Who Is Bhole Baba?

ON JULY 2, A clean-shaven man dressed in all-white—white shirt, white trousers, white socks, and white footwear—left the venue of a meeting at Phulrai in Uttar Pradesh’s (UP) Hathras district in a white Toyota Fortuner that had matching white seats. He was accompanied by motorcycles and a fleet of cars. As they turned right on the Grand Trunk Road towards Etah, adoring masses that had turned up in their hundreds of thousands to listen to the man they thought possessed godlike abilities, ran towards the convoy. They craned their necks wanting to get another glimpse of him, and vied with each other to pick up dust from behind his vehicle—many of them believed that even the dust under his car had magical powers.

For a congregation of that strength, which some witnesses say could be upwards of three lakh, far exceeding the 80,000 that was expected, more prepa­rations were in order. On that day in that large field at Phulrai village near Sikandra Rao, along the road built by medieval Indian emperor Sher Shah Suri, there were no barricades that stopped the teeming crowd from accessing the highway. People, mostly women and children, were soon caught in a stam­pede that pushed them to the other side of the road. Here, they unexpectedly encountered ankle-deep slush and mud that immobilised them shortly before they piled on top of each other. That fatal embrace left more than 120 people dead of asphyxiation and other causes. The tragic incident soon made its way into Wikipedia as the ‘2024 Uttar Pradesh stampede’.

The man in white—said to be in his sixties, sports luxury sunglasses and wears expensive ties — enjoys a cult status among his followers across northern India and beyond. Born Satya Pal in a Dalit Jatav family at Bahadur Nagar vil­lage of Kasganj district in the country’s most populous state, this former police constable is revered and addressed as ‘Bhole Baba’, which translates to ‘innocent elder’. Many of his followers believe he is capable of providing instant cures and that a mere glimpse of him can restore to health people suffering from mortal illnesses and steer others out of financial difficulties. He travels everywhere and appears on stage along with his wife, Premavati, often referred to as ‘Mata Ji’. According to official accounts, several ashrams have opened across UP, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere in the name of Baba who, according to his associates, never stays for long at one place. A few reports suggest that Baba oversees at least 24 ashrams, including one on a 12-acre plot in Mainpuri, UP, where six rooms are specifically designated for him and his wife.

IN HIS ASHRAM at his village of Bahadur Nagar in Kasganj, too, six rooms are meant for exclusive use by the couple, according to Rajpal Singh, a caretaker on the premises who calls himself a sevak, or volunteer. While he welcomed us to other areas of the ashram that house pilgrims and mem­bers of the staff, the palatial building meant for Baba was out of bounds. According to volunteers, the last time Baba had come to the village for a satsang (congregation) was on May 30, 2014.

“He decided not to come here because the village cannot accommodate such large crowds. Whenever he comes here, on hearing the news, hundreds of thousands come here. Even when he is not here, people come visiting,” says Singh, taking us on a guided tour of the ashram spread across several acres.

Singh discreetly discloses in a whisper that he is from the Yadav community. He says so to buttress his argument that Baba attracts followers across caste groups and religions for his teachings. Appealing to people, including us, to rise above such conceited notions of religion, caste or class, Singh says that his guru speaks instead of “bhaichara and ekta (brotherhood and unity), which has brought people from across caste and religious divides to his satsangs. Whoever has faith is welcome.” He further exclaims, “and people started benefitting in different ways!”

He goes on to narrate the usual stories built around Baba of healing the sick, and helping those in distress and despair. According to him, more women than men visit Baba because they tend to suffer more societal pressures. Speaking about the tragic deaths at Hathras, Singh breaks down. Wiping his tears, this ‘sevak’ emphasises that Baba never goes anywhere to hold a satsang with­out permission from the authorities concerned. Singh insists that Baba, also called ‘Narayan Sakar Hari’ and ‘Prabhuji’, is not abscond­ing and that since he does not have any permanent residence now, he keeps moving from one place to another. Singh cites the example of Gwalior, where Baba got permission to stay for a year.

Behind the high white walls of the ashram, there are large open spaces lined with rooms and a shed where food is cooked in large utensils. The devotees greet each other saying ‘Narayan Sakar Hari’. They greet other visitors, such as us, in the same way. The invocation is as good as saying ‘Ram Ram Ji’ or ‘Jai Mata Di’.

