Jai Gurudev to Ram Vriksha Yadav: Mathura clashes, an example of history as tragedy and farce

History has the uncanny tendency to repeat itself, first as farce and then as tragedy. Old timers often recount anecdotes from the past which set in the context of developments of the present remind us of that. Mathura is a case in point. To those who see an intricate connection between religion or religious mystique and politics, BJP’s patriarch LK Advani used to narrate an interesting account of the indulgence of politicians towards Baba Jai Gurudev. In the late 1970s and early 80s, Jai Gurudev emerged as a cult figure with a clarion call for “total revolution”. He wanted to subvert the constitutional arrangement and supplant it with his own vision of society and statecraft. As the army of Jai Gurudev’s disciples swelled to millions – they were conspicuous by their khaki uniform made of jute sacks - politicians started rushing in to seek his blessings. The obvious implication was that prominent leaders were genuflecting before him to gain votes. This emboldened the Baba and his disciples to launch a political party. But there was a twist in the tale. In the 70s, there were rumours swirling around the country, particularly in the Hindi heartland, that Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was alive and would appear as the saviour of the nation. In fact, Indira Gandhi’s Emergency and the subsequent fiasco of the Janata Party had made people cynical of contemporary leaders. They were yearning for a saviour. Jai Gurudev was seen as Netaji in the guise of a spiritual swami. During the Janata Party regime, disciples of the Baba built an aura of mystique around his personality and declared that Jai Gurudev would reveal his identity at a rally in Begum Hazarat Mahal park of Lucknow. Top political leaders were worried no end as such a revelation would radically alter the existing equations. However, in the rally the Baba decided to dismiss this as rumour, much to the relief of the political class. [caption id=“attachment_2814598” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Mathura clashes. PTI[/caption] Yet the Baba had realised his political potential and experimented with a political outfit, Doordarshi Party (literally meaning a party with far sight). Once again, mainline political parties were alarmed at the prospect of the Baba entering the electoral fray. At this point, as Advani used to recount, all top leaders went to meet the Baba to know about his political plan. And most of them were mystified by his queer logic and eccentric conduct. Given the conspicuous presence of Baba’s disciples across Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi, none of the leaders underestimated the potential of the Doordarshi Party to upset political equations in the Hindi heartland. The party launched its candidates in 1984, 1989 and 1991 elections. Its most vigorous campaign coincided with the rise of VP Singh. It was then seen as spoiler working against the anti-Congress front. However, much to the relief of political leaders, of the 320-odd candidates the party fielded in 1991, none saved their deposits. The political ambition of Baba Jai Gurudev and his disciples was effectively nipped in the bud. However, the mystique around his cult continued till he died in 2012. Ram Vriksha Yadav was one of the disciples who had imbibed the Baba’s radical political thoughts. In the 80s, he developed his own cult personality among thousands of original devotees of the Baba and promised to subvert the inequitable and unjust political system with guns and violence. As he received political patronage from a faction of the Mulayam Singh Yadav household, he found the administration pliable enough to help his subversive and illegal conduct. He assumed a larger than life image in Mathura while the district administration looked the other way and callously ignored the gathering storm. It is indeed naive to believe that the district administration was not aware of the nefarious activities and stockpiling of arsenal in the illegal tenement that housed 2000-odd squatters on the government land at Jawahar Bagh. Most of the top officers were of course adequately briefed about the design of this splinter group of Baba Jai Gurudev. But they also knew that they had surrendered to the illegality of the group for too long and had lost their respect as law-enforcers. The tragedy at Mathura is a sad reminder of what prevails in Uttar Pradesh now.