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Showing posts with label Dera Sacha Sauda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dera Sacha Sauda. Show all posts
'Top Haryana officers were in touch with Dera followers before Ram Rahim verdict'
Manjeet Sehgal
Chandigarh
March 28, 2018
HIGHLIGHTS
Senior officers were in touch with Dera followers before violence
Violence accused Jasveer Singh claimed to be in touch with Panchkula officers
Disclosure made in affidavit submitted to Punjab and Haryana HC
Senior administrative officers of the Haryana government were in touch with Dera Sacha Sauda followers before the days leading up to the conviction of the sect's founder Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh last August, the Panchkula duty magistrate and SDM Pankaj Setia has told the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Setia said that he, along with other senior administrative officers, were in touch with the Dera followers who were later accused of large-scale violence in the aftermath of Ram Rahim's conviction on the orders of then Panchkula Deputy Commissioner Gori Prasad Joshi.
Joshi is believed to have have set up a 'peace committee' in order to maintain peace and control the influx of Dera followers who had gathered in large numbers in Panchkula ahead of a court hearing that ultimately convicted Ram Rahim on two counts of rape.
POLITICAL parties and other outfits that are based on
the cult of personality and divorced from a political programme pose a
threat to democracy. Despite being recently sentenced to 20 years
imprisonment for a rape case reported in 2002, the head of the Dera
Sucha Sauda, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, still commands an enormous
following.
What concerns the workings of democracy is
how he could evoke such fierce loyalties. He could not have amassed
millions and acquired the power and influence he did but for political
help. Once he acquired some following, leaders of political parties
flocked to his doorstep to seek his support during elections. He
variedly offered help to BJP, Shiromani Akali Dal and Congress. His help
to BJP in 2014 reflected shrewd political judgement.
Gurmeet
Singh exploited the people’s poverty, the state’s neglect of the poor,
underprivileged and the wronged — and on their susceptibility to
religious appeals and claims to faith healing. He provided food,
subsidised ration and money to the poor. He also fostered a feeling of
equality among the Dalits by asking followers to adopt the title of
‘Insaan’ and forsake their surnames, which reveal a person’s caste
identity. Dera Sucha Sauda appealed to women particularly with its
strong stand against liquor and drug abuse, which had played havoc with
families. People found equality and dignity in its ranks denied to them
elsewhere. Free medical aid was supplemented with faith healing; the
Baba’s blessings or healing touch. His success provides proof of the
state’s failure to do its duty — in crime detection, poverty
alleviation, provision of medical and other services and, not least, in
wiping out rampant caste discrimination.
India’s religious right exploits faith.
A far more instructive parallel is the Shiv Sena in
Maharashtra. Set up in 1966 by a cartoonist, Bal Thackeray, it sought to
arouse and exploit a feeling of discrimination among the
Marathi-speaking people of the state. They felt insulted at the delay in
conceding their just demand for the inclusion of Mumbai in Maharashtra.
It began as a movement against South Indians, accusing them of
monopolising jobs in the city; moved against Gujaratis gingerly; and
settled on the more promising plank of Hindutva against Muslims.
Thackeray’s resort to violence remained unchecked. He was also courted
by some industrialists and businessmen to curb communist influence in
trade unions, as well as by prominent Bollywood figures and politicians.
Shiv Sena is in coalition with BJP in Maharashtra.
Censures of an inquiry commission on the killings during the Mumbai
riots after the demolition of Babri Masjid did not affect Shiv Sena or
its leader — nor did the Central Bureau of Investigation’s citation of
Thackeray as an accused in the demolition case. For years, successive
Congress state governments have turned a blind eye to Shiv Sena’s
recourse to violence and its politics of intimidation.
One
of the most insightful studies of this outfit is by German scholar
Julia Eckert in her book, The Charisma of Direct Action. Eckert writes
of how electoral results reveal that “the Shiv Sena has been stagnating
at a certain percentage of votes for several years, these turning into
victories or into defeat depending on its opponents’ strategies”. These
opponents hardly oppose. Its technique is to work in three spheres — the
political realm, the street and homes. “Direct action replaces
parliamentary politics and is considered to be superior in efficiency
and moral rectitude.”
Shiv Sena set up an ambulance
service in 1968. Many shakhas (branches) have their own ambulance and
use it for various purposes. Shiv Sena activists organised ‘cleanup’
drives and medical camps; put pressure on the municipality on behalf of
the wards for water connections and other civic amenities. “The shakhas
organise leisure activities and training in vocational skills for young
people. Rooms have been made available for school studies and
preparation for examinations.” They offer assistance with job
applications, school admissions, and other formalities which require
recommendations. They also step in with advice and support when there
are illnesses, births, deaths, or marriages. “Sometimes funds are
collected to meet emergency situations in a family.” Women activists
help to resolve “cases of marital unrest, dowry quarrels, wife-beating,
alimony and other issues”.
Issues resolved range from
quarrels about the rights to a specific location of a hawker’s stall,
disputes over garbage sites, noise pollution, petty crime and cheating,
to litigations over loans and property, to real estate disputes.
Like
Dera Sucha Sauda, Shiv Sena steps in where the state has failed. Its
work is translated into votes. Democracy suffers by the activities of
such bodies and the failure of the democratic state to do its duty by
the people. The political process is fouled. Politics cease to revolve
around issues of public policy.
The writer is an author and lawyer based in Mumbai.
Though power has alternated between the NDA and Congress in Punjab
or the INLD, Congress and the BJP in Haryana in the last few decades,
politicians from all sides cultivated him and protected him.
