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Editor's Desk

All in god’s name

An engineer turned godman, Rampal has lived life ‘king-size’ it seems. Most of them anyway do. With an air of vehemence around them, they move about in huge congregations. The congregations where there is a flurry of cars and caravans too, are usually organised by collecting funds from the mindless followers. It is all the matter of a single prophecy having been proven right. Once it does there is no looking back. But why should the society allow godmen to exist in the first place? Answer to that question is perhaps as difficult as to ascertaining the veracity of what they say.

If Chadraswami, a self styled godman wreaked havoc in Rajiv Gandhi’s political career as the prime minister of the country, Asaram Bapu has been accused of sexually abusing a 16 year old girl at his Jodhpur Ashram even as her mother waited outside. Self styled yoga guru, Baba Ramdev has also been accused of forceful land grabbing and tax evasion and this is especially ironical because he was someone who became part of the Anna Hazare run India Against Corruption (IAC) movement in 2011 and used to give long speeches on how should one lead a righteous life.

There is a trend amongst these self styled godmen and which is to amass a large amount of wealth through supporters’ donations. Most of these supporters who donate large scale money are claimed to be based out of the country. In essence, the donations are nothing but registration fees which is usually collected from people in order to take part in the often festival like gatherings. Another name is that of Nirmal Baba who very famously came on television to declare his annual turnover which was some couple of hundred crores of Indian rupees. The question is not about they being stopped but is about the complete failure of law enforcing agencies to put these hoodlums behind bars. If they are not and if a campaign against their alleged activities is not run, there may be a possibility that the ignorant people who go to their camps and meetings might fall into a pit, recovery from where may be impossible.       
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