Ascetic Games
Author: Dhirendra K Jha
Date: 2019-04-30 04:00:00+00:00
Publisher: Context
Rights: Copyright &#169; Dhirendra K. Jha, 2019

First published by Context, an imprint of Westland Publications Private Limited, in 2019

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Copyright © Dhirendra K. Jha, 2019

ISBN: 9789388689410

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In Ma’s Memory

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

1. MURDER IN A HOLY CITY

2. THE THUGS OF AYODHYA

3. KUMBH MELA AS POLITICAL THEATRE

4. THE BROKEN LEG TEST

5. A JAMUN TREE, A NAGA AND THE RAINBOW FAMILY

6. WHAT IS IN A NAME?

7. PRECEPTORS TO THE WORLD

EPILOGUE

NOTES

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

Let him die,’ said the sadhu, kicking the belly of an old man lying injured on the ground. Half-a-dozen other sadhus surrounding the pair roared their approval by banging their lathis on the ground and their fists on whatever surface they could find. Two police constables standing hardly ten metres from the main gate of Ayodhya’s Hanumangarhi—the command post of Nirvani akhara, a major militant ascetic order of the Vaishnava sect—talked among themselves as if they had noticed nothing. A small crowd of over a dozen men and a few children stood watching from a safe distance. Only after the white-clad inmates of Hanumangarhi walked away did the cops dare to look at the old man, who was struggling to get up and was bleeding profusely from his mouth.

‘Save me,’ the old man mumbled through his broken teeth as the sadhus departed. ‘I never meant …’ The words died in his throat. ‘Give me some water,’ he finally managed. Moments later, his chest heaved and he lost consciousness.

It was a December evening in 2010. A fellow journalist and I had been on our way back after a day’s work when we came upon this scene. We were too stunned to move, and the other onlookers looked scared. The cops still pretended not to have seen anything. The only sound was the soft sobbing of a boy, around eight or nine years of age, trying to comfort the old man, perhaps his grandfather.

We learnt later that the old man was a vendor of rose petals and marigold garlands in a shop owned by Hanumangarhi. He had not been able to pay the rent for the last two months, and the sadhus of Hanumangarhi had set out to not only punish him but also send out a message to the others. The old man was taken to a local government hospital, and he survived.

My colleague and I were in Ayodhya to try and unearth the lost details of the night of 22 December 1949, when an idol of Lord Ram was planted surreptitiously in Babri masjid by a little-known sadhu of Hanumangarhi, Abhiram Das, and his followers. The incident left a permanent scar on the Indian polity, and yet the story of how the sixteenth-century mosque was occupied and claimed as a temple was missing from the tellings of modern India’s history.

But after witnessing the brutality meted out to that old man, I spent hours in and around Hanumangarhi over the next couple of days, trying to understand this blatant display of violence by men who were supposed to be devout ascetics. Neither the brutal use of power on an unarmed old man that evening nor the surreptitious planting of the idol by Abhiram Das back in 1949 corresponds to the asceticism that the sadhus of Hanumangarhi claim to practise. It took a great deal of research, investigations and interviews to understand this rupture. What I found in Hanumangarhi was not a world informed by the spiritual strength of its ascetics but one formed by the brute force of syndicates of armed sadhus who fight among themselves—sometimes even engaging in open battles—for wealth and power. They take care not to disturb Hanumangarhi’s veil of asceticism even as they merge seamlessly with the business end of things, the state and the openly communalist Hindu Right.

There was a time when the sadhus of Ayodhya were bohemian, by and large, and at least the clever ones took care to keep the veil of spirituality on. But the Hanumangarhi residents I encountered that evening had brazenly displayed their power. The longer I worked to understand this new culture, the clearer it became that it was part of a larger malaise, which started to become dominant around the 1980s when the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), or World Hindu Council, launched a massive drive to use sadhus for the religio-political mobilisation of Hindus. When I expanded the area of my research to places like Haridwar, Varanasi and Allahabad, I realised that this change in the sadhus’ attitude was prevalent outside of Ayodhya as well.

What is this new culture, then? How is it born? And why is it nurtured by forces eager to promote Hindu supremacist politics? These questions became the focus of my inquiry as I delved deep into the world of Hindu monastic orders.

This book is not about the spirituality of sadhus and the influence they wield over lay devotees. Nor is it about their rituals, belief systems and monastic orders. Rather, it is an inside view of the sadhus, not as keepers of sacred knowledge but as men who play games for power, money and influence. It is about the organisation and politics of their hidden world and how this has been changed and exploited by the Hindu Right. It is about why these men, and the few women, do what they do and how the double lives they lead affect them. Perhaps the answers to these questions could reveal why we are so often confronted with the worst of sadhus—like the one who became a business tycoon by selling yoga and medical advice along with a strong dose of Hindu pride or the other who was convicted for the rape of a minor girl or yet another who experienced nirvana through political power.

INTRODUCTION

Hinduism does not have a central authority or an overarching church-like organisation. Monastic orders that belong to a great number of sampradayas, or traditions, are at the core of this religion. The sadhus in these sampradayas, most often celibate monks, act as spiritual leaders for the lay followers. They are expected to offer religious discourses and promote practices that defend the centrality of the guru-bhakti tradition. Devotees believe that adhering to their teachings brings peace, prosperity and meaning in life and, eventually, salvation. Monastic orders of the Vaishnava or Shaiva traditions—Vishnu or his incarnates, like Ram or Krishna, are the principal deity of the former, and Shiva of the latter—control most of the ascetic space of Hinduism. Their strength is showcased in the largest Hindu religious gathering, the Kumbh Mela, held every twelve years in each of the four cities—Allahabad, Haridwar, Nasik and Ujjain—which commands worldwide media attention, particularly the bathing procession of naked Shaiva sadhus.