A still from MSG. Credit: YouTube
New Delhi: Now that Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh has been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for raping two minors, who were also his followers, there is renewed curiosity about not just the social standing of the deras but the political patronage that they thrive on. The frenzied violence
that Singh’s followers displayed after his conviction in Panchkula on
August 28 underscores the significance of the phenomenon. As did the way
that senior Bharatiya Janata Party members – from Sakshi Maharaj to state-level leaders – lined up in his defence, even as many parts of northern India were up in flames. What are deras?
Deras, literally meaning home, over the years, turned into shrines of
saints who operated outside the ritualistic regime of mainstream
religions. Known for their abstinence, the saints did not intend to
replace the mainstream religion but offered a critique of discriminatory
practices enshrined in it.
However, in the last 30 years or so, several deras mushroomed across
north India. Many of them became powerful because of the large following
they commanded. Chandigarh-based political scientist Pramod Kumar said
that many of them portrayed themselves as messengers between people and
god, eventually converting the deras into “poor cousins of institutionalised religions.”
According to various estimates, there are up to 3,000 deras in north
India, each with a different spiritual message. However, what binds them
together is their campaign against social problems like drugs and
alcohol addiction, caste discrimination, domestic violence etc.
Sacha Sauda, Radhasoami, Sachkhand Ballan, Nurmahal, Nirankari and
Namdhari are the biggest deras in Punjab and its adjoining states. Over
the years, these deras have become industrialised, making healthcare and
education affordable and accessible to their followers. Dera Sacha
Sauda was one of the first to venture into fast-moving consumer goods
(FMCG) businesses, producing a range of products from cosmetics to packaged food and even films. What is the social significance of the deras?
The deras offered a non-sectarian space to its followers in contrast
to organised Sikh and Hindu religions. They have become important sites
of social inclusion as a majority of their followers come from
marginalised sections of the society, especially the Dalits and other
landless poor. Punjab, with a population of around 32% scheduled castes
according to the 2011 census, has the highest number of Dalits in the country. Many of them flock to the deras located in different regions of the state.
Reeling under the exploitation of feudal upper caste Jat Sikhs, who also hegemonise gurudwaras, the landless Dalits find a non-discriminatory space in the deras.
“Dalits espoused Sikhism in the beginning for three main reasons:
First, Sikhism didn’t believe in the caste system; secondly, it allowed
everyone to wear arms, which was perceived as a matter of pride and
thirdly and most importantly, it glorified manual labour unlike
Hinduism. But in reality, the caste system still prevails, leading to
disillusionment among the Dalits. Perhaps, it is this contradiction
between the perceived and the actual that is making the Dalits drift
towards the deras,” Ashutosh Kumar, a political scientist in Panjab
University, Chandigarh, said a few years ago.
Until the 19th century, Sikhism emerged as a religion which was
largely pluralistic in nature, identified with multiple traditions such
as Khalsa, Udasi, Nanak-Panthi, Nirmala etc. However, as Jawaharlal Nehru University sociologist Surinder S. Jodhka explained,
the emergence of the Singh Sabha movement and gurudwara reform movement
in colonial India, resulting in the formation of Shiromani Gurudwara
Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) as the chief organising body of Sikh
gurudwaras, sought to standardise Sikh identity that banned idol worship
and considered Guru Granth Sahib as the last guru.
As the religious system became exploitative, deras founded their own
iconography, gurus, code of conduct and preachings to counter the Jat
Sikh hegemony over Sikhism. With time, they emerged as the primary
challenge to the Khalsa identity. The transformation of deras as cults
The escalating agrarian crisis over the last two decades in Punjab
and Haryana – both beneficiaries of the Green Revolution at one time –
precipitated in a breakdown of the economy. The landed Jat Sikhs felt
the pinch and diversified their businesses. However, the worst impacted
were the landless Dalits who worked as agrarian labourers in farms.
Their wages suffered in the process which increased the friction between
the landed and the landless. As a result, Jat Sikhs started to prefer
workers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, leaving the Dalits workers to fend
for themselves. The already hostile relationship between the two
communities escalated to a point where the Dalits were socially
boycotted by the gurudwaras. Many villages of the agrarian Malwa belt of
Punjab witnessed resistance movements led by Dalits.
Left in the lurch, Dalits began to migrate to the west for better
economic opportunities. In due course, while their economic status grew,
the Jat Sikhs resisted any improvement in their social status.
In response, the Dalits constructed gurudwaras in their respective
villages and made large donations to the deras to which they were
attached.
In this context, Professor Ronki Ram, a sociologist in Panjab University, in his extensive research,
has found that deras gradually transformed into a site of resistance, a
faith that represented the Dalits’ “fight against social exclusion”.
Ram said that the proliferation of deras as alternate spiritual centres
for the oppressed is linked to this ascendancy in Dalit assertion.
“Only when we understand deras as independent sects outside the
purview of mainstream Sikhism and Hinduism, we will be able to
understand the phenomenon of deras,” Ram said.
Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. Credit: Facebook/ Dera Sacha Sauda
However, as deras became powerful with large foreign remittances, the
dera chiefs turned themselves into cult-like figures or messengers
between the people and God. Thus, deras not only became alternate
spiritual centres but also a source of alternative employment. Many of
them acquired huge tracts of land – both from the Jat Sikhs who were
diversifying into other businesses and the governments – and employed
their followers as agrarian workers. The deras paid them much better
than what they used to get from the landed Jat Sikhs. Many of them
opened other businesses to employ their followers. The deras also opened
their centres across the globe. This, to an extent, explains the blind
faith that the followers have on their deras.
