Anthropology has failed to trace the origin of the world’s first godman. But most probably he preceded the idea of god and sold it out to people until it gained currency. India being the spiritual capital of the world has now graduated from being the land of snake charmers to that of godmen. All types, hues and sizes are available. So much so that they occupy one-third of the country’s billboards, half of TV channels (counting also the slots they occupy on news channels) and on days one-fourth of newspapers (their own advertisements plus weird acts which make it to the news section).
Tuesday, February 19 was one such day.
It began with Mahant Chhotu Nath of Gorakhnath Dera defeating seven other bidders to clinch a fancy registration number for a whopping Rs 10.05 lakh in Chandigarh. While registering and licensing authority officials confirmed that the number had been bought for an AUDI Q7 worth Rs 55 lakh, the mahant remained his modest best. When asked by reporters about his car, the mahant said, “I do not have a car for the number.” When the reporters, who like the rest of us have known for ages that godmen have their strange ways, goaded him further, he quipped with a wink, “I will use it for my residence.” And made a hurried exit. All we can say is that this Chhotu Nath will make it real big some day.
On the same day, in Ahmedabad, students and their parents vandalised and torched vehicles belonging to members of the Asaram Ashram Trust, who came to a school to deliver a lecture on moral values. While everything was agreed upon between the school authorities and the trust members beforehand what got the parents’ goat was a huge photo of the holyman which trust members had placed on the dais before the lecture.
According to details in a report published in The Indian Express, the Asaram Ashram Trust members had cracked a deal with the school authorities to organise the programme allegedly without disclosing their identity. They had reportedly sought permission from the school authorities to organise a programme to make students learn value and respect for mothers. However, when the Ashram members kept a huge photo of Asaram before beginning the programme, the students alerted their parents and soon a crowd of hundreds gathered outside the school and pelted stones at the members. The trust members were reportedly dragged out of the school and beaten up. The mob torched a Tata Nano and a Maruti Van in which Ashram members had come to the school. The mob also set pamphlets and photos of Asaram on fire during the violence.
This holyman who is fond of wearing crowns, both floral and ornamental, in his pictures adorning thousands of billboards across the country used to be quite popular among the masses until the fateful day when his slippery tongue erred on the Delhi gangrape victim. The godman known for dropping pearls of wisdom in his casual conversation with devotees dropped a bomb when he said the Delhi gangrape and murder would not have happened if the victim had called the rapist-killers her brothers and fallen at their feet.
That day onwards, this godman who was popularly known as Bapu in the happier days has never slept in peace. A few days earlier, several outfits had opposed Asaram’s visit to the Allahabad Kumbh and a camp set up for his discourse at the Kumbh Mela ground was vandalised. Seems like it’s time for a second penance for the baba.
On Tuesday only, a certain yoga guru who is more famous for his different political asanas lost a fortune when the Himachal Pradesh government cancelled the land lease of his Patanjali Yogpeeth sanctioned by the previous BJP regime. About 28 acres of land near Sadhupul in Solan district was given to Patanjali Yogpeeth by the BJP government in 2010 for a token lease of Re 1 per year for a period of 99 years.
Seems like the term babalog has acquired an entirely different meaning.