The two monastic orders have their own sets of mutts and ashrams, some of which have ambiguous institutional and power hierarchies, while others work autonomously. But all of them are ultimately linked to their respective akharas, originally conceived as the militant wing of Hindu monasticism. Akharas—the name refers to the wrestling pit attached to them, which largely fell into disuse after the rise in the use of firearms in the 1980s—are large military-style camps of sadhus. In the past, these akharas were centres of warrior ascetics and enjoyed proximity to princely rulers and their courts. But now, as the nodal organisations of various monastic orders of Hinduism, they are the main organisers of the Kumbh Mela, where, in the presence of millions of pilgrims and devotees, sadhus showcase and celebrate their former glorious past. The nagas are a big part of this celebration.

All India Akhara Parishad

Nagas—the name literally means naked—are a class of both Shaiva and Vaishnava sadhus—who are directly attached to akharas, although it is the Shaiva nagas who are better known in the world outside. The term was initially used for those Shaiva sadhus who went through a special stage of initiation and abandoned their clothing. This class of sadhus acted as warrior ascetics in the past. Later, with the formation of Vaishnava akharas, sadhus directly attached to them also started calling themselves nagas. Among the Shaiva sadhus of today, nagas continue to have a distinct status as they go through a special initiation, and some of them still live without clothes, at least at the time of the Kumbh Melas. However, among Vaishnava sadhus, none of whom discard their clothes, there is no difference between nagas and non-nagas except that the former are directly attached to their respective akharas, while the latter are attached to akharas only through mutts and ashrams.

In all, there are seven Shaiva akharas—Mahanirvani, Juna, Niranjani, Atal, Anand, Awahan and Agni. The last one, however, is different from the rest of the Shaiva akharas in that its ascetics refer to themselves not as nagas but as brahmacharis, having come from, as they claim, the Brahmin caste. In the other six akharas, nagas, who belong to different castes, occupy the prime position. Shaiva ascetics are also called Dasanamis—‘Dasanam’ meaning ‘ten names’ or ‘lineages’ said to have been started by the disciples of the medieval philosopher Adi Shankara. These lineages—Aranya, Ashram, Bharati, Giri, Parvat, Puri, Saraswati, Sagar, Tirth and Van—are reflected in the names adopted by the naga and non-naga ascetics of all the seven Dasanami akharas.

Among the Vaishnavas, on the other hand, becoming a naga is at best a marginal phenomenon, except in the case of Ramanandis, a Vaishnava order founded by the fourteenth-century philosopher Ramanandacharya. This Vaishnava subsect accounts for the largest number of Hindu sadhus in the country, and form the three major Vaishnava akharas—Nirvani, Nirmohi and Digambar. The principal seats of power of these three akharas are in Ayodhya, which takes a central place in their theology as they believe it to be the birthplace of Lord Ram.

Vaishnava and Shaiva sadhus are quite distinct from each other. While Vaishnava sadhus are referred to as vairagis, meaning detached or dispassionate, Shaiva sadhus are called sanyasis or renunciates. Their garments and sect marks are distinct too. Vairagis wear white garments, while the sanyasis wear saffron. While the vairagis usually draw three vertical lines on their forehead, primarily with sandalwood (the pattern varies from one subsect to another), the sanyasis use sacred ash, or vibhuti, to draw horizontal lines.

In addition to the Shaiva and Vaishnava akharas, there are three more that owe allegiance to both Sikhism and Shaivism. Sadhus of these monastic orders—Bada Udasin, Chhota Udasin and Nirmal akharas—are closer in their practices and traditions to Dasanamis than vairagis.

Together, these thirteen akharas form the All India Akhara Parishad (AIAP), a steering committee that organises the Kumbh Mela.

Shaiva nagas, the stars of the Kumbh Mela, have a reputation for being volatile and unpredictable. Having given up, at least theoretically, every single piece of clothing while taking the pledge of nagahood, they smear themselves with vibhuti. In the past, the nagas preferred to be left alone, and their reputation ensured that devotees kept away too. But these days they can be seen enjoying their star status, collecting offerings from frightened, yet curious, devotees in the open camps they set up during Kumbh.

But these are stories of the past. Today, akharas are desperate to hide the truth of having completely lost touch with their spiritual past. The economic and financial stakes of most monastic establishments and prominent sadhus have grown enormously. Senior sadhus say that, even in the old days, some of their brethren promoted their business interests aggressively. But they also agree that this did not affect the primacy of the sadhus’ spiritual activities, at least in how they presented themselves to the external world. That is, until a section of sadhus started promoting the political project of Hindutva—the core idea that fuels Hindu supremacist politics.

The influence of Hindutva, which was consolidated in the 1960s, gained unusual pace during the 1980s and threw the old monastic orders of Hinduism out of gear. The sadhus don’t seem to have grasped the long-term implications of their entanglement with politics on such a large scale. This monumental shift, along with the exponential rise in the income and influence of prominent religious establishments and spiritual leaders, triggered a dramatic change in the trends and texture of everyday expressions of Hinduism.

