[Reader-list] Saibaba and Other Godmen

[Javed]

With due respect to the followers of Saibaba.
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SAIBABA AND OTHER GODMEN

Asghar Ali Engineer

Saibaba’s death a couple of days ago has  brought thousands of people
from India and abroad to have his last darshan (glimpse) and many of
them were even  crying that Baba’s divine soul has left them forever.
On the other hand rationalists are challenging his miraculous powers
once again and maintaining that he was man like others and man being
mortal, he also died. Many are pointing out that his own forecast that
he will die at the age of 96 proved to be wrong and he died at the age
of 86.

It should not be very surprising if thousands of people are flocking
to his funeral but what is indeed surprising is that the Prime
Minister of a secular country, along with Sonia Gandhi, also went to
pay his homage. Mrs. Gandhi is free to do so as she does not hold any
office in Government but Shri Manmohan Singh holds the highest office
and should have refrained from going there. It is not clear whether he
went there in his personal capacity or as head of the Government. If
he went in his personal capacity who bore his expenses and if he went
as Prime Minister, according to which protocol? The Prime Minister of
a secular country should not go for funeral of a divine personality.

What I am going to write here is not to condemn but to understand what
is happening in our so called post-industrial and post-modern society?
I always maintain that it is easier to condemn but difficult to
understand and unless we understand we cannot bring about change. Thus
understanding an event is of primary importance. Understanding
functioning of godmen requires understanding sociological,
psychological and political factors. Human behaviour is of very
complex nature and all these factors play important role. The entire
phenomenon cannot be explained with reference to ‘blind faith’ alone
as rationalists tend to do. Human interests too, along with other
factors, play an important role and human interests constitute an
important part of human behaviour.

Thus, as against rationalists, I believe, human behaviour as it is,
needs godmen very much even in 21st century (though I myself do not
approve of it). I am just trying to explain the phenomenon as a social
scientist. First of all we should understand the structure of our
society and also education system it needs. Our society is
structurally unjust and is based on exploitation of some by others.
Thus the very nature of our society promotes injustices, uncertainties
and feeling of insecurity

Our education systems not only promote it but also justify it. The
poor and exploited feels helpless and begins to believe in destiny.
Those who cannot face uncertainties either tend to resort to
irrational religious beliefs or even commit suicide as many peasants
in our country are doing. Also, there are ways and ways of believing
in religion. For some with proper understanding religion is a source
of morality and ethics whereas for many others religion is a source of
superstitions.

It is in this sense that Marx called religion an opium i.e. pain
killer. Thus religion helps the victims of our social system
(exploited and oppressed) to bear the pain of their suffering. It
gives them great solace and inner peace. Only the sufferers know the
value of this role of religion. Many people flock to godmen and babas
in search of this inner solace. In our world which is full of
oppression, exploitation and corruption, religion has become source of
such peace and solace, in other words it has become only ‘opium’

Religion, in fact, should be a great source of inspiration to fight
against what is wrong and oppressive, it should create inner urge for
believer to achieve what is best in human beings and fight against all
that is beastly – anger, revenge, lust and greed. In our own times
Gandhi took religion in this sense. Thus taken in this sense religion
can inspire us to combat all that is oppressive and exploitative and
to establish truth and justice in the world. If religion does not
inspire us to do this it is nothing more than opium.

Babas and godmen are required because of this nature of our society.
Had there been a society just and truthful we would not have needed
them. These Babas make this world livable for the victims of justice
and oppression in various ways. To achieve for real success, success
achieved in a just way, not through fraud and cheating, is very
difficult and one has to work very hard indeed. And many of us do not
want to work hard and look for miracles as a short cut.

A truly religious person would not look for miracles but face all
trivial of life. These Babas try to win over our hearts and minds by
exploiting this weakness of ours for miracles. And not only the
victims but rich and powerful also look for such miracles and hence
they too flock to such Babas. It is not easy for us to overcome this
weakness and look for miracles. Also, many people suffer from certain
diseases for which modern medicine has no easy cure and so we tend to
incline towards miracles and in this category we have both weaker as
well as powerful and rich sections of our society.

Earlier at least in this matter there were no classes i.e. there used
to be one saint or baba to whom all will go rich or poor. But now in
our country there are saints and babas who cater to poor and those who
cater to the rich and powerful. The Sai was one among them. Through
his miracles he would produce golden rings and Seiko watches and
usually the rich would flock to him. Even powerful politicians need
babas for various reasons.

Earlier people would go to these saints and babas for spiritual
purposes but now rich or poor, politicians and other professional, all
go to them for personal and mundane reasons. Hardly anyone goes for
any spiritual development. The modern world is too complex for inner
peace. Generally, and specially the rich and powerful experience lot
of tension and insecurity and they need such external props which
babas readily provide.

Also, in this globalized world a successful baba is supposed to have
many foreign (specially American) disciples and then argument would go
look even foreigners come to him and so he must be really delivering
baba. Generally these babas are not very educated. They often happen
to be semi-literate but Rajnish, who at one time, was as popular as
Sai Baba, was intellectually accomplished.  He also catered to upper
class professionals.

Rajnish attracted high end professionals for certain reasons. He came
into existence in a society where industrialization was taking place
and professionals with high income were proliferating. These
professional needed lax moralities with spiritual cover (what I call
MATERIAL SPIRITUALISM) and that is what Rajnish provided. Rajnish even
believed in free sex gratification rather than controlling it as
traditional saints did. Thus Rajnish became very popular in these
classes of people, especially among the neo-rich. According to him one
should enjoy pleasures of life to accomplish ones spirituality. There
was hardly any from lower class among his clientele or with rural
background.  Sai Baba, one must say had no such pretensions of
sophisticated philosophy, was illiterate and even catered to the poor
and rural folk.

Rajnish did not perform miracles nor did he believe in them. His
miracle was his knowledge and his sophistry. Sai Baba needed
‘miracles’ (which was nothing but tricks and sleight of hand)
precisely because he was illiterate and could not attract
sophisticated clientele by philosophizing. He was a simpleton with
rural background. People flocked to him not to listen to philosophical
sermons or moral and spiritual discourses but as a man of miracle and
hence ‘divine ‘. He also claimed to be an avatara and to carry
conviction with people began to perform miracles.

Once he succeeded he began to attract more and more people and more
people he attracted, more he succeeded. Thus success has its own
dynamics – ‘nothing succeeds like success. But then he had to meet
challenges also. Kovvor, a rationalist from Sri Lanka , and others
challenged him to perform miracles under controlled conditions. Kovvor
even deposited one lakh of rupees in the bank as a reward. He asked
Sai Baba to produce pumpkin instead of ring or watch (which could be
hidden under loose garment but pumpkin obviously could not be).

Sai Baba failed to take challenge but changed the track. His miracles
had already rewarded him and he could do without them now. He began to
render socials service, bringing water to water starved areas,
building schools and universities and hospitals and this endeared him
to another section of people. Thousands really benefited from amongst
the poor. He also began to talk of love, love which conquers hearts.

Also, modern day Babas are turning into land mafias and develop
megalomania for huge empires. Sai is also reported to have left empire
worth some say 40,000 to 1 lakh crore. Building such empires is, in
fact beginning of failure of the mission as now there will be fight
for succession to control the establishment. A real religious person
is not builder of empire but subvert it. Whosoever built empire failed
in spiritual sense and whosoever subverted established empires became
great.

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Centre for Study of Society and Secularism
Mumbai.
E-mail: csss at mtnl.net.in