has solely been directed at the BJP government in Haryana. Not a word has been uttered by any opposition towards the shameful behavior of the DSS supporters who went on rampage that day destroying everything in sight. BJP government in Haryana shall bear the burden & shame of what transpired on August 25th. However Congress & INLD parties which are in opposition today at one time in the past cozied up to Baba Ram Rahim. For the case for which he was convicted between 2002 & 2007 when INLD & Congress were in power as I mentioned earlier all efforts were made to scuttle the case. Congress was the one who gave him Z+ plus security cover (for a man under the cloud of rape & murder charges). Gurmeet Singh once was apolitical & didn’t outright ask his supporters to vote for a party but implicitly let it be known to his supporters to vote for Congress. In Punjab in both 2002 when Congress won & in 2007 when Congress lost Congress sought & received the blessing of DSS to have his supporters vote for them. Ram Rahim's son Jasmeet is married to the daughter of senior Congress leader Harminder Singh Jassi, who is a former Punjab MLA. Later on the DSS formed a Political Action Committee to form guidance on whom to support overtly for each election cycle. Mind you this is a so called NGO (Non-governmental organization) whose work was charity has a PAC to influence elections. Post 2007, DSS switch sides to BJP-Akali in 2012 Punjab elections & to BJP in 2014 National & Local elections. During the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign Narendra Modi came to Sirsa & addressed a rally where he mentioned that he had sought the blessing of their spiritual head. Later Modi congratulated Gurmeet when he participated in Modi’s pet project Swacch Bharat. Baba Ram Rahim has thus aligned with all sides of the political spectrum in Haryana & Punjab to keep himself out of trouble until now.
India in general & especially Haryana & Punjab have a high number of these so called Babas/sects. Shekhar Gupta in his recent article has wonderfully articulated the many sects/babas operating in this region. The strangest case of all these babas was of someone who was referred to “Freezer Baba”. Ashutosh (who hailed from Bihar far away from Haryana/Punjab where he operated) died in early 2014. His followers believe that one day in future he will come back from the dead. Hence they put his body in a freezer waiting for him to resurrect back to life & refused to cremate him. There is a case ongoing in court to force the cult to cremate him. Many of these babas/godmen are working genuinely to help the needy & poor with philanthropy & charity work. However many like Ram Rahim are in it looking for more: be political fixers, land grabbing, amassing wealth & most importantly allow them to escape the wrath of the law in all types of cases against them. This unholy nexus of politicians & some of these so called babas/holy godmen is a symbiotic relationship where both benefit from each other. In elections in small states like Punjab & Haryana sometimes the votes of these diehard supporters could make the difference between winning & losing. No one wants to be on the wrong side of these godmen & hence politicians visit them & pander to them making sure that they get their vote in the next election.
Since the violence, many have wondered what causes these fanatical followers to not see their leader as a criminal who exploited women & killed off opponents as a demon but rather a loving father figure (they affectionately called “Pitaji”). It is believed that 70% of DSS supporters are from lower castes of society. These are the people who are ostracized by higher castes & daily face discrimination in all walks of life. They also feel neglected by their own government who they don’t believe does enough for their well-being. This toxic mix of government apathy + discrimination + illiteracy creates a fertile recruiting ground for such babas to recruit followers to their cults. The followers in many cases see these babas as “messiahs” who give them refuge from the problems of outside world be it something as simple as shelter/food/jobs or something higher like a purpose in life/self-belief to carry on against all odds .Many of these sects are involved in some kind of social service which mostly benefits this underprivileged class. For these people a whole new support ecosystem is created by these babas. Thus these followers in many cases have total devotion towards their babas who they think that can do no wrong. Babas in turn use this army of steadfast supporters to establish a parallel quasi governmental state. They start to operate outside the law many times with illegal activities as they think that due to their charity work & political clout no one can touch them. Time for another weird Gurmeet story which will highlight the extreme loyalty of his supporters who are ready to do just about anything for him: One of the most bizarre cases against him was that he ordered few hundred of his male supporters to castrate themselves so that they will feel closer to God. As with many other cases against him CBI is still investigating this case. It is rightly said that “Truth is indeed stranger than fiction”. His die hard supporters see the cases against him as outside interference by government & a conspiracy against Baba Ram Rahim. This coupled with their blind & unflinching loyalty to their baba is what would make them burn down an entire city & bring 2 whole states to their knees.