It is difficult to determine what exactly pushed the sadhus and their establishments towards the project of Hindutva—a lust for wealth and power or a desire to drive the politics of the country or perhaps both. What is certain, however, is that while a majority of the sadhus felt an irresistible attraction to the Hindutva project, a small calculating minority flocked to it to take advantage of the new circumstances. The latter saw—sometimes even more clearly than their political partners—real opportunity in the dazzling mixture of spirituality, politics and business. They understood instinctively that the rising demand for conferring the quality of sacredness on nation-building, combined with the growing stakes of political and business magnates in this project, made Hindutva a gold mine. The new spiritual market promised to considerably outstrip their traditional sources of income. As they set out to exploit this new opportunity, asceticism—their core strength—became the first casualty. But as good entrepreneurs, well aware of the market demand, they devised ways and manoeuvres to keep their ascetic image intact—a precondition for surviving in the political market of spirituality.

II

This special market for spirituality started emerging around the mid-1960s, when the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a pan-India organisation of Hindus and the fountainhead of Hindutva politics, sought to draw upon the dense network of mutts, ashrams and other organisations of monastic orders to develop political Hinduism—that is, to mobilise Hindus in order to capture political power in the country. With this objective in mind, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, the second chief, or sarsanghchalak, of the RSS, held a meeting with a select group of religious leaders on 29 August 1964 in Bombay.[1] The Vishva Hindu Parishad was born out of that meeting and has since been a two-tier structure—while a group of RSS pracharaks acts as the core of the body, a vast network of prominent sadhus of various Hindu religious sects formulate Hindu perspectives not just on social but also on political issues, to be propagated to other Hindus. In the beginning, this network of sadhus was a loose structure, but later it was given a formal shape under the name of ‘margdarshak mandal’.

It was in accordance with this objective that Golwalkar appointed one of his closest associates, RSS prachakarak S.S. Apte, as the first general secretary of the VHP and an influential sadhu close to the RSS, Swami Chinmayananda, as its first president. Their appointment symbolised the association between RSS pracharaks and Hindu sadhus, an association that has remained the cornerstone of the VHP ever since. Raising the Hinduism-in-danger bogey, Apte gave a clear hint of the VHP’s political agenda right after the Bombay meeting in 1964, when he said:

The world has been divided into Christian, Islamic and Communist, and all these three consider the Hindu society as a very fine rich food on which to feast and fatten themselves. It is therefore necessary in this age of competition and conflict to think of, and organise, the Hindu world to save itself from the evil eyes of all the three.[2]

Golwalkar’s decision to not use the RSS’s political outfit, Bharatiya Jana Sangh, also called the Jan Sangh, for the large-scale mobilisation of sadhus and monastic orders, and instead launch a separate outfit that could claim to operate outside the sphere of politics, was a shrewd tactical move aimed at cleverly bypassing the constraints of the then Congress government’s secularist approach. The VHP gave the RSS an opportunity to lobby among a larger audience. Over time, this became critical in invoking Hinduism to attract the masses and polarise voters in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the RSS’s political outfit that replaced Jan Sangh in 1980.

Up until the formation of the VHP, the Hindu Mahasabha and Akhil Bharatiya Ram Rajya Parishad had been the leading political forums for religious leaders interested in Hindu communalist politics. The Mahasabha had enrolled in its ranks Mahant Digvijay Nath, the religious head of Gorakshapeeth temple—also known as Gorakhnath mutt, in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh—and one of the most cunning sadhus of the twentieth century, who had spearheaded the conspiracy to plant the idol of Lord Ram in Babri masjid in 1949. His disciple, Mahant Avaidyanath, who was the guru of BJP leader and current Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, was a member of the Hindu Mahasabha till 1989, when he shifted to the BJP and contested two subsequent Lok Sabha elections on its ticket. Abhiram Das, who actually planted the idol, was also a local leader of the Hindu Mahasabha. Ram Rajya Parishad, a political party led by one of the members of the ascetic community, Swami Karpatri, was another platform that attracted politically motivated sadhus for some time after Independence. Besides him, the shankaracharya of Puri, Niranjan Tirth, was among other important leaders drawn directly from the Hindu ascetic community.

In its initial days, the VHP, like the Hindu Mahasabha and Ram Rajya Parishad in their early days, could only attract the few sadhus who were in search of a political platform and greater legitimacy. But it persisted and gradually started gaining roots, first among Shaiva sadhus and monastic orders centred at Haridwar and nearby areas and later—once the RSS outfit associated itself with the Ram Janmabhoomi–Babri masjid issue—among the Vaishnava sadhus of Ayodhya. Kumbh Melas played a key role in the VHP’s endeavour. Yet, the VHP’s success in roping in sadhus to work for the political project of Hindutva was marginal until the BJP was formed in 1980.

