Showdown in Hisar: Courts must tame 'godmen' like Rampal

The logic of faith is being turned upside down by India’s godmen. Normally, godmen should be providing spiritual guidance to protect their supporters from evil or wrongdoing, but the followers of Haryana’s godman Rampal are going down the path of violent confrontation with the law to help him evade arrest. Far from protecting his flock, the flock is protecting him and exhibiting ungodlike behaviour. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ordered a reluctant state government to arrest the godman of Hisar and produce him in court by Friday (21 November), and the police are now battling the faithful to comply with the order. Rampal and his faithful seem to have no respect for the law whatsoever. He has to appear in court for the unlawful actions of his followers who apparently fired at villagers in Rohtak in 2006, killing one. The godman is out on bail, but the court’s patience is clearly wearing thin. The main lesson to be learnt is this: If you give them an inch, they will take a mile. Rampal is supposed to have avoided appearing  before the court43 times in four years. He clearly does not deserve the title of godman if this is the message he is sending his followers. We need a policy of zero-tolerance towards law-breakers, even if they are gurus or godmen or priests. And only the courts can enforce this policy. The politicians and the police have no b***s when it comes to taking them on. [caption id=“attachment_1808587” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Sant Rampal. Image courtesy: Facebook page.[/caption] The Rampal scenario is not unlike the one enacted by another godman, Asaram Bapu, who was arrested last year following allegations of sexually assaulting a school girl. He evaded arrest for days on end, protected by his followers till the charade was becoming untenable and the Rajasthan police got him. His bluff was called and he is now behind bars. While it would be wrong to tar all godmen or gurus with the same brush, it is obvious that in India anyone donning sack cloth and ashes gets favoured treatment when it comes to the law. And if you are a man of the cloth in a minority religion, you get double protection. Take the case of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh of Dera Sacha Sauda in Sirsa, whose tilt towards the BJP helped the party win the Haryana assembly elections this October. The CBI has filed several cases, including that of murder and sexual assault, against the Dera leader. An anonymous letter from a Sadhvi in his Dera to Atal Behari Vajpayee talked about sexual exploitation of the women in the Dera. But as spiritual leader of a minority community, a large part of whose following in among the scheduled castes, he has received kid-glove treatment. Five years ago, a Keralite Christian nun, Sister Jesme, shocked the church with her disclosures of forced sexual relationships in her order, through a book titled “Amen: An Autobiography of a Nun”. She left the order as her superiors tried to shush her down and even attempted to declare her a mental case to prevent the truth from coming out. No one has paid any price for this. The pattern that emerges from these, and surely many more unreported cases of misdemeanours in many religious orders, is simple. First, the powerful exploit the women who come to them as devotees. Second, in order to shut the resultant murmurs, they also develop their own private armies, who benefit from the largesse of devotee offerings and serve as the praetorian guard for the key godman. Third, since politicians often go to these same godmen for help with the marginal vote, they are reluctant to act against them. Fourth, the police force is unable to act in time or effectively because their political bosses are compromised and/or they themselves have followers among the godmen. Thus the courts are told that taking action against a godman could lead to law and order problems. Fifth, the devotees themselves are cannon fodder. Caught between loyalty to their guru/priest/spiritual elders and their duty to the victims, more often than not they keep quiet. Having invested their emotions in their godman, they find it difficult to admit that they backed a flawed human being with serious moral deficits. There is clearly only one power that can act against fake godmen, and that is the courts. They should force all governments, whether from the majority or minority religions, to enforce the law. The religious figures involved will cry blue murder and intrusion in spiritual matters, especially if they belong to minority religions. Only the courts have the moral authority to enforce the law. They should do so. God can be above the law, but not godmen.