What BJP did recently with him was probably no conspiracy but rather simply a case of classic vote bank politics of pandering to a huge voting bloc. Baba Ram Rahim is gone for now but until this politicians-godmen link is severed for once and all there will always be another Baba Ram Rahim waiting in the wings to fill this vacuum.
Coming back to best high court judgements of past few days one can argue for either Triple Talaq or Right to Privacy but best in my opinion was the High Court’s ruling that a list of all movable & immovable properties of DSS is to be created to figure out how to pay for all the damage caused in the riots. Too often have groups created mayhem without bearing the financial cost of the damage done by these riots which are mostly borne by the common man. This is a welcome step by High Court to ensure there are financial consequences to any damage done by rioters.
Baba Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan is the current head of a religious organization called as the Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS). I shall refer to Dera Sacha Sauda as DSS in the blog below. DSS was setup in 1948 in Sirsa, Haryana by Mastana who was from Baluchistan (Pakistan). After his death in 1960, Shah Satnam Singh took over who later promoted Gurmeet Singh(Baba Ram Rahim) as his successor. In 1990, Gurmeet Singh at young age of 23 became the spiritual head of Dera Sacha Sauda. After he took over the DSS quickly grew from a modest 25 acre complex in Sirsa, Haryana to a now mammoth 700 acre complex. DSS claims that all this increase was due to donations by supporters & no one was forced to give up land. But there have been rumors of people being coerced to give up land. DSS went from few lakh supporters back then to today reportedly 6 to 7 crore followers or “premis” (as they like to refer to themselves). Their supporters are not only from India but also from far away countries like UK, USA & Canada.
However along with the organization’s explosive growth came the troubles. In 2002 a sadhvi who staying in the complex, sent an anonymous letter to then Prime Minister (A.B. Vajpayee),Home Minister, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Haryana Chief Minister, Sirsa Superintendent of Police, the National Human Rights Commission, newspapers and women's and social organizations. It was alleged in the letter that several girls had been subject to sexual assault/rape by Gurmeet Singh. After this matter came to light one of the journalists who steadfastly was investigating & reporting on the activities at the Dera was Ram Chandra Chatrapati, the 53-year-old editor of Poora Sach (Complete Truth), an evening daily from Sirsa, Haryana. He continued his reporting even in the face of death threats. On October 24th 2002 two men (allegedly by two supporters of DSS) approached him a on bike & shot him at point blank range. He battled for 28 days before succumbing to his injuries. He even gave a statement before his death about who was responsible for the attempt on his life but such was the political clout of Gurmeet that the police did not register an FIR against either DSS or Gurmeet. With the sexual assault case against Gurmeet between 2002 & 2007 CBI got nowhere with case. There was huge backchannel; political pressure to close the cases against him. CBI interviewed hundreds of women who were allegedly assaulted but only two would give sworn testimony to CBI. Both women were pressured & threatened by DSS supporters to recant their statements. As per the lead CBI lead officer on the case, one day few DSS supporters surrounded & harassed one of these women & they had go rescue her from that spot.
Due to all the obstacles & interference brought to bear by Gurmeet & DSS the case proceeded at a snail pace over 15 years while Gurmeet Singh’s (affectionately called “Pitaji” by his followers) popularity & reach grew exponentially. Unlike his two predecessors who were more of the ascetic “renounce the world / stay away from worldly pleasures” type, Gurmeet was the exact opposite: flashy, desiring fame/ publicity & the materialistic type. He launched couple of movies called MSG: Messenger of God where he was not only the hero but also the script writer, director, lyricist, producer, etc.: a true one man show. He even ventured into the music business where he recorded music with Universal Music. Yes ladies & gentleman this is true & not a typo: The Company (Universal Music) whose artists include Taylor Swift, Kanye West & Adele released not 1 but 6 music albums by Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. His last music album “Love Charger” was a super hit which sold 3 million copies in 3 days. All these antics earned him the moniker of “Rockstar Baba”. He also followed in the footsteps of Baba Ramdev, by moving into FMCG market. His brand was going to launch over 150 products (Honey, Bottled Water, Pickle, Noodles, Rice, etc.) in the market. On the education front he opened 10 schools, 1 engineering college & 1 management institute which is pretty impressive for the fact that is he himself is 10 standard pass. According to research by some news organizations all his enterprise were earning his Dera huge sums of money every year.