In the early 1980s, Balasaheb Deoras, Golwalkar’s successor, gave the VHP a fresh impetus by providing it with 150 dharma pracharaks from the stock of RSS workers.[3] In addition, the VHP began training its own dharma pracharaks, about 100 of whom were initiated as sadhus by Shaiva akharas of Haridwar in July 1982.[4] These new operatives worked at the district, divisional and state levels, where they sought to bring together religious leaders to form regional margdarshak mandals.[5]

The VHP’s prospects started looking up after 1984, when it was virtually relaunched with the Ram Janmabhoomi issue as its prime objective. Over the next few years, it mobilised the support of Hindus and Hindu religious groups through a series of mass ritual actions, use of religious imageries and conclaves of Hindu religious leaders. Without the VHP laying the ground in this manner, it is questionable whether the BJP could have survived politically after winning just two seats in the Lok Sabha elections of 1984.

Researchers are unanimous that BJP leader L.K. Advani’s rath yatra in 1990—considered the party’s turning point—would not have been so successful had the VHP, along with its network of Hindu monastic orders, not worked with ever-increasing vigour to transform the saffron party into a major political force in the country. Professor Richard H. Davis, a noted Indologist, captures the VHP’s role in the BJP’s rath yatra quite vividly in his incisive essay, ‘The Iconography of Rama’s Chariot’:

Yet the procession was planned jointly, with the VHP leadership setting the stage and offering strategic advice behind the scenes. What is most interesting from an iconographical point of view is the way in which this double agency engineered a two level message throughout the event. ‘Hard-core’ and ‘soft-core’ imagery occurred side by side.

The hard-core imagery, for which the VHP and related groups were primarily responsible, was religious, allusive, militant, masculine, and anti-Muslim. Making much use of Rama as paradigm, it played out themes inherent in the primary terms of mobilisation. The BJP and Advani placed themselves often in the position of trying to reframe this imagery or put a softer spin on it. … The BJP … was able to disavow the more militant imagery as originating from the VHP and so attempt to maintain its electoral respectability, while at the same time profiting from the undoubted power and commitment that militant imagery evoked for some.[6]

This pretence of separation between the BJP and VHP has continued rather openly ever since. A series of events, which were primarily political in nature and carried out jointly by the two affiliates of the RSS, culminated in the demolition of the Babri masjid on 6 December 1992. It shook the nation, but also set the ground for the BJP’s gradual political growth at the Centre.

III

The VHP’s strategy was formulated to allow sadhus to lend their support to RSS’s political project without being held back by moral concerns. The VHP picked up issues and movements that contained and projected multiple meanings rather than a single message. The sadhus were able to use explicitly Hindu rituals and symbols in the routine affairs of electoral politics claiming that it was merely a celebration of their religious symbols in the public sphere, that they were only propagating Hindu culture. Gods and goddesses revered by large numbers of people and whose characteristics best lent themselves to Hindu supremacist ideology—such as Ram and Durga—became the VHP’s chosen deities. Ram, the perfect Hindu king, is pre-eminent among them, and many sadhus were attracted to the idea of treating Ayodhya as the epicentre of not only Hindutva politics but also their own religious quest.

‘Ram-rajya’ has been long used by Hindutva ideologues to signify an ideal of good governance. While for Hindu supremacists this ideal generally means that India should be a Hindu state instead of a secular republic as established by the Constitution, for the sadhus it signifies the restoration of a socio-cosmic order predicated on kingship and sanctioned by Hindu mythology. The demolition of Babri masjid built by Muslim emperor Babur not only represented a triumph of political Hinduism but also—as most sadhus believe—the culmination of a long battle for supremacy between Hinduism and Islam in India.

Part of the reason why the VHP so easily stormed these Hindu monastic orders was their own distorted understanding of their past; the sadhus I interacted with, especially those attached directly to akharas, believed that there was once a golden age when their fighting skills drove politics in India, and were unhappy that those contributions were not part of the nation’s consciousness. This perception further encouraged their overt participation in politics. In fact, every new entrant in the akharas gets indoctrinated with this revivalist message early on. This desire received an unusual push with the VHP’s entry on the scene and its promise of an elevated status for Hindu religious leaders and monastic orders in the ‘new India’.

However, the sadhus’ armed ancestors were motivated by other ambitions, unlike what their descendants believe. Early records of militant nagas show that, during the medieval period, they behaved like any other group of professional fighters—driven by money rather than any grand political agenda. They frequently took up assignments as mercenaries and worked like small-scale guerrilla armies during the seventeenth, eighteenth and even early nineteenth centuries. Their organisational structure was based on bonds of loyalty that tied chelas to their gurus. The gradations of discipleship evolved seamlessly into a military hierarchy of soldiers, field officers and commanders, and enabled smaller armed groups to grow into larger and institutionally complex naga regiments.

These armed bands of ascetics were valued in the military economy of northern India during the chaotic period between the collapse of the Mughal empire and the advent of the British rule. Sir Jadunath Sarkar records the number of naga bands of Shaiva and Vaishnava sadhus who fought in numerous battles for the rajas of Rajputana, Gujarat and other regions—both defensive and aggressive—and in turn were rewarded with grants of land and annual allowances.[7] During all of eighteenth century, they were employed in service to the maharajas of Udaipur, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Baroda, Marwar, Bhuj and many other kingdoms, and in many instances were part of a regularly paid standing army.

