Inside Asaram's Evil Empire

India Today/November 30, 1999

By Uday Mahurkar

"I salute Bin Laden," he proclaimed just three days after the world witnessed unprecedented televised horror as Mohammad Atta and his men brought down the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. Oblivious to the tragic loss of human lives, this self-appointed 'god' of men, an associate recalls, was filled with admiration for the al Qaeda chief and his unquestioning death squads. "Those are the kind of followers I want," he declared mocking his own flock.

On August 31, a police posse from Jodhpur arrested Asaram Bapu on charges of raping the 16-year-old daughter of a Shahjahanpur (Uttar Pradesh) couple who had been his devotees for years. He now awaits his fate in a cell at the Central Jail at Jodhpur. Allegations of earlier sexual misdemeanours, macabre tantric rituals, murder, intimidation and land grabbing have also resurfaced, tightening the noose around India's most controversial godman.

Four decades after he set out in single-minded pursuit of a bizarre dream to become god, Asumal Harpalani aka Asaram Bapu, who reportedly used to be a tongawallah, then briefly a roadside tea vendor and occasionally a bootlegger in Ahmedabad's Maninagar locality, lords over a 10 to 30 million-strong herd of sadhaks (followers). To them, he is, "Pujya Sant Shri Asaram-ji Bapu" The title in English is "His Divine Holiness", they zealously inform you.

Asaram's followers seem just as driven as al Qaeda's intent-on-suicide jihadists, equally unquestioning, even prepared to die for the man they see as their saviour. "I am not afraid of going to jail or dying for Bapu," says Yogesh, 32. The lean sadhak, who was barely 18 and wanted to join the Indian Army but instead enlisted with "Bapuji ki fauj (Bapu's army)", is convinced Asaram is his only salvation. "Sitaaron se aage bhi kuchh hai (There is something more beyond the stars)," he says, evidently unbelieving of the rape charge that landed his 'god' in jail.

Yogesh is among seven of Asaram's closest followers accused of a role in the July 2008 deaths of two 10-year-old cousins. Abhishek and Dipesh, students of the gurukul at the godman's central ashram in Motera village outside Ahmedabad, were sons of two poor stone masons, Shantibhai and Praful Vaghela. A report submitted by the D.K. Trivedi Commission, notified by the Narendra Modi government in August 2008 to probe allegations that the boys were killed in tantric rituals, is being withheld.

His capacity to draw large gatherings at satsangs and his constantly swelling flock had, in time, politicians of all hues falling over each other to associate with Asaram. "He's as clever as they come for a man who has hardly had any formal schooling," says Amrut Prajapati, 54, who served as Asaram's personal vaid (ayurvedic physician) for 16 years. He says Asaram "can summon 50,000 people by simply snapping his fingers".

Ahead of the Assembly elections that first delivered him to the Gujarat chief minister's office in October 2001, Narendra Modi kick-started his poll campaign by sharing Asaram's stage and crowd. In the years that followed, the godman's entourage of politicians became a veritable galaxy including men and women like former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, Uma Bharti, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, former president K.R. Narayanan, Union ministers Kamal Nath and Kapil Sibal, H.D. Deve Gowda and Raghuvansh Prasad Singh. George Fernandes and Farooq Abdullah also took their turn to pay obeisance.

A little help from friends

Even after Modi curtailed his association following public outrage over the killing of the Vaghela cousins in July 2008, many of his party colleagues continued to cultivate Asaram. In December 2012, when the godman survived a helicopter crash in Godhra, bjp President Rajnath Singh promptly attributed the 'miracle' to the godman's "divine powers".

D.G. Vanzara, the suspended Gujarat Police deputy inspector general (DIG) currently in jail facing trial for four allegedly fake encounters, is widely believed to have helped Asaram expand his influence amid politicians and bureaucrats. "Vanzara was invariably at the Motera ashram during Guru Purnima, always escorting someone big," says a senior Ahmedabad journalist, adding that the godman milked his proximity to the powerful police officer to pre-empt police action against his own people in the most brazen instances of land grabbing. Whispers in Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad following Asaram's recent arrest allege "the godman and the cop were in cahoots".

Shantibhai and Praful Vaghela are convinced that Asaram and his men continued to influence the police long after the DIG was jailed in 2007 and prevented criminal action even after their sons' gouged-out corpses were recovered from the Sabarmati riverbed only a few hundred metres from the Motera ashram.

For a man who aspired to play god, Asaram seems given to base pursuits and creature comforts that most ordinary mortals would be embarrassed about. Prajapati, who gained access to the godman's innermost sanctums after he helped him recover from a severe bout of malaria in 1999, describes Asaram's 'shanti kutir' (peace hut) or 'dhyan ki kutiya' (meditation hut) from the first time he was summoned to attend to the ailing godman. "Asaram sprawled across an oversized bed, completely out of his wits," he recalls. But more than his patient, he remembers the opulence of his quarters "with uninterrupted air conditioning, an ultra-luxurious attached bathroom and even a dehumidifier" that kept air moisture levels bearable during the soggiest monsoons. Other than this, says the ayurvedic doctor, Asaram's rooms at most of his ashrams seemed almost spartan: Bare, cream coloured walls without picture frames, "not even his own portraits, the kind splashed across the rest of the ashram".