This has led to many clashes between the followers of gurudwaras and
deras, which ostensibly fought on religious grounds but deep within, had
their own sociological roots.
For instance, the followers of Dera Baniarwala and a group of Sikhs
clashed in 2001. More recently, in 2007, the followers of Dera Sacha
Sauda and supporters of Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) clashed after Gurmeet Singh allegedly posed as the tenth guru of Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh. Similarly, violence erupted in 2009 after Dera Sachkhand Ballan’s deputy chief Sant Rama Nand was killed by some Sikhs in Vienna, Austria. The aspect of political patronage
With so much power in their hands, the dera chiefs became landed
magnates themselves and diversified into different businesses. Gurmeet
Singh and many others like Radhey Ma swiftly re-invented their deras
into a new market-driven economy.
With a huge following that was largely resentful of institutionalised
religions, the upper caste-led political class had no option but to
liaison with the dera chiefs to mobilise votes. Deras became the new
mediators between the political parties and the poor. In a context where
the governments hardly invested in social infrastructure like
affordable healthcare, education and employment, deras, a potent
combination of alternate spirituality and employment, were not only
attractive but were also seen as saviours.
With political patronage coming along, many of the dera chiefs
transformed themselves into cult-like figures and began to exercise
their political power willingly. A number of them have had to regularly
confront charges of illegally acquiring wealth and parking unaccounted
monies of politicians and businessmen. They have always dismissed these
as false accusations made by apathetic politicians and have showcased
their social welfare institutions as alibis. The case of Dera Sacha Sauda
Within the story of this transition of deras, Sacha Sauda’s story is perhaps the most striking.
Founded by one Shah Mastana of Balochistan, a disciple of Baba Sawan
Singh of the Radhasoami sect, in 1948 in Sirsa, Haryana, it began as a
dera which undertook small-scale social work. After his death, Shah
Satnam Singh took over as the chief who continued until 1990. Gurmeet
Singh, a 23-year-old Jat Sikh from Sri Ganganagar in adjoining
Rajasthan, took over the regime. Singh is the cousin of Khalistani
militant Gurjant Singh Rajasthani who was reportedly instrumental in ousting Satnam Singh
and anointing Gurmeet Singh as the Dera chief. According to police
records, these were the last days of militancy in Punjab. Rajasthani had
thought that Dera could route funds to the Khalistani movement but was
barely successful in his endeavour as the militant movement was crushed
by the government.
Under Gurmeet Singh’s tenure, the dera expanded from its humble
origins to become a giant, commanding around five crore followers.
The entrance of Shah Satnam Ji Dham, Dera Sacha Sauda, Sirsa, Haryana. Credit: Wikipedia
“He (Gurmeet Singh) wears flamboyant costumes and ornate jewellery,
acts in films and makes money from them. He also knows how to use the
electronic and social media,” explained Pramod Kumar.
“This young Dera Sacha Sauda chief, in a way, reinvented deras in
this region. He evolved from a simple preacher to ‘Rock Star Baba’,
shrewd power broker, techno-savvy media manager, and appropriator of
commodity market. He traded, with the blind support of more than one
million followers, in retail commodity market, power politics and the
entertainment industry. He used cinema to build a larger than life image
of himself and reinforced reactionary views. He also started an online
business with more than 150 products to enrich dera coffers,” added
Kumar.
This helped him attract the youth who were either exposed to the western culture or were born in a consumerist world.
However, with the expansion, Gurmeet Singh soon courted multiple
controversies. Charges of rape, castration and murder began to haunt
him. It was clear to many in Sirsa that the Dera chief was not a saint
in any way.
It is in this context that Singh, in 2007, deflected the attention
off him by posing as a Khalsa warrior dressed in Guru Gobind Singh’s
attire. Since such incidents are considered blasphemous in organised
Sikhism, there was a backlash from radical Sikh groups leading to violent clashes in many parts of Punjab an Haryana. The violence created further tensions between Dera Sacha Sauda followers and followers of Sikhism.
As the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal)-led government supported the Sikhs
during the episode, Dera Sacha Sauda gave an open call to its
supporters to vote for the Congress party in the Punjab assembly
elections which were around the corner. In response to the violence
against Dera, the Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress government provided Z Plus security cover to the Dera chief, a facility which was finally withdrawn only after his conviction on August 25.
This was the first time any dera openly declared its preference for a
political party. It went on to formally start a political wing – again,
the first dera to do so.
Although it was known that several deras informally communicated the
political party of their preference to their followers, none of them had
a formal political wing which did the job of power brokering. Congress
MLA Harminder Singh Jassi, whose daughter is married to the son of the
Dera chief, was seen as playing an instrumental role in getting Dera’s
support.
Despite the fact that SAD (Badal)-BJP together formed the government
in 2007, the alliance was virtually decimated in 21 constituencies of
Malwa, the region where Dera has the maximum following.
In an 117-member assembly, this was a significant loss. This elevated
the Dera Sacha Sauda into an indispensable political force and
political parties made a beeline in front of Gurmeet Singh. Politicians
also warmed up to the other deras in Punjab and Haryana as a result.
According to a study by Chandigarh-based Institute for Development and Communication,
the deras of Punjab influenced the electoral results in around 56
constituencies – the Radha Soami in 19, Dera Sacha Sauda in 27, Dera
Nurmahal in eight, Dera Nirankari in four, Dera Ballan in eight and Dera
Namdhari in two constituencies.