As the need for the warrior ascetics’ military skills increased, a handful of the nagas developed political ambitions. Sarkar records such political exploits of three famous eighteenth-century Dasanami nagas—Rajendra Giri Gosain and the brothers Anup Giri Gosain and Umrao Giri Gosain, who were both Rajendra Giri’s chelas.[8] Sarkar’s work reveals the extent of these naga warlords’ power, wealth, influence and duplicity. At the height of their careers, the brothers commanded a force of up to 40,000 horse and foot soldiers. Between 1751 and 1753, Rajendra Giri remained ‘the moving spirit’ behind all the military enterprises of Safdar Jang, the wazir of Mughal emperor Ahmad Shah and ruler of the Mughal province of Awadh. After Rajendra Giri’s death in 1753, his disciples Anup Giri and Umrao Giri continued to render service to Safdar Jang and then his successor, Shuja-ud-Daulah. They proved their loyalty to their Mughal patron against the Hindu raja of Banaras, Balwant Singh. When Shuja-ud-Daulah joined forces with Afghans, the nagas also fought against the Marathas. Sarkar describes how, before the Battle of Panipat in 1761, an assembly of Afghans were ‘most upset’ at the sight of the naked army of Shuja-ud-Daulah, ‘with their things and buttocks exposed’.[9]

The naga force of Anup Giri and Umrao Giri was part of a combined army, which also included Mughals, Pathans, Ruhelas, Rajputs and others, who together fought the British in battles at Patna and Buxar in 1764. However, the British with their superior firepower repelled the attackers.[10] During 1764–65, the brothers continued their mercenary activities under other patrons, including the Jat ruler Jawahir Singh. In 1767, the two nagas served under the Maratha ruler, Raghunath Rao, and, during their patron’s absence in Deccan, they plundered Bundelkhand.[11] Between 1767 and 1775, they were re-employed by Shuja-ud-Daulah. For the next fifteen years, they served a series of regimes in Delhi, interspersed by periods of sanctioned plunder.[12]

Between 1789 and 1802, the Maratha, Ali Bahadur, was the patron of Anup Giri and Umrao Giri, who helped him conquer Bundelkhand, in return for which the nagas were awarded 1,300,000 rupees.[13] Later, Anup Giri, who had been honoured with the title of Himmat Bahadur by Shuja-ud-Daulah, aided the British in the suppression of the Maratha chief Shamsher Bahadur II, son and successor of Ali Bahadur, and ended his long career as the de facto ruler of a large part of Bundelkhand.

Around the time Anup Giri and Umrao Giri were running amok in the vast swathes of northern India, other armed sanyasis—sometimes in their own bands and at other times in league with Muslim fakirs and the impoverished peasantry of Bengal—locked horns with the region’s new master, the East India Company. The raids the sanyasis carried out—after the Company’s formal acquisition of diwani rights to collect revenue over Bengal in 1765—have been described as everything from a precocious guerrilla war for India’s independence to a haphazard outbreak of banditry.[14] Company records contain numerous reports of incursions by these ‘marauding’ and frequently armed groups.[15] The British version of events, wherein the ash-clad, bhang-drinking sanyasis and fakirs are presented as marauder-bandits, has been challenged by many historians, who assert that the disturbances of the period was part of a larger movement of peasant unrest and rebellion against colonial repression and excessive taxation, which sometimes caused starvation, and that the sanyasis and fakirs frequently spearheaded these movements.[16]

David N. Lorenzen also writes on the series of events referred to as the Sanyasi Rebellion, describing the Dasanami nagas’ involvement in the struggle for succession to the throne of Cooch Behar in northeastern Bengal. In this dispute, which flared up periodically between 1765 and 1790, the sanyasis were usually on one side and the English on the other.[17]

The Company’s forces, under orders from Warren Hastings, made strenuous efforts to suppress sanyasis and fakirs and stop them from entering Bengal. In 1773, a law was passed to prohibit the sanyasis and fakirs from carrying arms, and from entering and traversing the province of Bengal.[18] No less than four battalions of the Company’s army were actively engaged against the sanyasis and fakirs.[19] It was only by 1800 that the rebellion, which had continued for thirty-five years, was finally suppressed.[20]

By the beginning of the nineteenth century, armed ascetic activity started declining fast. The few militant nagas who remained in eastern India in 1809–10 were reported to have abandoned arms.[21] The heirs of Anup Giri and Umrao Giri and other armed bands of sanyasis and vairagis in central and western parts of northern India were taking their last breaths. British rule meant that there was less and less scope for warrior ascetics to operate as they used to. Opportunities in the armies of princely states also declined due to strained finances and because they often had British representatives posted in their court. Eventually, the akharas of warrior ascetics deteriorated and lost all except ceremonial functions, the centralised state established by the British having neither the need nor the desire for their services.

The akharas were quick to read the writing on the wall. Out of ideas and beaten by the superior British forces, in a matter of just years rather than decades, the armed naga bands mutated completely. They adapted to the changing political environment and economic pattern in northern India and diversified, in no time, into urban-property ownership and money lending, post 1802.[22] It has been estimated that around 250,000 acres of land is owned by Dasanami akharas, and that the entire Girnar hills area in Gujarat was under the control of the nagas of Juna akhara for a while.[23] Even today, almost half of Ayodhya and Haridwar is owned by Vaishnava and Shaiva akharas, respectively. Acquisition of property at such a large scale changed everything for the nagas—their world view, their eagerness to participate in politics, their very way of life. Armed battles were replaced by the urgent need to manage akhara properties and to keep alive the symbols of their mercenary past to be showcased during Kumbh Melas.

