On July 2, more than 120 people died in a stampede during the satsang of a ‘baba’, popularly known as Bhole Baba, in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. The deceased were mainly women and children. It was a heart-wrenching tragedy. However, what’s more tragic is that such incidents keep happening time and again but as a society, we do not learn anything from them.
From the Mandhardevi tragedy in 2005 in which over 340 devotees were trampled to death, the Chamunda Devi temple tragedy in 2008 in which 224 people were killed, the January 2022 Vaishno Devi tragedy in which 12 people were killed, and many people losing their lives after suffering from sunstroke at an event in Kharghar in 2023—the list of such incidents is long.
The most shocking bit emerging after the recent Hathras tragedy is that despite losing family members and close relatives, people continue to support Bhole Baba, who is still absconding. This is not an isolated incident. The phenomenon of common people supporting self-proclaimed godmen/women despite having proof of their involvement in heinous crimes is common.
Asaram Bapu, Rampal or Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh are other examples. All three have been convicted of serious offences and are in different jails but they still have lakhs of supporters. In fact, Ram Rahim—who claims to have an influence on the polling outcome of two to three constituencies in Punjab-Haryana—keeps getting furloughs prior to every election. This puzzling trend should concern anyone with even the slightest ability to think. The collective social psyche of our country is suffering from terrible incongruity.
If we try to disentangle this phenomenon, the first thing that becomes obvious is that though we have at our disposal all the scientific inventions, we have conveniently forgotten to develop scientific temperament as an important resource when it comes to facing the daily challenges of life.
In a country with a population of 135 crore, we have less than 10,000 trained mental health professionals. This vacuum is filled by godmen/women.
Narendra Dabholkar, the founder of Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS), used to say that we use materialist things like TVs, mobiles, or cars and even get addicted to the Internet or social media—all, in one way or the other, products of science—but we have neglected the most important aspect of science—scientific temperament.
It basically means systematically searching for a cause-effect relationship in events happening around us. Every incident happening around us has a cause and we can search for that cause simply by applying our brain. Claims made by the likes of Bhole Baba—of possessing divine powers—do not stand even preliminary scientific scrutiny.
The lack of the culture of helping children develop scientific scrutiny in schools is the reason why some people fall prey to claims made by self-proclaimed godmen/women in their adult lives. Though most of the followers of Bhole Baba come from a section of society that is devoid of quality education, even highly educated people falling prey to such claims is very common. The most obvious reason for this is the lack of emphasis on the development of a scientific temperament in our formal education system.
Another important factor that fuels this situation is the increasing psychological stress among the masses. In the past three decades, especially in the post-globalisation scenario, stress levels have increased, and coincidentally, there has been a rise in the number of such babas.
In a country with a population of 135 crore, we have less than 10,000 trained mental health professionals. There is a huge gap between the number of people seeking help for mental health issues and the availability of professionals who are able to provide easily accessible, affordable and culturally appropriate interventions. This vacuum is filled by the self-proclaimed godmen/women. If we take a closer look at the individuals and families who become followers of these godmen/women, we find that stress is a cross-cutting theme.
The change in aspiration levels of large sections of our society is another important factor. Seeking more and more pleasure in life bordering on the level of greed has started becoming a norm. An individual under the spell of greed is the most vulnerable target for these godmen/women. The way the human brain has evolved from the animal brain is that it has the inherent vulnerability of falling prey to irrational patterns of thinking while under the effect of psychological stress or the influence of greed. All these self-proclaimed godmen/women are very much aware of this fact, and they end up exploiting the masses.
The fact that they get support and approval from political parties is the primary reason why these babas exist and are thriving. The Bhole Baba story is a classic example. He was a policeman. After taking voluntary retirement from the police force, he started claiming that he had divine powers and asked his followers to call him ‘Baba Narayan Hari.’
He has a huge following. Unfortunately, as people from both the ruling and Opposition parties in Uttar Pradesh are allegedly his supporters, there is no possibility of any concrete action being taken in this case.
In addition to support from political parties, these self-proclaimed godmen/women draw a lot of support from the local administration, police force and judiciary as well. Bhole Baba, for instance, is accused in multiple cases. A few of them were related to his claim of bringing a dead person to life. If appropriate action had been taken at that time, a tragedy like Hathras could have been averted. The most shocking thing is that even after the Hathras tragedy, the police have not named Bhola Baba in the FIR.
We need to make a collective effort to adopt a multipronged approach to deal with the instances of exploitation by these godmen/women. One of the important strategies is the nationwide implementation of the Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Act. The Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013 was passed in Maharashtra ten years ago after a two-decade-long battle. Dabholkar sacrificed his life for this cause. Under this Act, someone claiming to have divine power and exploiting people by making such false claims is considered a punishable offence. If this Act is implemented at the national level, all these godmen/women who claim to have divine powers and exploit common citizens in the name of God and religion can be put behind bars. In the past ten years, more than 1,200 babas and buwas in Maharashtra have been booked under the Act. These godmen/women are from across religions and not a single incident of misuse of this law has come to light so far. More than fifteen cases of serious offences, like human sacrifice, have been prevented through this Act.
As a welcome development, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge demanded the implementation of the Act across the country while speaking in the Rajya Sabha after the Hathras tragedy. Vice-president and Rajya Sabha speaker Jagdeep Dhankhar also said that leaders from the ruling party and the Opposition should sit together and discuss implementing the Act. It is high time that all political parties stop supporting such shady persons for votes.
The legal aspect alone is not enough to achieve desirable results unless we back it up with large-scale awareness campaigns against these godmen/women and emphasis on enhanced focus on the inculcation of scientific temperament in school and college curricula. The provision of cost-effective, easily accessible and culturally appropriate mental health services is also an important strategy to consider. We need to learn to differentiate between the concept of God and religion, which help us to become better human beings and these godmen/women who degrade the very concept by exploiting people in the name of God and religion.
(Views expressed are personal)
Hamid Dabholkar is a psychiatrist and member of Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti
(This appeared in the print as 'Time To Act')