Fast forward to present where his supporters ran amok & rioted once he was pronounced guilty by the special CBI court. The images post-verdict were surreal to watch where the supporters were chasing the police instead of it being the other way round. Media was also not spared & bore the brunt of the supporter’s wrath as did common folk of Panchkula. The blame for this mess squarely lies at the feet of the local government in Haryana. In India where the policemen to population ratio are very low to begin with it is not possible to have police at all locations simultaneously to prevent untoward incidents. But this was a situation where not the only the location but also the time was known to all. Gurmeet came to the location with a 200 car convoy which meant that he had a ton of supporters already present over there ready to create trouble if he was convicted by the court. Haryana’s BJP government has made all kinds of excuses & gave bizarre statements like government made adequate arrangements but the crowd size was too huge to control, Sec 144 (which bars more than 4 people congregating in a single place at a time) was not issued due to clerical error, enough police were there or the riots would have so much worse, etc. Many people have said that the riots were engineered together by DSS in conjunction with the Haryana government under Manohar Lal Khattar which is currently close to Baba Ram Rahim & the DSS. However I would apply Occam’s razor principle [Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. the simpler one is usually the correct one]. This was more a case of negligence (maybe even criminal as lives were lost) by Manohar Lal Khattar government rather than him conniving with DSS to engineer riots. Chief Minister of Haryana Khattar who hasn’t had the best record with riots (2015 another Baba: Baba Rampal followers rioted when police tried to arrest him in a murder case & last year riots occurred when the Jats were protesting to get reservations) wouldn’t be looking to have more trouble at his doorstep. My friend who lives in Gurgaon said succinctly of the situation “We are averaging one riot per year in Haryana”, No Chief Minister however great his track record can survive in today’s hyper frenzy media world with a major riot occurring every year. What has let Khattar down is his inexperience in running affairs of the state. BJP never ruled Haryana before the inexperience of its leaders showed in the handling of the crisis. Compare this to Punjab where Congress led Capt. Amarinder Singh has been in power before & knows how to prepare for such situations. The Additional Director General of Police in Punjab said that they asked Haryana multiple times to inform them in advance of the date of the verdict. Punjab police had prior contact with Army before the verdict to seek their help if needed & called up 18,000 police personal on day of verdict. They called up Army within minutes of verdict & imposed curfew to keep situation under control as it was hard to make out among common men who is DSS supporter & who is not. This resulted in no deaths in Punjab in spite of several Dera facilities & supporters living in Punjab. Khattar’s reputation is fully tarnished at this point & the longer he stays he could very well stumble into another crisis dragging the party image down with him. Modi who was elected on the promise of good governance can’t like this distraction next door to New Delhi. The consensus cutting across various segments of society is that Khattar has to go after this debacle which has cast Haryana govt. again in poor light (which was just getting past the stalking case with BJP head’s son just a month ago). However they just can’t simply cave into opposition pressure & remove Khattar right now. This would set a bad precedent of opposition asking for resignation of a CM every time a riot would happen. In my opinion BJP would probably follow the Anandiben template from Gujarat where she was replaced not immediately after the Patidar agitation but later on when things cooled down a bit . Similarly BJP will let things settle down a bit & then push Khattar out at a later stage at a time of its own choosing. Most agree that the BJP government in Haryana will outlive Khattar as CM. The wheels for replacing Khattar would have started turning in 11 Asoka Road in New Delhi with Amit Shah not only looking for an exit strategy for Khattar but also a suitable successor.
