Gurmeet Ram Rahim followers threatening violence over rape verdict is worrying
More than 50,000 followers of Gurmeet Ram Rahim – the “Guru of Bling” – heading the Dera Sacha Sauda cult, based out of Sirsa, Punjab, have threatened to bring north India to a grinding halt, unleash fury and violence on public property, in case the imminent verdict in the guru’s rape trial case goes against the man.
The followers have, by thousands, flocked to the court, and Chandigarh police is having a tough time securing the city from the possible violence that these armed men can inflict on the place.
A letter has gone out from the director general of Punjab Police (Law and Order) to all the zonal IGPs, SSPs and others on August 22, saying that the Dera followers are taking their militant cult to the logical conclusion, and hoarding petrol, diesel cans, sticks, sharp objects and bricks in order to hurl them at buildings and government offices, causing a riot-like situation in Chandigarh and other parts of Punjab and Haryana. Security has been beefed up and in Sirsa, Section 144 has been imposed, bringing the town to a lockdown.
The rape trial verdict is about a 16-year-old case in which the godman had sexually abused two of his female followers. It’s unbelievable that instead of cowering in shame about the misdemenour of their famed guru, the devotees have vowd to unleash horror on ordinary people, in case the verdict goes against Ram Rahim and he is convicted.
This is exactly why militant cults – of which Dera Sacha Sauda is a glowering example – must never be allowed to flourish in the first place. In a democratic society, peace-loving citizens are thrown at the mercy of private militias, armed to the teeth and swimming in money mostly donated by followers of the cult, and often threatening to tear apart the social fabric with their violence.
The cult following that Gurmeet Ram Rahim enjoys is of course the stuff of legend and frankly beyond rational explanation. Dressed in a riot of colours and driving around in flashy motorbikes, Gurmeet is a strange guru of an India in the cusp of change, much like Radhe Maa, another of the spiritual darlings of the rich and superstitious. In case of Gurmeet Ram Rahim, the cult following is fused with a tendency to spill violence on the streets, occupy the city and bring daily life to a grinding halt, in order to show their guru the boundless and uncritical devotion.
Given the Dera Sacha Sauda chief was charged in 2007 and the trial began the following year once the CBI took the testimonies of the two women complainants, it’s astonishing that Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s following has not only not diminished, but in fact, has gone up by several notches. His MSD movies were released in the years that followed, and showed that even Bollywood wasn’t immune to his uncanny hold over his devotees’ cultural imagination.
Yet, this is precisely what ails India as it changes from a largely tech-less caste and sect-ridden society, to one in which technology is emboldening these sickening identity fanaticism. The 50-year-old guru is said to be having a following that “politicians would kill for”, yet it doesn’t explain why Indian politicians would even covet such kind of an uncritical irrational following that feeds on fears and insecurities, makes people flock to a fake messiah and commit violence, crime and other illogical activities in his name.
A timeline of Gurmeet Ram Rahim’s chequered past is also a timeline of India embracing the spoils of liberalization, without quite changing its inherent malaises in caste, sect and other deep-seated fault lines.
In 2002, the guru was accused of sexual exploitation of two sadhvis and was accused of ordering the killing of a Haryana-based journalist Ram Chander Chatrapati for his writings against the Dera. Gurmeet also “willfully hurt” religious sentiments of the Sikhs by self-fashioning himself after the 10th guru, Guru Gobind Singh. He was acquitted in a murder case, and an investigation is ongoing into allegations of forced castration of 400 followers in the Dera Sacha Sauda cult.
Much like Asaram Bapu, the other godman-cum-rape accused, the cult of the guru here is used to perpetrate all kinds of exploitations – against women, caste and sect others, those who don’t belong to the cult, and more. Religion mixed with a heedless love of all that money can buy has given rise to flotsam of toxic coltishness, which when combined with a militant urge to take over and create parallel governments within the enclosures – such as one in Sirsa – law seems to be ineffective.
It’s only when the long hand of the law finally catches up, that the cults are truly shaken. This is such a moment for the Dera followers and they plan to unleash fury in case their leader is subjected to the law of the land.
Are the Dera followers and their guru above the law? They’d like to think so. Fortunately, they are wrong.