IV

As generations passed, the history of the nagas underwent a metamorphosis and gave birth to a firmly embedded myth. This myth-history goes that the nagas took up arms to protect the Hindu religion and that they were the last line of defence against foreign invaders, both Muslim and British. The truth, however, is that the armed ancestors of present-day sadhus were mercenaries who served transient masters of any shade of faith.

In 1925, incidentally the same year the RSS was founded, this myth was recorded as history. J.N. Farquhar, the Scottish missionary and scholar who is credited with the first scholarly attempt to study the warrior ascetics in India, authored two articles that year.[24] These articles—‘The Fighting Ascetics of India’ and ‘The Organisation of the Sannyasis of the Vedanta’—still have innumerable takers, not only in the world of akharas but also among a significant part of the general intelligentsia. The communalist explanation of Hindu warrior asceticism he inaugurated through these articles, though it was based on the contemporary belief of nagas and monastic establishments, ended up further strengthening Hindu monasticism’s distorted perception of its past. In ‘The Organisation of the Sannyasis of the Vedanta’, he writes:

In the sixteenth century there were in North India thousands of Muslim faqirs who went about armed, took part in the wars of the time, and, when there was no regular war, fought for their own hand. One of their practices, as good Muslims, was to attack and kill sannyasis as representatives of Hinduism. As ascetics, these faqirs held a privileged position, and were thus protected from mob violence and also from interference on the part of the government, which was then Muhammadan. Thus, when sannyasis were killed, no one was punished, while sannyasis themselves were prevented from taking violent measures against their enemies by their vow of ahimsa.

Madhusudana Sarasvati, a well known sannyasi scholar of the Sarasvati sub-order [of Dasanamis], who lived in Benares in the middle of the century, at last went to Akbar to see whether anything could be done for the protection of the ancient order to which he belonged. Raja Birbal was present at the interview and suggested the way out of the difficulty. He advised Madhusudan to initiate large numbers of non-Brahmans into the sannyasi order and arm them for the protection of Brahman sannyasis. The Emperor agreed that armed sannyasis should be protected by their sacred character from government interference. Madhusudan, therefore, went and initiated large numbers of Kshatriyas and Vaishyas into seven of the [ten Dasanami] sub-orders.[25]

In the same article, Farquhar conceded that his theory on the origin of Dasanami akharas was based on a legend he had recorded from oral reports obtained at a monastery of the Saraswati order in Banaras and at another monastery of the Giri order near Allahabad.[26] In another article (‘The Fighting Ascetics of India’), he also admitted that he had not found any mention of a meeting between Madhusudan Sarasvati and the Mughal emperor in any of the written records of Akbar’s reign, and yet he believed that ‘there can be no doubt about its truth’ since all the ascetics in north India ‘hold the tradition’ and because ‘we may also be certain that the Emperor who had given the Hindu an equal place with the Muslim in his empire would at once recognise the justice of Madhusudan’s appeal and would respond to it’.[27]

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Farquhar’s explanation is not that he shaped a popular myth into history, but that the story he fished out from the legend conflicts directly with another version of Akbar’s encounter with the sanyasis, where the emperor was asked to intervene in a clash between two groups of nagas, rather than between nagas and fakirs.

The record of this clash—by all means, the earliest documented armed clash between two groups of armed nagas—can be found in Nizamuddin Ahmad’s Tabaqat-i-Akbari and Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama, and it occurred around the same time Madhusudhan Sarasvati is said to have met Akbar. While Ahmad calls the two groups of warring ascetics ‘Sanyasis’ and ‘Yogis’, Fazl refers to them as ‘Gurs’ and ‘Puris’. These latter two names have been identified as Giris and Puris, two of the ten lineages of the Dasanamis.[28] Each side was claiming for itself a choice location for the collection of silver and gold coins being distributed by wealthy pilgrims who had gathered for a bath in one of the sacred tanks in the wake of an eclipse. Of the two, ‘Sanyasis’ were less than half the size of the ‘Yogis’. Before the clash, the issue reached Akbar, who first tried to reason with the disputants, but when they seemed adamant, he granted them permission to settle the dispute through combat.[29] This record also suggests that militant Hindu orders were already in existence during the reign of the Mughal emperor. And if it was so, Farquhar’s claim that the idea of an armed akhara was born around the middle of the sixteenth century when Madhusudan Sarasvati met with Akbar and Birbal cannot—and should not—be taken seriously.

Vaishnava legends too maintain that their military organisation was in response to the aggressive activities of Shaiva nagas. Similarly, most historical references related to Vaishnava akharas mention clashes with Shaiva ascetics rather than with Muslims. The disputes were frequently ‘over the policing of the great religious fairs, and the collection of pilgrim dues’.[30]

V

Yet, the myth persisted and could not be cut away by the truth. It gave nagas an unshakeable belief in their destiny to guide the future of politics in India. This myth also made it easier for a section of Hindu monasticism to falsely claim that its interests were synonymous with the interests of all Hindus. Most of the monastic orders, obsessed with what they saw as their duty to the Hindu religion, did not realise that their role in politicising Hinduism would only benefit the politics of Hindutva, and also cause immense disruptions in their own world.

While the change brought about by this new relationship between sadhus and the Hindu Right was reflected in the rise of the BJP’s strength in the Lok Sabha from two seats in 1984 to 282 seats in 2014, the impact it had on the sadhus and their akharas has remained unexplored. Whatever knowledge exists is anecdotal at best.

