Why we flock to godmen, gurus and charlatans

My first encounter with a guru-led spiritual commune was at the Osho ashram in Koregaon Park, Pune. Unfortunately by the time I arrived, Osho had already passed away.

I have written about my experiences at the commune earlier on this platform. Like many others, I was not content with the cookie-cutter version of reality handed to me and was seeking answers to the grand mystery of life: Why are we here? What is the meaning of human existence? What happens when we die? Is there any way out of the chaos and uncertainty of life? Various religions, cults and mystics down the ages have attempted to answer these questions, in the process attracting legions of fanatical followers, ready to kill and die for their beliefs.

The master and his flock

The demand to "surrender" ones' critical faculties in order to be worthy of the master's grace is common to most spiritual organisations. Unequal power relations between the master and his flock often lead to mass exploitation and serial abuse. Not all spiritual teachers are corrupt. Some still hold out the promise of unmitigated wisdom and genuine insights into the reality of the human condition. Sadly, these are dwindling in number. With the spate of sordid sex scandals emanating from the realm of gurus and godmen, it is hard not to be sceptical about all things "spiritual".

The Gujarati godman, Asaram, is only the latest in a long list of holy fraudsters to be convicted for crimes of a sexual nature. He was proclaimed guilty and sentenced to life in prison for raping a 16-year-old, who had been sent to him for counselling by her parents. At the time of his arrest, Asaram had an estimated net worth of Rs 10,000 crore and a mini-empire of over 400 ashrams spread across the world.

Asaram still has many devoted acolytes among the political and business class, including the current Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. "It was my great opportunity to have met him at a point in my life when nobody knew me," Modi had said few years back. "From that time I have been receiving Bapu's blessings, have continued to receive his affection."

When flamboyant Haryana godman cum film and music personality, Gurmeet Singh Ram Rahim, was convicted of multiple rapes in 2017, his flock erupted in fury, leading to massive riots, large-scale property damage, hundreds of injuries and 30 deaths. He would lure women into his inner sanctum and rape them, claiming he was liberating them from their karmic debts by engaging in holy intercourse.

Asaram justified his actions using similar reasoning, as did Virender Dev Dixit, who was arrested for confining girls at his Delhi ashram for sexual assault.

The exposé

The police officer, who raided the ashram, rescuing 21 girls including six minors, said "What is really shocking is that this baba used to tell these women and minor girls that he is an incarnation of Lord Ram and the world will end in 2066 and if they don't submit to him physically and emotionally, they all will die."

Ram Chander Chhatrapati, the journalist who initially exposed Gurmeet Singh, was shot at point blank range outside his house. He succumbed to his injuries a month later in the hospital. In Asaram's case, three key witnesses, former aides to the guru, were shot prior to giving testimony.

Following a 10-year-long investigation, journalist Anurag Tripathi recently published an exposé titled Dera Sacha Sauda and Gurmeet Ram Rahim: A Decade-long Investigation, which details how a young man from a humble agrarian background became Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Insaan "Maharaj", a hugely popular spiritual personality idolised by tens of thousands of people. The story involves murders, sexual exploitation, forced castrations, private militias, illegal trade in arms and opium, and land grab at an unprecedented scale.

Sexual depravity in the name of religion is not restricted to Hinduism. In 2013, self-styled Sufi dervish, Gulzar Ahmed Bhat, was arrested by Jammu and Kashmir police for raping and sexually abusing several young girls housed at his religious centre, Khansahib in Budgam district.

The godman had been repeatedly exploiting the girls sexually on the pretext of "purifying" them. And in 2016, Father Edgar Pigarez, a Kochi-based Catholic priest, was awarded double life imprisonment for repeatedly raping a 14-year-old girl at his parish house.

Sadly, it is only within the Hindu fold that sex offenders find staunch defenders, their heinous crimes attributed to a "secular conspiracy". When an eight year-old Bakarwal girl was abducted, drugged and gang-raped in a temple by a priest and a police officer, elected officials from the BJP organised a procession in support of her rapists.

The defence

And when Asaram was first charged with rape in 2015, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy met him in jail, expressed his sympathies, claiming that he had been framed and that the case was based entirely on circumstantial evidence. Swamy is widely regarded as a crank for his outlandish conspiracy theories and had in the past been ignominiously sacked from his teaching post at Harvard for his bigoted remarks against India's Muslim community.