Another interesting fact to glean from the opposition reaction to the riots that it’s fury has solely been directed at the BJP government in Haryana. Not a word has been uttered by any opposition towards the shameful behavior of the DSS supporters who went on rampage that day destroying everything in sight. BJP government in Haryana shall bear the burden & shame of what transpired on August 25th. However Congress & INLD parties which are in opposition today at one time in the past cozied up to Baba Ram Rahim. For the case for which he was convicted between 2002 & 2007 when INLD & Congress were in power as I mentioned earlier all efforts were made to scuttle the case. Congress was the one who gave him Z+ plus security cover (for a man under the cloud of rape & murder charges). Gurmeet Singh once was apolitical & didn’t outright ask his supporters to vote for a party but implicitly let it be known to his supporters to vote for Congress. In Punjab in both 2002 when Congress won & in 2007 when Congress lost Congress sought & received the blessing of DSS to have his supporters vote for them. Ram Rahim's son Jasmeet is married to the daughter of senior Congress leader Harminder Singh Jassi, who is a former Punjab MLA. Later on the DSS formed a Political Action Committee to form guidance on whom to support overtly for each election cycle. Mind you this is a so called NGO (Non-governmental organization) whose work was charity has a PAC to influence elections. Post 2007, DSS switch sides to BJP-Akali in 2012 Punjab elections & to BJP in 2014 National & Local elections. During the 2014 Lok Sabha campaign Narendra Modi came to Sirsa & addressed a rally where he mentioned that he had sought the blessing of their spiritual head. Later Modi congratulated Gurmeet when he participated in Modi’s pet project Swacch Bharat. Baba Ram Rahim has thus aligned with all sides of the political spectrum in Haryana & Punjab to keep himself out of trouble until now.
India in general & especially Haryana & Punjab have a high number of these so called Babas/sects. Shekhar Gupta in his recent article has wonderfully articulated the many sects/babas operating in this region. The strangest case of all these babas was of someone who was referred to “Freezer Baba”. Ashutosh (who hailed from Bihar far away from Haryana/Punjab where he operated) died in early 2014. His followers believe that one day in future he will come back from the dead. Hence they put his body in a freezer waiting for him to resurrect back to life & refused to cremate him. There is a case ongoing in court to force the cult to cremate him. Many of these babas/godmen are working genuinely to help the needy & poor with philanthropy & charity work. However many like Ram Rahim are in it looking for more: be political fixers, land grabbing, amassing wealth & most importantly allow them to escape the wrath of the law in all types of cases against them. This unholy nexus of politicians & some of these so called babas/holy godmen is a symbiotic relationship where both benefit from each other. In elections in small states like Punjab & Haryana sometimes the votes of these diehard supporters could make the difference between winning & losing. No one wants to be on the wrong side of these godmen & hence politicians visit them & pander to them making sure that they get their vote in the next election.
Since the violence, many have wondered what causes these fanatical followers to not see their leader as a criminal who exploited women & killed off opponents as a demon but rather a loving father figure (they affectionately called “Pitaji”). It is believed that 70% of DSS supporters are from lower castes of society. These are the people who are ostracized by higher castes & daily face discrimination in all walks of life. They also feel neglected by their own government who they don’t believe does enough for their well-being. This toxic mix of government apathy + discrimination + illiteracy creates a fertile recruiting ground for such babas to recruit followers to their cults. The followers in many cases see these babas as “messiahs” who give them refuge from the problems of outside world be it something as simple as shelter/food/jobs or something higher like a purpose in life/self-belief to carry on against all odds .Many of these sects are involved in some kind of social service which mostly benefits this underprivileged class. For these people a whole new support ecosystem is created by these babas. Thus these followers in many cases have total devotion towards their babas who they think that can do no wrong. Babas in turn use this army of steadfast supporters to establish a parallel quasi governmental state. They start to operate outside the law many times with illegal activities as they think that due to their charity work & political clout no one can touch them. Time for another weird Gurmeet story which will highlight the extreme loyalty of his supporters who are ready to do just about anything for him: One of the most bizarre cases against him was that he ordered few hundred of his male supporters to castrate themselves so that they will feel closer to God. As with many other cases against him CBI is still investigating this case. It is rightly said that “Truth is indeed stranger than fiction”. His die hard supporters see the cases against him as outside interference by government & a conspiracy against Baba Ram Rahim. This coupled with their blind & unflinching loyalty to their baba is what would make them burn down an entire city & bring 2 whole states to their knees.
What BJP did recently with him was probably no conspiracy but rather simply a case of classic vote bank politics of pandering to a huge voting bloc. Baba Ram Rahim is gone for now but until this politicians-godmen link is severed for once and all there will always be another Baba Ram Rahim waiting in the wings to fill this vacuum.