State of paranoia

"Asaram constantly fears he will be secretly filmed with a woman," says another aide who spoke to India Today on the assurance that he would not be identified. "He is paranoid about hidden cameras and doesn't even allow ceiling fans in his room," he says.

When he first began treatment in 1999, Prajapati says Asaram's essential afflictions included high cholesterol levels, an overactive thyroid gland and obesity. "Rakshas jaisa chehra tha (He had the face of a demon)," says the man who once worshipped Asaram as a god. On hindsight, he sees a "debauched person who could not do without three-hour massages and long baths in rose-scented water with saffron-infused soaps".

But what eventually drove men like Prajapati, Raju Chandak (a former ashram manager), his own son-in-law Hemant Bulani, former man Friday Dinesh Bhagchandani and scores of other once-committed followers away from Asaram's mesmerising gridlock was their discovery of his irrepressible weakness for young women. Something that has now landed the godman in jail on charges of forcing himself on a minor girl.

Fifty-two-year-old Sudha Patel, who became a part of Asaram's flock at the Motera ashram in 1986, says she was forced to flee a decade later. "It was no longer an ashram, a place where one could seek god," she says recounting sordid details of how two young women codenamed 'dehl' (peahen in Gujarati) and 'bungalow' would act as spotters, constantly scoping out congregations for young women. Their cue, she says, was when the godman threw a fruit or piece of candy, at a girl he fancied amid his devotees.

"It was a simple and practiced routine," says Sudha. "The spotters and older sadhikas convinced the girl's parents that their daughter had been blessed. They cajoled them to take her to Asaram's kutir where he would perform anusthaan (special puja) especially for her."

Sudha and Prajapati, however, admit that there was seldom any coercion. "Most girls and families believed they were blessed. After all, their 'god' had chosen them. He was 'Krishna' and they would be his 'gopis'," says Prajapati, recalling instances where he was witness to arguments over who would go into Asaram's kutir on a particular day.

Sudha, who earns a meagre living selling ayurvedic medicines in Ahmedabad, says she is among a handful of women of the Motera ashram who survived despite spurning the godman. She claims Asaram had openly offered to reward anyone who could bring her around. "He would often announce during the satsangs-'jo Sudha ko sudhaar ke dikhawe, use ek lakh rupaye inaam doonga' (whoever reforms Sudha will be rewarded with Rs 1 lakh)," she says.

The despondent disciples

Despondency is plainly evident at the Motera ashram. Attendance has visibly thinned. "Wahan par koi nahi hai. Bapu ko to police pakad kar le gayi (There is nobody there the police have taken Asaram away)," an autorickshaw driver at the end of the road leading to the ashram informs you. He is trying to be helpful but gives you the distinct impression that he knew this would happen.

Behind zealously guarded perimeter walls is a profusely green oasis of peepul, neem and banyan trees growing around the ashram buildings with walls peppered with larger-than-life images of Asaram and excerpts from his 'teachings'. Not far below the spot where followers say Asaram first sat down to meditate 42 years ago, the Sabarmati quietly flows towards another not-so-controversial and humble-in-comparison ashram-the Mahatama Gandhi memorial.

"Yahan hum sabhi bahut peedit hain (We are all feeling great pain)," says Yogesh, who has been left to look after the Motera ashram with most senior functionaries camping closer to their 'god' in Jodhpur. He is clearly crushed that his guru is accused of rape. "Why are they doing this to him? He is a pious man who has always believed in everyone's welfare," he says.

The young sadhak angrily refutes allegations levelled by former devotees like Chandak and Prajapati. "Prajapati lived a life of luxury while he was here. He had the run of the entire establishment, got to travel by air and had a car and chauffeur at his disposal," he says insisting the former vaid quit because he thought he could earn big money having served as Asaram's personal physician. Chandak, he claims, left after "he was caught embezzling funds".

Yogesh and the shrinking band of Asaram's followers at the Motera ashram say they are confident he will emerge unscathed. But what if the rape charge sticks? "We will grow stronger," he says, "You see, pain always makes people stronger." The young sadhak claims that there have been increased footfalls in the ashram since the day Asaram was arrested. "People who weren't seen for months are showing up," he says.

The decidedly sparse sprinkling of followers still battling to keep their faith belies his claim. Two youngsters, dressed in the signature white kafnis (short kurtas) and dhotis chant monotonously. Close by, a couple sits before a smoking havan with folded hands. They are all praying for only one thing-Asaram's release from jail.

"Moorkh (Fools)," Prajapati says of people who continue to blindly pursue their faith in Asaram despite repeated exposure of his true face.

On January 7, amid the raging storm over the brutal gang rape of a physiotherapy student in south Delhi on December 16, Asaram declared the victim was as guilty as her attackers. "The girl should have called the culprits her brothers and begged them to stop this could have saved her life," he stated, adding to the outrage.

Would Asaram have relented if the 16-year-old he is accused of raping had addressed him as brother? "Not a chance," says Prajapati, "he would not have backed off even if she had called him 'father'. He insists he is god and everything he does is an 'act of god'."

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