The new SAD (Badal)-BJP government in the state ensured that it does
not rub Dera on the wrong side and gradually withdrew many of the cases
registered against Singh. As a result, the Dera chief unofficially
supported the alliance in 2012 but declared his support for Narendra
Modi as prime minister in 2014 parliamentary elections and for the
SAD-BJP in 2017. In 2014, however, its influence could not work as a
majority of people voted for the Aam Aadmi Party in Malwa. Similarly, in
2017, Dera’s support for the ruling alliance could not work much amidst
a strong anti-incumbency factor against the government.
Dera Sacha Sauda’s open allegiance to the BJP in
the last few years is a widely-known fact. Ahead of the Harayana
assembly elections, the BJP’s general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya led
a team of 44 of the 90 BJP candidates to seek “blessings” from the Dera
chief. A week before, the BJP president Amit Shah, along with party
leader Captain Abhimanyu, had reportedly also paid a visit to the Dera
in Sirsa to get his support in the upcoming assembly elections in
Haryana and Maharashtra, where a large section of Sikhs are believed to
be Dera supporters.
These moves by the BJP’s national leadership are the primary reasons
the Dera drifted towards the saffron party. Earlier, it used to switch
its support between the Indian National Lok Dal and Congress depending
upon the conditions.
Political observers, however, said that the Dera chief appeared to
have brokered a deal with the BJP that the saffron party would withdraw
criminal cases against him. The claim made by Honeypreet, the Dera
chief’s adopted daughter, that the BJP went back on its promise of exonerating her father from several cases, supports the observation.
Many reports have also said
that at least three Haryana ministers, Ram Vilas Sharma, Anil Vij, and
Manish Grover, have donated Rs 1.12 crore to the Dera since August last
year even as Gurmeet Singh was facing heinous criminal charges. Ten days
before Gurmeet Singh was convicted, state education minister Sharma had
paid Rs 51 lakh on the occassion of the Dera chief’s birthday.
Union sports minister Vijay Goel is also said to have promised routing of some central funds to the Dera.
This patronage, however, appears to have percolated down from the top. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tweet had lauded the Dera chief
for supporting his Swachh Bharat mission in 2014. Haryana chief
minister, Manohar Lal Khattar, went a step further to launch a
cleanliness drive with Gurmeet Singh from his constituency, Karnal. He even posed for a photograph with him holding a broom.
It has also been reported
that senior BJP leaders Kailash Vijayvargiya and Manoj Tiwari were
present at the “success parties” that the Dera held in honour of the
BJP’s victory in Haryana elections.
The Dera chief’s open support for BJP in the recent state elections
is also a departure from the Dera’s own policy of voting according to
“merit.” In the last few years, Gurmeet Singh has reiterated the BJP’s
agenda almost every time the BJP has been criticised. For instance, he
has openly supported BJP cow protection programme and has posted hate
tweets against beef eaters. Similarly, his movies have increasingly
become Hindu nationalist in nature and have showcased a sudden jingoism
which the Dera was never known for. Dera’s critics attribute this to the
Dera chief’s desperation to land some favour with the ruling BJP,
especially as his cases were near completion.
However, for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological
parent of the BJP, deras occupy a special place in polity. It thinks of
deras as institutions which may help bring back Sikhs into the Hindu
fold.
“Sangh’s aims are not always associated with the BJP. The BJP is
focused on elections, Sangh works for society. Sangh has been
cultivating various deras – Radha Soami Satsang, Dera Sacha Sauda etc –
for some years now. The deras work with the Dalit community,
particularly Dalit Sikhs, who are ill-treated by Panthic Sikhs. The
deras help in bringing them back into the Hindu fold,” a Sangh
functionary based in Amritsar told the Catch news.
Incidentally, RSS chief Mohan Bhagawat has also made several trips to
deras, including Sacha Sauda, before the 2014 general elections.
Dera’s support has undoubtedly helped the BJP in elections. The
Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), has found in its election survey that “the dera supportiers followed the diktat to vote for the BJP, irrespective of candidates, almost en block.”
Letting the mob spiral out of control in the aftermath of widespread
violence by Dera supporters was the logical outcome of its political
proximity to Ram Rahim Singh, even if the criticism it has had to face
will cost it nationally. However, the point to note is also the soft
approach that other parties like the Congress or the Indian National Lok
Dal (INLD) have shown in its criticism of the Dera after its chief was
convicted of rape.
Followers of the deras like Sacha Sauda have undoubtedly lived
through a systemic caste-based violence in the Sikh society and have
ended up finding a space in these deras which offer them equality and
dignity. This, perhaps, makes their faith unquestionable. However,
political patronage to the deras in recent years has bred criminality
and corruption at the top level of these institutions. It ensures
impunity for the deras and tends to convert them into mere sites of
electoral mobilisation instead of recognising its social significance.
Power alternated between the SAD and Congress in Punjab or the INLD,
Congress and the BJP in Haryana in the last few decades. All of its
politicians flock to the deras. But despite the growing political
influence of the deras, the representation of the marginalised remained low,
meaning that deras, too, are not an incorruptible force, however
socially significant they may be. The case of Dera Sacha Sauda could be
an exception but it still drives home this aspect of deras more than
anything else.
Haryana government must pay for failing in its most basic duties in Panchkula
Apathetic administration
Maintaining
law and order is one of the primary functions of a state government.
When rulers abdicate this responsibility for political considerations,
the lives of citizens are put under grave threat. This is exactly what
happened in Haryana on Friday, August 25, when an ineffective
administration let Panchkula burn.