Initially, I focused on the Vaishnava akharas in Ayodhya, to study the effect of this nexus on the sadhus. But I quickly realised that I would have to extend my research to Shaiva sadhus, who have had a relatively longer association with the VHP, and mostly live in Haridwar, Rishikesh, Varanasi and Allahabad, which, at the time of the Kumbh Melas, becomes a powerful magnet for those scrambling to corner the biggest share of the new politico-spiritual market.

Their engagement with the Hindu Right is not solely responsible for the present-day malaise of the akharas. The new circumstances have simply exacerbated this greed for wealth and power.

Over the next few years, I made my way layer by layer inside the akharas, those of both Shaivas and Vaishnavas, traversing the ruins left in the wake of their association with Hindutva politics.

The making of the Hindu vote has taken a huge toll on the akharas. These decades of interplay with Hindutva politics has provoked a number of crises, and opportunities, in their world. My attempt to collect information about life in the akharas—the intricacies of power plays, the manoeuvres required to keep their ascetic image intact, including deriving legitimacy from Kumbh Melas, and their pursuit of personal and institutional ambitions and rivalries—was initially weighed down by a sense of frustration that there was so little known, and hardly anything written, about all this.

The available literature on nagas and akharas can be categorised into two sorts. At one end of the spectrum is a survey of their history, rituals and belief systems. At the other extreme are books either completely devotional in nature or written with a certain degree of awe. Even the coffee-table picture books and magazine photo-essays do not seek to explain anything more than what is visible on the surface.

As I delved deeper, I understood that beneath the ascetic conformity there are eddies of activity, some quite vigorous, that nourish more interesting lifestyles—of sadhus working under the patronage of Hindutva politics, who have found ways to mould parts of the system to their advantage. The changed system created new circumstances, and even the the most stoic of sadhus could not remain unaffected by the games their brothers played.

So far, no attempt has been made to venture into the disturbing darkness of the akharas and there has been no serious public discussion on naga sadhus. The focus on the making of political Hinduism has been so glaring that the unmaking of the world of Hindu monastic orders has remained obscure.

This book seeks to lift up the trapdoor. It examines why and how the darkness is kept alive, who benefits from it and who does not, of the lives trapped within and the logic that keeps them locked in.

1

MURDER IN A HOLY CITY

The moment had finally come. His mouth and nostrils were crushed under immense weight. A searing pain shot through his body as he made one last attempt to breathe. ‘Then,’ Ram Asare Das, a naga vairagi of Ayodhya, explained to me two years after the incident, ‘just when it seemed futile to struggle anymore, Lord Hanuman appeared before me in all his glory. I clung to him and begged him to save me. Immediately, I felt energy surge through my hands and legs. With a push, I freed myself from the deadly hold, jumped off my bed and ran from the temple, screaming.’[1]

How Ram Asare Das, who was eighty-eight years old then, could have gathered such strength that night in 2011 is unclear.

Almost nothing is known about the visitor in his room that night. It was pitch dark, and Ram Asare Das could not see the face of the man who tried to suffocate him. It seemed like a professional job. He was convinced that Brijmohan Das, his young disciple who had dethroned him as the mahant, or abbot, of Chauburji temple and claimed the post for himself, was behind it. Ever since Ram Asare Das was ousted, Brijmohan Das had wanted to get rid of him, not least because Ram Asare Das was determined to regain his old authority.

After he fled the Chauburji temple, Ram Asare Das led a wanderer’s life, with no permanent place to stay in Ayodhya. Yet, he never considered returning to the temple he had ruled as a mahant for several decades, fearing for his life. Brijmohan Das was also the city president of the VHP and held a lot of sway.

Housed in a 7.5-acre sprawling campus in the Ramkot locality, Chauburji is one of the several fortress-like Hindu religious establishments that dot Ayodhya. The temple owns real estate properties worth crores of rupees. The massive idol of a sleeping Hanuman is its main attraction. Sadhus like Brijmohan Das claim that this was the site where king Dasarath, the father of Lord Ram and the mythical king of Ayodhya, administered justice from, and even the registered name of the temple is Dasarath Gaddi. This kind of exaggeration is, in fact, in the nature of Ayodhya, where Ramanandi vairagis point to one temple as the spot where Lord Ram was born, to another as the place where he played as a child, to still another as the temple where the pushpak viman had landed, carrying him and his consort Sita back home after defeating the demon king Ravana, and so on and so forth. And for sharing this kind of ‘information’, the nagas exact a liberal fee from the willing listener.

Until he was ousted from Chauburji, Ram Asare Das, too, used to make such claims. But now, asked whether Dasarath had indeed administered justice from this temple, he laughed. ‘What puzzles me is how Lord Ram came to be born in a place that is full of crooks,’ he said. ‘Perhaps gods are born where there are too many sinners.’

Ram Asare Das came to Ayodhya in the late Fifties from his native place Gopalganj in Bihar. ‘Right from the beginning I lived in Hanumangarhi along with my guru, Mahant Sitaram Das, and soon became a naga vairagi. Later, along with my guru, I shifted to an old temple in Ramkot area. It used to be a dilapidated structure but had huge tracts of donated land in its name. After the death of my guru, I became its mahant,’ he said. Ram Asare Das claimed that he oversaw the construction of a magnificent temple in 1984 and named it Dasarath Gaddi. In Ayodhya, however, it is called Chauburji, named after the circular towers in the four corners along its imposing walls.

