JAY MAZOOMDAAR - Asaram Bapu: The Saint And His Taint // Father of the girl reveals their story
Once his name is mentioned, almost everybody seems to have an Asaram Bapu story. A popular Bollywood director known for his comedies with a message recalls how Asaram’s men were after him to get him to popularise the idea of celebrating Matri Pitri pujan diwas, Bapu’s brainwave to counter Valentine’s Day, even offering to fly him to “locations” in the ashram’s chartered planes.
A prominent foreign tour operator recalls how a group of clients insisted on making a payment of several lakhs through Dubai and confided, after a sundowner too many, that the hawala transaction was done through “Asaram’s ashram channel”, only to laugh away the conversation in the morning.
One of 400-odd shopkeepers of Revdi Bazaar, an Ahmedabad market originally meant for Sindhi refugees from Pakistan, whispers that “Asaram’s crores” keep circulating in loans to businessmen, at interest rates ranging from 1.5-4 percent a month, depending on the amount and the paying capacity of the borrower.
Then, of course, there are the devout and the renegade. Neelam Dubey, Asaram’s PRO in Delhi, gushes that Bapu freed her from “the habit of drinking 35 cups of tea daily”. Virendra Mehta of Rohtak memorised all 80,000 words of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary along with their page numbers to find a mention in the Limca Records after “receiving mantra-initiation” from Asaram. If these seem like minor miracles, a paralysed OP Mall, chairman of Howrah ( jute) Mills, apparently walked out of an Indore nursing home to attend Asaram’s discourse.
Shantibhai and Praful Vaghela, who admitted a son each at Asaram’s Sabarmati ashram only to recover their hollowed corpses by the river, accuse the godman, his son Narayan Sai and the ashram management of conducting black magic. Amrut Prajapati, Asaram’s personal physician of 10 years, accuses him of sexually exploiting women. Raju Chandok, Asaram’s secretary who fell apart with him, accuses Bapu of plotting the assassination attempt he survived. Mahendra Chawla, who looked after Narayan’s accounts, accuses him of forgery in land deals.
But even as charges piled up, nothing seemed to hamper Asaram’s phenomenal rise as one of India’s foremost gurus with millions of devotees and the biggest landholdings. “For us who have followed his activities from time to time, it is very difficult to escape a sense of something sinister about his operations,” says a veteran journalist in Ahmedabad. “This time, he seems to be somewhat vulnerable. But then, you never know.”
Indeed, few seem to know enough about Asaram, the guru, or his past. Those who do are either his own men careful not to reveal anything beyond his public persona, or people who know better than to offend the man they know so well.
THE LEGAL cell at the Motera ashram was working overtime. Minutes ago, Asaram had left for the airport to shift base to Indore. The day before — three days after a 15-year-old girl accused the “self-realised saint” of raping her — he had held a brief satsang to dub the charge a conspiracy. But his key aides in white robes were feeling the heat of an unrelenting media.
On the other side of the phone, Asaram’s chief media manager Dr Sunil Wankhade had sounded reluctant, wondering if he could trust the press not to hurt the ashram’s interests. Face to face, he asked me if I would “do sting” on the ashram. Soon, his obvious scepticism gave way to desperation and he called for help from the legal cell.
“He will do a big magazine story, cover story,” Dr Wankhade informed Vikas Khemka who had just joined us with an incessantly ringing mobile phone. “We do not give time to the sold-out media. Bapuji doesn’t care what they write or show. You will not distort our words, will you?”.. read more:
‘If My Wife And I Had Not Been Present There, We Would Never Have Believed Our Own Daughter’ The father of the girl who alleged sexual assault against Asaram Bapu reveals the story behind the assault and the trauma faced by his family