Despite clear signs of trouble
as early as on Wednesday last week, the Bharatiya Janata Party
government led by Chief Minister ML Khattar let lakhs of followers of
Dera Sacha Sauda Chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim assemble in Panchkula ahead of
the judgement by a Central Bureau of Investigation court in a rape case
on Friday. Sensing trouble, the Punjab and Haryana High Court took up a
petition on security arrangements and warned the state administration
against letting the crowd build up. But by Thursday evening, it was
clear that the situation had gone out of control.
Within minutes
of the court convicting Ram Rahim on Friday, the gathered Dera followers
went on a rampage. Buildings, vehicles and the media were attacked
indiscriminately, with chilling scenes of the riots playing out on
television channels. In a few hours, it was clear that some of those
assembled had come with enough material to indulge in widespread arson.
Worse, the state callousness was on full display just hours earlier,
when the Dera chief was allowed to reach the court premises with a
cavalcade of over 100 cars.
The crowd anger was so extraordinary
that police officials reportedly beat a hasty retreat in some areas.
This forced the district magistrate to hand over
the security control to the Indian Army, six battalions of which moved
to stop the mayhem. By Sunday evening, 36 people had died, with media
reports suggesting
that many of them had bullet injuries. Given the chaos and the army’s
training that is uniquely different from the civilian police, this toll
was not surprising. Videos from Friday showed protestors being shot from
close range. And in an unprecedented move, the government had to shift
the CBI court to the jail premises in Rohtak, where Ram Rahim is
currently lodged, to carry out the sentencing on Monday.
In the
meantime, the Haryana government has remained adamant. Except for the
sacking of a mid-level police officer, hardly anyone has been held
responsible for the reprehensible dereliction of duty. Demands for the
resignation of the chief minister have been dismissed by the BJP. The
complete breakdown of the administration prompted the High Court to
comment on Saturday that the Prime Minster and the Chief Minister should
function as administrative heads and not just as leaders of a political
party.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ address
on Sunday that violence of any form cannot be tolerated. If this
statement is to carry any value, those who facilitated the breakdown of
law and order should be taken to task. This has to start at the top at
the political level and failure to do so would be akin to condoning not
just inefficiency – but murders.
The Big Scroll
Satvika Kundu reports from the ground on the aftermath of the violence in Panchkula in Haryana.
Anjali Mody writes on how Narendra Modi has failed on his raj dharma by staying silent on Haryana violence.
Some of those injured in the Friday riots said they never anticipated the violence.
Vipin Pubby writes on how BJP cannot afford to defend Khattar any more.
Sruthisagar Yamunan writes on how the state government’s failure to control the Panchkula violence forced the High Court to take charge.
For How Long Will Haryana Pay the Price for BJP’s Political Experiments?
by Chander Suta Dogra
The party has been riding the Dera tiger in order to secure its vote bank and is today showing spectacular ineptitude in dealing with the consequences.
The police stand near bodies of two men killed in Panchkula following a violent riot by supporters of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. Credit: Special Arrangement
Presiding over the breakdown of law and order, turning a blind eye to wilful arson by its support base and allowing goons to run amuck in the state seems to have become a routine occurrence with the Manohar Lal Khattar BJP government in Haryana. To have allowed the Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda supporters to first lay siege and attack the ‘VIP town’ of Panchkula is one of the worst displays of deliberate apathy and official complicity by a government in recent times. As a horrified nation watched, at least 30 people died, scores of vehicles were burnt and government property worth crores destroyed in the violence. Yet it is no skin off the nose of the Manohar Lal Khattar government. The blame for the mob growing to the size it did has been pinned on a “clerical error” in the promulgation of the Section 144 notice and a scapegoat made of the Panchkula DCP who was obviously following orders from above.
By the evening of August 25, the town looked like it was attacked by terrorists, its middle class population horrified at Khattar’s incompetence. They had, after all, voted overwhelmingly for the Bharatiya Janata Party in 2014. Residents cowered in fear in their houses as dera ‘premis’ entered residential neighbourhoods, burning private cars and breaking doors and windows. As a resident of Panchkula myself, for hours we worried for our safety as anarchy reigned and it became all too clear to us that the state’s law and order machinery had abandoned its citizens.
Where the state government failed, the Punjab and Haryana High Court stepped in to not only nudge the government into action, but also to issue stern directives that warned of consequences if it did not do its job. But it is plain as day that just like the Khattar government failed miserably to prevent mayhem during the 2016 Jat agitation, not learning any lessons from the breakdown of administrative machinery then, Panchkula is a repeat. For days before Friday’s verdict convicting Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh of rape, a complicit government watched the build-up of Dera supporters, their open threat of violence hanging in the air for all to see.
Sense of déjà vu
The diffident, inexperienced Khattar – who soft pedalled any action against the Jat reservationists during the Jat agitation in February 2016, allowing arsonists to run amuck in eight districts, looting and burning and assaulting women – was out of his depth in handling the Dera too. In both cases, the triggers for the violence were unquestionably political.
To understand this, we need to go back to February 2016, when days after the Jat reservation violence the Haryana government appointed a three member committee headed by the well regarded retired IPS officer Prakash Singh, which went into acts of omission of commission by officers and others and also examined the triggers for the stir.
The committee concluded that while a highly politicised officialdom under Khattar abdicated its responsibility and failed to control the conflagration, the triggers for the confrontation were political. The “combustible atmosphere” was created by the inflammatory statements of BJP leaders like its MP from Kurukshetra, Raj Kumar Saini, who was openly challenging the Jats for a confrontation. It is common knowledge that the BJP came to power in Haryana in 2014 mainly on the strength of the non Jat votes and substantial support from the Dera Sacha Sauda. This still rankles with the powerful Jat community of Haryana which has an uneasy equation with the Khattar government. But when push came to shove and the Jats decided to show who really calls the shots in Haryana, Khattar and his government behaved like deer caught in the headlights of a truck. The committee report notes, “The state could not possibly complain of shortage of manpower. What was lacking was the will to act.”
