For much of the English news media, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh is somewhat of a joke who first burst onto the scene with his viral song, Love Charger in 2014.
He’s been steady fodder since with his music videos, blingy fashion sense, hairy back and five movies.
The self-styled ‘messenger of god’ evidently has an excellent PR team that makes sure he features on Delhi Times advertorials and in TV news programmes right in time of his film releases.
Over the past 24 hours, however, media focus has shifted from Singh’s histrionics to a rape case that the Central Bureau of Investigation has been trying to crack since 2002.
On Friday, August 25, a special CBI court in Panchkula’s District Court will decide if Singh–fondly known as pitaji, or father, by his followers–is guilty of sexually assaulting Sadhvis in the Dera Sacha Sauda’s headquarters in Sirsa, Haryana.
In anticipation, the Haryana government has imposed Section 144 till August 30, August 24 and 25 have been declared gazetted holidays in government offices, schools will remain shut during this period, a cricket stadium will turn into a makeshift jail to confine troublemakers and roads leading up to the District Court will be cordoned off.
In fact, WhatsApp messages doing the rounds warn people, asking them to buy ‘extra groceries’ and to ‘stay alert’ since things may get ‘intense and critical’ on the day of the verdict. The reason? The Dera’s seemingly menacing followers who have descended onto Panchkula in droves. Some 40,000 of them in solidarity with their spiritual leader.
“It’s a humble request…editing mat karna.”
Roads leading up to the Dera’s centre in Sector 23 Panchkula are dotted with Dera devotees on either sides. Most say they will make the pavement their home for the next two days. Many don’t have a plan beyond getting a glimpse of Singh on the day of the verdict.
It would be incorrect to label all the supporters as uneducated underclass. Sitting right outside the Dera centre, is a Chandigarh-based interior designer in his early forties engaged in an animated conversation with a bunch of other followers.
Vajinder Insaan — most devotees use the suffix ‘insaan’ instead of their surnames — has been a follower since 1993. The Dera, established in 1948, has had three leaders, Singh being the third. Vajinder’s family has been following the sect since the time of the second leader — Shah Satnam Singh.
His immediate reasons pertain to a medical miracle. This is a common thread across many followers — most talk of a sudden healing, after all doctors and hospitals give up hope, as the basis of their faith in the sect. In the case of Vajinder, he says his younger brother recovered from an accident at the age of 15. The doctors had said there were slim chances of him surviving the operation — “he is 36 today.” This, he says, is because pitaji intervened and saved his brother by being present at the operation theatre — he believes this because his grandmother saw this vision.