Another volunteer states that famous people from the Muslim community visit Baba to seek his blessings, but he stops short of naming them. In this ashram, there are around 26 volunteers like Singh who have left their villages and settled in this village doing other jobs and helping run the ashram. Among them is a Sikh farmer from Pilibhit, Kulwant Singh, who first saw Baba in 2014 and settled down five years later in this remote village connected to the highways by uneven roads strewn with stones and rocks. “Ever since, life has changed for me and my family. Baba only talks of bhaichara, not about religious and caste divides,” he says, adding that Baba’s popularity cuts across the lines of faith and politics.

The faith that devotees have in Baba acquires blind proportions: they carry soil from the ashram besides water as prasad (offering).

Badri Narayan, director of the Prayagraj-based GB Pant Social Science Institute, has thought a lot about this unwavering loyalty of such followers, in this case and in several others. He has concluded that people are attracted to godmen from disad­vantaged backgrounds, in this case from a Dalit Jatav family, for a variety of reasons. Most importantly, says the academic who has done a lot of work on subaltern politics, such gurus offer venuesofinclusion(samaavesh) and dignityfor these devoteesfrom lower socio-economic sections. These devotees feel they are in a gathering of people like them, reinforcing a sense of solidarity and brotherhood (bhaichara) and humanity (manavta).

Narayan points out that among people from subaltern backgrounds, magic is an irresistible proposition, mostly because they need to make a leap of faith to feel that they can prosper and enjoy their lives. Bhole Baba rolls a chakra in his fingers and does magic tricks. This kind of crowd does not feel at home in the congregations organised by certain other gurus who are widely televised and more famous. Ordinary masses feel that such well-connected gurus are for the English-speaking elite, Narayan adds.

Surinder S Jodhka, professor of sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, points out that recent decades have seen a marked rise in religiosity among Indians in the wake of liberalisation, the ex­pansion of the middle classes, and hyper-consumption. Places of worship that were least frequented by people in the 1980s or the 1990s now attract large crowds. Which explains why there has been a jump lately in the pursuit of men and women considered holy and godly. Jodhka pauses to speak about the purposes of someone visit­ing a place of worship, for instance, a dera (a socio-religious centre in some states of northern India attended largely by Dalits among the Sikh community who had in the first place converted to the religion to escape caste discrimination in Hinduism but soon realised their plight was no different in their new religion). Jodhka has written extensively about it, explaining the rationale behind visits to the deras. “Why do people go to the dera? Without undermining the spiritual value that a visit to a dera has for a devotee, some of the more mundane reasons too are by no means insignificant. The most frequently stated reason for going to the dera is the fact that it fulfils one’s mannat, meaning a wish or desire. ‘If you have pura vishwash (complete faith and trust), your wish will certainly be fulfilled.’ An equally important reason is the code of conduct that the gurus at deras insist on for their followers, the most attractive of these being the insistence on giving up consumption of liquor and other drugs. It is invariably the women of the house who insist on visiting the dera and, given the spiritual sanctity of the act, they manage to take their husbands and other male members of the family along,” he writes in the paper ‘Of Babas and Deras’.

Similar are the reasons that draw people to godmen, but not all have positive outcomes. Most often, they end up being negative, as several examples of godmen languishing in jails, fighting cases of sexual assault or cheating, and fleeing the country demonstrate. Shiv Visvanathan, a sociologist and author who calls himself a “social science nomad”, says people are often drawn to godmen due to the dazzle of a “spiritual erotic drama” and a vacuum created by the absence of deeper strains of the spirituality of the kind practised by the likes of Ramana Maharshi, J Krishnamurti, and others. “Spirituality at the moment looks like a lottery market,” he says, adding that it is the human temptations of godmen that we need to watch out for.

As Badri Narayan says, people throng to congregations where they can relate and where they feel a sense of comfort and community. Again, godmen have been around for centuries and so was people’s craving for spiritual comfort zones, states historian Nayanjot Lahiri. “Even the Bhakti saints were gurus. They provided a space for worship that didn’t need Brahmins, for instance. Also, think of mathas (monastic institutions) which go back to early medieval times. Kings patronised them in a major way.”

Atop the large door to Baba’s dwelling in Kasganj—which looks more like the portal to a fort—stands a large sculpture of a lotus on top. Three ‘sevadars’, all wearing light pink trousers, shirts and hats, are keeping vigil and cleaning the road. They are among those who do voluntary service at the ashram for seven days where they lead austere lives, eating two meals of simple vegetarian food—dal, roti, and a vegetable dish. Ram Avtar, a 50-year-old farmer, who has come from Badaun in UP about 80km away, says he heard about Baba first in 2004, and soon attended a congregation. “His words mesmerised me. He talks of atma (soul) and parmatma (God). I then bought this uniform and started voluntary service here. Whenever I get time from my farms, I come here.”