The same lack of will to take preventive action against the Dera followers was visible in the last few days too.
BJP’s backing for Dera gurmeet ram rahim singh ML Khattar1
File photo: Haryana CM ML Khattar with Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.
Khattar and his government are busy trotting out excuses that cracking down on the Dera supporters before the judgment would have led to violence. No one is buying this excuse now. It was all too evident in the last few days that the thousands of people streaming into Panchkula, squatting on its green spaces and pavements were not just coming in unhindered, but were viewed with a benign eye by the state and ruling party.
This was evident from the statement of Haryana education minister Ram Bilas Sharma a couple of days ago, when he categorically said that the enforcement in Panchkula of Section 144 – which prevents the assembly of more than four persons – “does not apply to Dera premis… who are driven by their faith and are peaceful people.” So if not for them, did the government impose Section 144 on the residents of Panchkula and Chandigarh?
The words of the Prakash Singh committee report about events last year could very well apply to Friday’s developments in Haryana too. “At the state-level, suffice it to say that the picture was very dismal and showed deplorable lack of leadership at different levels… They were either unequal to the daunting situation they faced or they could not mobilise the full strength of the officers and men under their command, some of whom either went missing or deserted their duties.”
The other more worrying trend visible in both episodes is the manner in which a category of officials influenced by caste and their affiliation to the Dera did not enforce the law and allowed the arsonists a free run. If Jat officials were soft on the arsonists last year, this time many Dera sympathisers and supporters in the lower ranks of the police and administrative machinery in Haryana did not stop them from proceeding to Panchkula and Chandigarh. It was only when the Army and paramilitary forces took charge that some semblance of order was restored in Panchkula towards evening. The showpiece town with its beautiful parks and greenery, modelled on Chandigarh, had a rude introduction to anarchy as gun shots reverberated, smoke billowed at several places and blood fell on its clean streets.
It is also quite obvious that the situation was being closely monitored by the Centre at every stage and that Khattar and his colleagues were getting their cues from there. Given that the understanding with Dera head Ram Rahim, now a convicted rapist, was crafted by the BJP’s top brass who continued to kowtow to him after their 2014 victory, it is safe to assume that instructions to be soft on the Dera supporters and allow Ram Rahim the luxury of displaying his might as he drove for the hearing from Sirsa to Panchkula in a 200 car strong cavalcade came from Khattar’s political masters in the BJP.
Those in the know in Haryana say that the elected representatives in the Khattar government are often found floundering and it is the bureaucracy which really runs the show. It’s not surprising therefore that the “highly politicised” administrative machinery which was so severely indicted by the Prakash Singh committee report for letting down the citizens rubbished his report. The government which set up the committee also did not make the complete report public, and a sterling resource which pinpointed systemic and structural deficiencies and made concrete suggestions to prevent a recurrence of such anarchy was wilfully ignored. The result is there for all to see.
Chander Suta Dogra is a senior journalist. She is also a spokesperson of the Aam Aadmi Party.
Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh has given a bad name to all the deras and all the gurus. That would be unfair to the entire breed.
Deras and ashrams have been integral to the Indian social scene. I prefer to think of the deras and ashrams as natural manifestations of a changing social order; these are to be seen as outlets attending to the needs in society, beyond what the conventional religion is able to provide or not provide. Every organised religion develops a clergy and a hierarchy that over decades becomes rigidly demanding, choking up individualism and insisting on a conformist orthodoxy. In good time, there is dissent, a rebellion and a new sect, a new dera, a new math.
In modern parlance, the deras and ashrams are expressions of civil society at work, filling in the void created by the State’s failure to provide social protection and comfort to various social segments. Like a Lions Club or a Rotary Club, Dera Sacha Sauda also claims to be engaged in doing socially useful work.
People at all times and in every age have felt the need for spiritual fellowship. A successful guru is able to manufacture a unique relationship with his followers; a mutually convenient myth is created that the follower is blessed by proximity with the guru; each devotee is encouraged to feel that he/she shares a very special bond of nobility with the “baba”.
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OUTSIDERS may scoff at the deras, but for the devotees there is a very definite comfort, involving rites of inclusion and exclusion. Each dera creates its own special solidarity, which most devotees find very empowering, helping them cope with the vicissitudes of life. Deras obviously create a different world of alternate values where the followers feel respected and wanted. They offer approval and acceptance to the devotee.
In real life, most people have a need to follow — a leader, a guru, a role model, anyone who they think can help them make sense of a bewildering cruel world. This weakness is not just limited to the poor; even the very wealthy and well-to-do sections in society tend to gravitate towards the babas and gurus. Look at, for example, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar Maharaj and his upper class followers who feel pricey because they are his followers.
Many do laugh at Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s pretensions to be Messenger of God. But he certainly seems to have a remarkable organisational talent and a marketing touch that would be the envy of any public relations executive. Many find his sales pitch to be crude and uncouth, but there is nothing insincere about it. He does not hide behind the ochre robe; unlike that other Baba, Ramdev, he does not invoke our “nationalism” to sell his merchandise of biscuits, facewash, and toothpaste.
I think where all these babas and deras go wrong is in getting enticed by the corrupting politician’s allurements; or, in thinking that they can exploit the politician for their own use. No one — and, that means, no one — ever gets the better of the politician.
