Not so benign: Singh is married with three children but devotees have to practise celibacy

Founded in 1948, the Dera now controls over 700 acres in Sirsa, its seat in Haryana, and has almost 2.5 crore followers
The year is 1990 and Punjab is in the grip of militancy. Gurmeet Singh, a 23-year-old Jat Sikh from a family of landlords in Gursomondia village in Rajasthan’s Ganganagar district, takes over the gaddi at the Dera Sacha Sauda in Sirsa. His taking over of the dera from Param Pita Shah Satnam Singh Ji Maharaj, a Khatri Sikh, is at the outset shrouded in taint. Gurmeet Singh is a close associate of the dreaded militant, Gurjant Singh Rajasthani, of the Khalistan Liberation Force. Sirsa is agog with hushed talk of the ouster of Satnam Singh by Rajasthani. That sets the tone for an expansion of the Dera’s fortunes and of Gurmeet, who takes on the title of ‘Hazoor Maharaj Sant Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’.

Since its modest foundation in 1948 by Mastanji of Baluchistan, the Dera now controls over 700 acres in Sirsa alone. It commands over 2.5 crore followers and has branches all over the region. Sirsa is now an independent township replete with factories, a cricket stadium and swimming pools. But villagers had not been willing to sell land to the expanding Dera. “Coercion was employed,” says Ashwani Bakhshi, a Sirsa lawyer practising in the Punjab and Haryana High Court. “For example, thousands of devotees would use the fields to defecate, forcing the villagers to sell off their land. In one instance, a child of a neighbouring village was crushed by a Dera truck. When the irate villagers seized the truck, thousands of devotees descended upon the villagers and beat them up. It was not uncommon to see reports of dead bodies being found in the Dera’s vicinity.”

Free labour from devotees and a directive to buy goods only from the Dera’s factories laid the economic foundation. “During the OP Chautala government, the Dera got the tender to build the road from Sirsa to the Dera. Women devotees, coming from affluent households and who may never have lifted a stone in their lives, were made to build the road. The money from the road contract was seized by the Dera’s management. The Dera also indulges in the business of cotton seeds and fetilisers but pays no taxes. It is immune to the law. One can see the origins of this cult in the takeover of the Dera by Gurmeet Singh after his relative, the militant Gurjant Singh Rajasthani threatened the previous Dera head with a revolver,” Anshul Chhatarpati, a Sirsa journalist, told Tehelka. Anshul’s father, Ram Chandar, was killed by Dera functionaries in 2002 according to the cbi’s chargesheet.

Lakhs of devotees throng the Dera. The new ‘Santji’ has discarded the simplicity of his predecessors and dons fancy robes. Politicians queue up to seek the votes of Santji’s ‘premis’. “On Santji’s brithday, the streets of Sirsa are crowded with lakhs and lakhs of devotees. I make it a point to visit the Santji. I have also attended the marriage of Santji’s daughter to Punjab Congress mla HS Jassi’s son,” says Dirba Kalan’s Congress mla Bharat Singh Beniwal. Apart from Beniwal, many of the region’s political heavyweights, such as Amarinder Singh, Parkash Singh Badal and OP Chautala, have visited Santji in the past. While Santji is married and has three children, the resident devotees at the Dera are directed to practise celibacy.

Under the watchful eye of a private army, silence and fear shroud the Dera. There is such an atmosphere of secrecy that the Sirsa District and Sessions Judge could not make much headway on a probe ordered by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2002 on allegations of sexual exploitation of sadhvis by the Santji. In his report submitted to the High Court on September 11, 2002, the Sessions Judge noted: “As regards the sexual abuse of girls in the Dera, nobody in the Dera is prepared to disclose anything in this respect. There is no access to the hostel where the sadhvis reside without prior permission of Baba Gurmeet Singh or the Dera authorities.”