Pratap Singh, another volunteer, hails from Firozabad, about 85km away. “I was 18 when I heard about Baba. I was attracted to him because he was different and special. He doesn’t take anything from his devotees. There is no daan patra (donation box) at his ashrams. Baba always says that whatever is bad is within you and asks everyone to connect with the divine.” For his part, another sevak, Rakesh Kumar, says he had heard Baba at a satsang in Kurla in Maharashtra.“I liked the tone of his speech. I had domestic problems but after listening to him, my life simply became smooth.” Some of his loyalists hasten to add that the cars Baba uses for his travels are often dispatched to him by organisers of the satsangs—but they do appear custom-made for his tastes, all in white. Singh, the sevak, claims that Baba doesn’t run ashrams in other places. “Other places may have been set up by people for him to stay. We refer to these charitable donors as mahapurush and women as devi,” he notes.

Ram Sanai and Kalicharan, farmers from Ghosganj village around 8km from Bahadur Nagar, prostrate before the plaque near the ashram gate. “I had a severe problem in my ear. After I met Baba in 2000, it was cured. I recall coming to see him one winter when it was very cold and foggy and he asked me why I had travelled there in such inclement weather,” says Sanai, adding that he had planned to go to Hathras on July 2 but could not make it. Inside the ashram in Bahadur Nagar, there are no idols or figures of gods or goddesses. Even images of Baba are rare. Interestingly, he doesn’t rely on the media—or social media—to gain publicity. For a spiritual guru, his presence online is marginal and confined to YouTube videos. However, Baba has grown in stature over the past two decades thanks largely to word-of-mouth publicity, despite keeping a low profile. Stories doing the rounds about him include his Jesus-like feats of curing people of diseases and other miracles. Many devotees consider him an avatar of God, specifically of Lord Vishnu. Without an iota of doubt, Baba’s influence is on the rise, and the number of people thronging his satsangs is confirmation of all that and more.

His lawyer AP Singh, meanwhile, claimed that the latest accident at his satsang in Hathras was caused by people and groups envious of the godman’s soaring clout. He said that, to taint the guru, miscreants sprayed poison on people who had congregated to listen to Baba. As it happens, AP Singh was the lawyer of two of the accused in the Nirbhaya gangrape case of 2012. In 2013, he had questioned the character of the victim, asking what she was doing out with a male friend at night. It was 9PM when the girl and her friend boarded the bus on which she was brutally assaulted, and later lost her life.

Baba got in trouble in 2000 for fleeing with the body of a teenager, claiming that he could make her come back to life. He was Satya Pal then. His journey to becoming Bhole Baba has been as phenomenal as it has been intriguing. Since becoming a godman, he has snapped all ties with his family. His brother lives barely 20m from the wall of the ashram in the village where Baba was born. Baba appeared after the deaths in Hathras in a video to state that he felt sorry for the kin of the victims and that he would cooperate with the police in any interrogation. In a video released by ANI on July 6, he said, “I am deeply saddened after the incident of July 2. May God give us the strength to bear this pain. Please keep faith in the government and the administration. I have faith that anyone who created the chaos will not be spared. Through my lawyer AP Singh, I have requested the members of the committee (trust) to stand with the bereaved families and the injured and help them throughout their lives.” Baba presides over the Shrinarayan Sakar Hari Charitable Trust which was earlier called Manav Seva Ashram.

Less than 50m from his ashram in Kasganj is Baba’s tiny home with dark rooms among similar houses along a narrow lane with open drains. This was where he grew up along with two brothers and three sisters. Only his brother, with whom Baba had fallen out several years ago, lives there with his family now. Arti, his older niece, refuses to talk about him, saying pensively, “If he doesn’t acknowledge us, why should we talk about him?” Her cheerful younger sister Priya, who is in school, has never seen her uncle: “I know about him, but I have not met him even once.” She doesn’t know whether she would relish an opportunity to meet him in future. One of Baba’s brothers, Bhagwan Das, died in 2016, while his younger brother Rakesh is close to him and is part of Baba’s trust. His sister Sonkali has told reporters that as a teenager Baba was interested in magic and had performed miracles.