What I fail to understand is the dera’s choice of the politician. I would like to presume that these deras are run by some very intelligent and shrewd men. And, these prescient men should know that deras are the natural enemies in the Hindutva project. The ultimate goal of the Hindutva project is to impose a monolithic order on all strands of Hindu society, whereas the deras and the ashrams are islands of customised separateness.
No one should be surprised if last Friday’s violence is used to see to it that the Dera Sacha Sauda stands dismantled.
*****
SINCE its formation in 1966, this is first time that Haryana has had a BJP government. Till a few weeks ago, an advertisement campaign was serenading 1,000 days of “manohar raj” in Haryana. Pleasant and benign rule of Manohar Lal Khattar. The Chief Minister was even feted by the newly proclaimed “Chanakya” of Indian politics, Amit Shah of the BJP. And, now Haryana burns. So much for Chanakyan foresight.
Perhaps, the most disappointed lot would be those impresarios in Nagpur. Yet another RSS poster boy has turned out to be such a disappointment. The RSS assiduously instigates a view that anyone who gets baptised as a swayamsevak gets automatically endowed with qualities befitting a public office.
That may be the Nagpur mantra but the RSS experiment in Haryana has cost the state heavily. For the second time in sixteen months, the state has been subjected to massive convulsions and disorder, only because the Chief Minster has failed to graduate from a swayamsevak to an administrator. Anyone can be appointed a chief minister (a la Yogi Adityanath) and he can also be given any number of advisers and officers but when the push comes to a shove, it is the top man and his reflexes that overshadow the decision-making. Novices will be novices.
Dera chaos: Haryana government stands guilty of rank populism
TOI Editorials
Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh has been convicted of rape by a special CBI court in Haryana’s Panchkula. The case dates back to 2002 when a woman in the dera accused Ram Rahim of rape. However, what’s inexplicable is that in the run up to the court verdict the dera chief was able to get more than 1.5 lakh of his followers to descend on Panchkula in a show of strength.
This is a clear failure of the Haryana government to maintain law and order. The Punjab and Haryana high court slammed the local administration for allowing such a large number of dera followers to gather, noting the complete lack of will power among police to prevent them. The government allowed a situation to be created where mobile internet and SMSes have been restricted, trains to Punjab and Haryana have been cancelled, and schools and businesses have been shut. Such disruption to normal life – because the Haryana administration treats the head of a cult with kid gloves – is ridiculous.
Just as in the case of the Jat quota agitation last year, the BJP dispensation in Haryana needs to be blamed for the Panchkula mess as well. BJP often accuses other parties like Congress and SP of pandering to populist sentiments or vote banks. However, it’s guilty of the same with respect to Ram Rahim and his followers today – the dera had announced open support for BJP in the 2014 state polls. Violence by dera members after the court verdict has already claimed at least 28 lives with reports of arson also coming in from Delhi. State governments in coordination with the home ministry must take strict action against the perpetrators and ensure law and order at all costs.
Violence by dera members after the court verdict has already claimed at least 31 lives with reports of arson also coming in from Delhi.
Dera violence: How BJP funded & promoted the monster called Ram Rahim Singh
Aditya Menon, Anurag Dey | Updated on: 25 August 2017, 19:37 IST
[Ram Rahim with BJP]
(YouTube)
Large scale violence broke out in parts of Haryana and Punjab soon after a CBI court in Panchkula convicted Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh of rape. Several people had been killed in Haryana in the violence at the time of writing this story.
The BJP government in Haryana stands accused of gross administrative failure. On the eve of the verdict, it allowed lakhs of Dera supporters, or Premis as they are called, to gather at Panchkula. Dera supporters also mobilised themselves at Sirsa, the Dera’s bastion.
The administrative failure of the Manohar Lal Khattar government stems from its political compulsions. The BJP in Haryana enjoys close ties with Dera Sacha Sauda and this seems to have impaired it from cracking down on Dera goons on time.
Ram Rahim’s BJP links
Nothing embodies this failure more than Haryana education minister Ram Bilas Sharma’s comment that the Section 144 imposed in Panchkula “did not apply to Dera supporters”.
He even went to the extent of defending the people who had gathered at Panchkula. He reportedly described the Dera supporters as “simple, peace-loving people” who wouldn’t “harm even a plant”.
Sharma’s links with the Dera are well known. He is reported to have recently donated Rs 51 lakh to the Dera as a mark of his support for the cult.
But it isn’t just Sharma. A number of leaders in the Haryana BJP have deep ties with the Dera and this close relationship has the blessings of the party’s top leadership
The other major backer of Ram Rahim in the Haryana BJP is health minister Anil Vij. Vij donated Rs 50 lakh from Haryana government funds to the Dera’s sports project.
Another minister, Manish Grover, who holds the portfolios of printing, stationery and urban local bodies, also donated Rs 11 lakh to the Dera from his discretionary fund.
The support for the Dera extended even to the Central government, with Union minister for sports Vijay Goel also promised to support the Dera with Central funds.
Between the three BJP leaders – Sharma, Vij and Grover – the Dera was given over Rs 1 crore. This is despite the fact that even at the time of the donations, Ram Rahim faced charges of rape and murder.
What is even more sinister is that the BJP’s Central leadership – Prime Minister Narendra Modi as well as BJP president – were active participants in this cosy relationship of the party with Dera.
