By Prarthana Mitra
Indian spiritual guru Asaram Bapu was handed a life sentence on Wednesday for the sexual assault of a minor. Amidst a high-security hearing in Jodhpur High Court, Asaram who has been in jail since August 2013 was found guilty and convicted of raping a sixteen-year-old disciple from Uttar Pradesh, on her visit to one of his ashrams in Rajasthan.
Security had been increased considerably in several northern states ahead of the verdict, with Section 144 being imposed in the Jodhpur till April 30. Asaram’s ashram had been evacuated ahead of the verdict and millions of his followers were warned against assembling at the jail, to avoid the chaos that descended after another spiritual guru Gurmeet Ram Rahim had been found guilty of rape last year.
Here’s what happened
The complaint was filed in Delhi by two of Asaram’s followers whose daughter had been assaulted in the Jodhpur ashram in 2013, where he had summoned her under the pretext of curing “evil spirits”. Horrific details soon surfaced from the girl’s statement, according to which the self-styled godman allegedly molested the victim for more than an hour, demanded oral sex, and even “threatened” to kill her parents if she protested or spoke about it.
After medical examination proved the verity of her statement, the ashram was sealed off for further investigation and Asaram was booked under IPC sections 342 (wrongful confinement), 376 (rape), 506 (criminal intimidation), besides sections of the Juvenile Justice Act and the POCSO Act.
Asaram has consistently denied the allegations with lies about being impotent, even though medical tests have proven otherwise. Multiple pleas for bail have been rejected following a large number of public protests demanding speedy justice for the victim. 77-year-old Asaram with a huge following of fanatics is likely to appeal against the verdict in a higher court, even as he continues to be involved in another rape trial in Gujarat.
Why you should care
This is not the first time that a self-proclaimed godman has blatantly abused his power over the millions in India that place their faith in such self-proclaimed spiritual gurus.
Born as Asumal Harpalani in the yet-undivided Pakistan, Asaram’s family moved to Ahmedabad after the partition where he started practising spiritualism with different gurus and set up his first ashram in 1972, on the banks of the Sabarmati in Motera. His influence soon spread far and wide and he came to be revered as a “Bapu” (father-figure), to disempowered Dalits in North India as well as an elite clique of followers which included prominent political figures from the BJP and the Congress.
By 2008, his empire comprising gurukuls, local industries, printing presses was worth Rs 5,000 crore, according to a police charge sheet. Shortly afterwards that year, mutilated bodies of two boys with missing vital organs were discovered close to his ashram in Motera, which led to the arrest of seven of his followers by the Gujarat police the following year.
A few months after Asaram was arrested for the Jodhpur ashram rape, two sisters from Surat, emboldened by the government’s action, filed two separate complaints of repeated sexual assault and forceful confinement over many years by Asaram and his son Narayan Sai, who was subsequently arrested. What followed was a spate of attacks on nine key witnesses, leaving as many as three dead.
Utsav Bains, the UP victim’s lawyer, told NDTV on Wednesday, “[…] nothing can compensate for the trauma that the victim and the family have gone through.”
As the rest of the victims await their justice, it is time we put an end to this herd mentality, which leads a large section of our country’s populace to mistake blind faith for spirituality. We must ask ourselves if this is what we accept in the name of unquestioning faith and more importantly if this is the price our community must pay for the sins of these so-called godmen.