ON THE CONGREGATION grounds in Hathras, rains have inundated the fields where the satsang was held and where innocents perished as though in a mass grave. Ruing the incident, BK Yadav, a local eyewitness, reiterates his dislike of superstitions, “Dhool ke chakar mein marey gaye log (People lost their lives for try­ing to collect some dust).” According to him, people have blind faith and they, particularly women, see Baba as God.

The argument cuts both ways. Among the bystanders in Hathras are people who still find an irresistible pull towards Baba. Sandeep Kumar, who is from an adjoining village, attended the sat­sang seeing people coming from far-off places. “I was curious and so I came. I heard him. He said things like there should be no arrogance, one should do their work and have faith in God.” At the entrance to where the satsang was held flies a poster with the slogan, ‘Narayan Sakar Hari ka sampurna brahman mein sada sad ke liye jai jai kar ho (May Narayan Sarkar Hari be hailed throughout the universe)’.

Across the road an antediluvian aura descends amidst the melancholic mood and the murmurs of people. The guards at a factory nearby—who had never heard of Bhole Baba earlier—are surprised to see the number of vehicles, with registrations from various states, parked on both sides of the road.

Although a large section of his devotees does not blame Baba for the tragic deaths, saying it was all an accident, some others are not pleased with what they call the “slow response” of the authorities, thanks to the typical nexus between godmen and politicians. Although the state government has promised a swift inquiry and quick action, Aman Kumar, whose wife’s sister Indravati died in the stampede, is livid with the authorities and Baba. Kumar is from Sherpur village, 6km from the site of the stampede. “He projects himself as God, and people start believing that. Anyone can become a baba. I believe in God, but not such babas,” he says. Indravati had gone for the Hathras satsang out of curiosity, along with a relative who also died in the stampede. When Kumar reached the site, all he saw were dead bodies.

Hari Prasad, the pradhan of Daunkeli village in Firozabad, from where two people—Kamlesh, a 22-year-old woman, and her seven-month-old daughter Chanchal—died in the Hathras stampede, dubs Baba’s followers as “andh bhakt (blind believers)”.

While such displays of anger are par for the course when such tragedies occur, Satara-based psychiatrist Hamid Dabholkar, who campaigns against superstitions under the aegis of Maharash­tra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS) and organises nationwide outreach sessions, says that more needs to be done to rein in godmen who take advantage of credulous men and women in our society. This medical professional adds that the human brain has an inherent vulnerability to fall prey to outlandish claims. He says that some people display a greater tendency for their subcortical brain (the part that processes emotions) to prevail over the cortical brain (responsible for memory, thinking, learning, reasoning, problem-solving, etc).

Dabholkar, son of noted rationalist Narendra Dabholkar who was killed for his opposition to peddlers of su­perstition, argues that the legislation named Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Act, which has been in force in Maharashtra since 2013, must be adopted at the national level to make black magic and conning people in the name of faith a punishable offence. Such measures would be useful against godmen enjoying impunity for preaching superstition. In Maharashtra, more than 1,100 cases have been registered under this law so far, he says.

Rise in education levels and access to information have not helped blind faith and superstitions to go away; nor have these inculcated a scientific temperament in Indians. The rich are equally prone to being irrational as the middle classes, be it lower or up­per, and the working classes. The underpinnings for this trend are, says Dabholkar, the availability of so-called “spiritual” resources around us. Just as wants and needs have spiked in a consumerist society so have avenues for pseudo-spiritual gratification that include spending money on black magic and related rituals that promise to generate spiritual intervention, prosperity, and gains. Certain philosophers have called this tendency to seek solace in self-styled godmen an outcome of what they call ontological in­security, the term popularised by sociologist Anthony Giddens about the fear of being precariously placed and concerned about one’s autonomy and safety. Dr Rachna Khanna Singh, head of the Department of Holistic Medicine and Psychology at Artemis Hospital, Gurugram, says that it is true, especially in the Indian context. “Followers’ vulnerabilities stemming from personal crises or existential anxieties make them particularly receptive to the promises of healing, prosperity, and spiritual fulfilment offered by godmen,” she says. She adds that, however, the phenomenon of godmen in India isn’t solely negative and that it encom­passes positive aspects as well.

Given the scenario and hype, India’s aspiring classes, especially among the formerly disadvantaged groups, as well as a section of those looking to retain their privilege, have enough material and motivation to chase the likes of flamboy­ant Bhole Baba as the pick of the bunch. After all, upwardly mobile Indians, from Dalit to Brahmin, are looking for new communitarian spaces.

Bhole BabadeathsgodmanHathras stampedeKasganjspiritual guru