During the campaign for the Haryana Assembly elections in 2014, PM Modi reportedly showered praise on the rape-accused godman while addressing a rally in Sirsa. Apparently, this was the first time that a major political leader had openly invoked the Dera during an election campaign. The Congress and Akali Dal leaders, who often sought support of the Dera in the past, made it a point not to publically name the Dera or its controversial chief.
On the other hand, the 2014 Haryana elections was also the first time when the Dera chief openly voiced his preference for a political party – the BJP. Before this, Ram Rahim’s diktat to vote for one party or the other was communicated through more secretive ways to his followers.
According to a report, the deal with Ram Rahim was sealed by none other than BJP president Amit Shah. The report said that Shah met Ram Rahim in the first week of October and “sought his blessings” for the Assembly elections in Haryana and Maharashtra. The report said that six days after the meeting with Shah, BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya took 44 BJP candidates for the Haryana polls to meet the Dera chief. Apparently, Ram Rahim showered his blessings on the BJP candidates during the meeting.
The Modi government also used Ram Rahim to push its Swachh Bharat initiative.
BJP insiders say that Ram Rahim is a valuable political ally for the party, as he commands the loyalty of over 1 crore followers across the country, particularly in Haryana and Punjab.
“Dera commands a large voter base of over a crore with a large percentage of Dalits. They vote en bloc. BJP leaders have been in regular touch with Ram Rahim and expected him to play a major role in bringing votes the party’s way in Haryana and Punjab in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections,” a senior BJP leader told Catch on the condition of anonymity.
The leader admitted that the Khattar government had no choice but to go soft on the Dera supporters and let them have their way.
“Dera followers are not small in number, in fact they are huge. We have to move very, very cautiously. Patience is the need of the hour. A wrong move and things can go out of control. We have already seen that in the 2016 Jat agitation,” the leader said.
Dera and the RSS gameplan
The Dera’s significance isn’t just related to elections. It is said to occupy a key place in the broader gameplan of its parent organisation – the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
“Sangh’s aims are not always associated with the BJP. The BJP is focused on elections, Sangh works for society. Sangh has been cultivating various Deras – Radha Soami Satsang, Dera Sacha Sauda etc – for some years now,” a Sangh functionary based in Amritsar had told Catch during the Punjab elections earlier this year.
“The Deras work with the Dalit community, particularly Dalit Sikhs, who are ill-treated by Panthic Sikhs. The Deras help in bringing them back into the Hindu fold,” the functionary added.
The functionary was extremely categorical in saying that the interests of the Sangh were at odds with Panthic politics. “They emphasise on the minority nature of Sikhs. We don’t seem them in that way. Often even mainstream Sikh leaders take radical positions or appease radical elements. The Deras can help us counter this,” he added.
Apparently to pursue this agenda, RSS Sarsanghchalak spent some time at Mansa in South Punjab in 2014. During his visit, he reportedly met the head of the Radhasoami sect Baba Gurinder Singh Dhillon.
The Dera Sacha Sauda has its roots in the Radha Soami sect. Its founder Khema Mal aka Balochistani Shah Mastana, was a disciple of Baba Sawan Singh of the Radhasoami lineage.
It is clear that in Punjab’s socio-political landscape, RSS and the Deras are on the same side. Even Panthic outfits, mainstream as well as radical ones, realise that such an alliance has taken place.
According to Punjab police, the same radical Sikh group is said to have been behind the killings of RSS leader Jagdish Gagneja last year and Dera Sacha Sauda supporters earlier this year.
The violence by Dera supporters is likely to increase social tensions in Haryana and Punjab. The BJP’s political and financial support to Dera Sacha Sauda is singularly to blame for this.
‘A new threat to sadhus’: BJP leaders blame everyone but Dera Sacha Sauda for violence in Panchkula
Thirty people are reported to have died and over 200 injured in Haryana after a court convicted Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh of rape on Friday.
Even as 30 people died and 200 been injured in violence in Haryana after a Central Bureau Investigation court in Panchkula on Friday convicted Dera Sacha Sauda leader Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh of raping two of his followers 15 years ago, various Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and supporters, including Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar, have begun to blame this violence on everyone but Dera Sacha Sauda followers.
“Anti-social elements got mixed up with followers of Dera Sacha Sauda and resorted to violence disrupting peace,” Khattar is reported to have said to the media late on Friday evening, after an initial neutral statement that he was monitoring the situation.
State failure: Why did Haryana allow lakhs of Ram Rahim’s supporters to gather in Panchkula?
Questions are being raised about the Haryana government’s handling of the situation
Shoaib Daniyal (scroll.in -25 Aug 2017)
The town of Panchkula, near Chandigarh, in Haryana is under siege. Earlier on Friday, religious leader Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was convicted of rape by a Central Bureau of Investigation court. Angered by the verdict, his supporters went on the rampage – they clashed with security forces and destroyed public and private property. As of 8 pm on Friday, media reports said that 29 people had been killed and several others injured in the violence, with security forces struggling to control it.
However, as deras became powerful with large foreign remittances, the
dera chiefs turned themselves into cult-like figures or messengers
between the people and God. Thus, deras not only became alternate
spiritual centres but also a source of alternative employment. Many of
them acquired huge tracts of land – both from the Jat Sikhs who were
diversifying into other businesses and the governments – and employed
their followers as agrarian workers. The deras paid them much better
than what they used to get from the landed Jat Sikhs. Many of them
opened other businesses to employ their followers. The deras also opened
their centres across the globe. This, to an extent, explains the blind
faith that the followers have on their deras.
“He (Gurmeet Singh) wears flamboyant costumes and ornate jewellery,
acts in films and makes money from them. He also knows how to use the
electronic and social media,” explained Pramod Kumar.