To be sure, Swamy is not the only rape apologist in Modi's menagerie. NRI hyper-nationalist Rajiv Malhotra has made it his life's mission to malign investigators and defend serial sex offenders like Nithyananda, Asaram and Gurmeet Singh. Armies of deranged trolls, many of whom are inspired by Malhotra's kooky conspiracy theories, regularly issue rape and death threats against those who speak up against the fascist politics and toxic nationalism of the Hindu right.

The Ramdev story

Politics and religion have always had a torrid and incestuous relationship in India. Influential gurus with huge followings are appeased by politicians across the political spectrum as their endorsement can often sway electoral fortunes at the ballot box.

Baba Ramdev, a small town huckster, came of age doing cheap parlor tricks before his largely rural audience. With the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he too rose in prominence and with the help of a few key aides, put together a consumer goods empire that grew from strength to strength under the auspices of the ruling dispensation.

Ramdev's legal team recently filed an injunction to halt the release of journalist Priyanka Narain's exposé, Godman to Tycoon: The Untold Story of Baba Ramdev. The book traces the yoga guru's journey from Haridwar to setting up the Patanjali group, which is now India's second-largest FMCG company. The author also delves into his murky past, the controversies he has been involved in - such as the mysterious deaths of his two associates, Rajeev Dixit and Swami Yogananda - and financial irregularities in his business dealings.

Yogi Adityanath, mahant of the Gorakhnath math, was known mainly for rabble-rousing and igniting communal passions among Hindus and Muslims, till he was flung into the spotlight when Modi appointed him chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state.

Perhaps no one was more surprised than Adityanath himself who never expected to be elevated from being a street thug to chief minister in the blink of an eye. Soon after taking office, his government told the Allahabad High Court that he could not be prosecuted for making a hate speech during the communal riots in Gorakhpur in 2007.

Furthermore his government ordered the withdrawal of a 1995 case against him for defying prohibitory orders, reinforcing the widely held belief that in the Indian context, the rule of law is only a noble idea, and not a hard reality.

During the heydays of the Congress party, Indira Gandhi had her favourite spiritual counsellor, Dhirendra Brahmachari. PV Narasimha Rao's go-to guru was the tantric-adept Chandraswami. Both gurus exercised considerable influence over their powerful acolytes and benefited tremendously from the association.

Why babas thrive

Scandal-ridden spiritual leaders and organisations are certainly not limited to India. The sinister underbelly of cults and organised religion has been laid bare in every culture around the world. Yet it still thrives. What makes so many educated middle- and-upper-class people abandon their critical faculties and surrender en masse to the dictates of a spiritual authority? The answer may have to do with something that psychologists call spiritual bypassing.

In the early 1980s, psychologist John Welwood coined the term "spiritual bypassing" to refer to the use of spiritual practices and concepts as a denial mechanism - to avoid dealing with uncomfortable feelings, unresolved wounds, repressed traumas and fundamental emotional and psychological needs.

Bypassing unresolved trauma using the crutch of religion can lead to a downward spiral ending in fanaticism, jingoism and religious bigotry, as is often the case in inchoate post colonial societies like India where religion is woven into the warp and weft of everyday life and the separation of church and state is only a noble idea, and not a hard fact.

"Many people try to find a spiritual path where they do not have to face themselves but where they can still liberate themselves - liberate themselves from themselves, in fact. In truth, this is impossible," says Tibetan author Chogyam Trungpa in his seminal work Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. "We cannot do that. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to see our gut, our real shit, our most undesirable parts. We have to see that. That is the foundation of warrior-ship and the basis of conquering fear. We have to face our fear; we have to look at it, study it, work with it, and practice meditation with it."

Filled with hubris, delusion and lies, most wannabe gurus would not make the cut if they had to ruthlessly scrutinise themselves through the lens of self-inquiry. However challenging it may seem, Trungpa's advice is invaluable for all those wishing to tread on the spiritual path, not just for their own health and sanity, but also for the well-being of those who may enter their sphere of influence.

Also read: Convicted rapist Asaram appears like a superhero on his website