Jodhpur special court’s verdict of a life-term on self-styled godman Asaram will send a strong message across to the hundreds of fraud godmen and babas roaming the nation. It will be testimony of the fate that godmen like Asaram meet eventually after riding high on money power. It is also an eye-opener to those who have not shown an iota of humanitarianism and have abused the blind fate of lakhs of followers.
At a time when religious leaders are seen as role models to society, godmen like Asaram and Ram Rahim have risen from their humble beginnings to create a bigger than life image of themselves. This has been a huge shameful fall from grace.
The question to be raised is who has made these larger-than-life figures like Asaram? Is it the huge fan following that they build up over the years? Or is it the political patronage they enjoyed?
Asaram’s life is an out-of-the-movie rags to riches story. The godman, originally known as Asumal, started off his journey as a tongawalla to ferry devotees from the railway station to Ajmer Sharif dargah on his pony cart in 1963 only to start his first ashram in 1972. Over the years, Asaram amassed an estimated Rs 10,000 crore wealth with around 400 ashrams in India and abroad.
Where people across the country are on the boil fighting for justice in the Kathua and Unnao cases, where rapes have happened with barbaric cruelty, this judgement will restore their faith and confidence in the judiciary. When there are rapes happening on a daily basis across the nation, government should shun all political affiliations while dealing with these barbaric crimes. The rapes of frail child victims by vicious godmen cannot be used to play a political game. Obstruction of justice and brazen endorsement of child-rape cannot be accepted at any cost. The political patronage that these godmen have been enjoying is well established and so is the political hand that chooses to insidiously subvert fair investigations.
Asaram has been the biggest example of a fraud baba. It’s time to unmask the several other fake babas and sadhus who throng the streets and villages of India taking millions of people for a ride and deceitfully raping innocent girls in the comforts of their abodes.
The judgement is met with an uneasy calm among his followers and is indicative of the fact that the people have reconciled with the fate Asaram has met. Much unlike the Ram Rahim fallout where thousands of followers went on a rampage, there was a steady silence. There are several cases of gruesome rapes which have been long forgotten. These need to be taken up on a priority basis and fast-tracked. Only the harshest possible punishment, including capital punishment against rapes can arrest a catastrophic societal collapse.