Ram Asare Das claimed that Brijmohan Das was not his disciple but used to stay in the temple with his father who worked there. ‘The temple had several cases against it, and I was too old to do the kind of running around required. I trusted Brijmohan Das and asked him to look after these cases. About three years ago [in 2010], I gave him the power of attorney to handle the cases. But I learnt later that he had conned me into signing papers that registered the mahantship of the temple in his name. I was not aware of this. For a year after the signing of these papers, he did not say anything. Then he started telling me that I had no right to stay there and that I must leave the temple. After that night’s incident, I decided to leave the place forever.’

Brijmohan Das, who had secured complete control over the temple and its properties, denied having tried to kill his guru or expropriating the mahantship through deception. ‘During his last days in the temple, my guru started playing into the hands of Ayodhya’s land mafia and he wanted to sell all the properties of the temple. I didn’t allow this and that’s why he is levelling all kinds of charges against me,’ he alleged.[2]

When Brijmohan Das’s version of the story was presented to Ram Asare Das, he argued, ‘I constructed it. How could I think of giving it away to the land mafia? The charges are baseless. He is trying to divert attention from the crime he has committed.’

In any case, Ram Asare Das is among the luckier mahants in Ayodhya, where murdering gurus is the order of the day in the fight to grab temples and ashrams. When I asked why he hadn’t returned to Chauburji temple, Ram Asare Das shuddered involuntarily. ‘Last time I was saved because of divine intervention. But that may not happen again.’

For some time after leaving the temple, Ram Asare Das kept running from one mahant to another, hoping they would come forward to support him. But in Ayodhya there is nothing so ex as an ex-mahant. So long as an ascetic heads a temple, all doors remain open for him, but the moment he is ousted, he stops getting invitation even for religious feasts, like the bhandaras. ‘It was amazing,’ he said. ‘I even went to the akhara [he belongs to Nirvani akhara], but no one came forward to help me. All those who mattered in Ayodhya seemed to have been bought by Brijmohan Das, who had by then become the city president of VHP.’

When nothing happened, Ram Asare Das left Ayodhya and moved to a temple in his native place Gopalganj. However, he regularly visited Ayodhya, hoping, despite all odds, that one day he would be able to get back his empire. In mid-2017, when he was close to turning 100 years old, he finally gave up, and, accepting his fate, reached a compromise with his tormentor, who allowed him to live in a corner of the Chauburji temple, where Ram Asare Das breathed his last on 8 February 2018.

Underneath the veneer of divinity lie stories of bloody successions in temples and ashrams—especially those that have immense landed properties donated by the nawabs of Awadh and other princely states during the colonial era—that reveal Ayodhya as the lawless killing field of sadhus.

II

The relationship between a guru and a chela, which is at the heart of Ramanandi akharas, is underlaid with turbulence. Outsiders might not see this or skim over it—because of the veil of religion—but anybody with even a surface view of the akharas cannot remain blind to it. It even finds a mention in Ayodhya’s folklore:

Charan dabaa ke sant bane hain,
gardan dabaa mahant;

Paramparaa sab bhool gaye hain,
bhool gayen hain granth;

De do inko bhi kuchh gyaan,
dharaa par ek baar tum phir aao, Hey Ram.

(He became a sadhu by massaging feet,

And a mahant by choking a throat;

They have forgotten the traditions
and the scriptures;

Enlighten them

Come down to earth one more time, O Ram.)

Most sadhus of Ayodhya I spoke to agree that this violent streak was exacerbated around the mid-1980s, soon after the VHP pushed the Ram Janmabhoomi issue to the fore. The VHP, for almost two decades after its inception in 1964, had been unable to use the sadhus in creating a favourable electoral condition for the BJP. This failure led the RSS to re-launch the VHP in the early 1980s with the prime motive of spearheading a new political strategy.

The Ram Janmabhoomi issue had been almost forgotten after the few months of commotion that it generated following the surreptitious idol-planting of 1949.[3] Until that night, Ramchabutara—an elevated platform of 17x21x6 feet, located about 100 paces from the Babri masjid inside its outer courtyard—was treated as the birthplace of Lord Ram. All attempts by naga vairagis to build a temple over Ramchabutara had failed because the British government had imposed a restraint on any construction work in the Babri masjid campus. India’s independence was perceived by some of the Hindu Mahasabha’s prominent leaders and the nagas in Ayodhya as a removal of that restraint. In the atmosphere of bitterness created by the communal clashes that took place in the wake of Partition, a group of Ramanandi nagas and Hindu Mahasabha leaders succeeded in capturing the whole of Babri masjid. But once the idol was planted, the turmoil gave way to legal battles and the issue remained politically dormant for over three decades, until the RSS saw an opportunity in it.

In early 1984, the VHP organised its first Dharma Sansad in Delhi, which unanimously adopted a resolution demanding the ‘liberation’ of the birthplace of Lord Ram.[4] In July that year, the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Mukti Yajna Samiti (Committee to Liberate Ram’s Birthplace) was founded. On 1 October, the VHP established its militant wing, Bajrang Dal, under the leadership of Vinay Katiyar, who had been an RSS pracharak since 1980. As the VHP’s main strike force, the Bajrang Dal was tasked with ‘liberating’ the ‘Ram temple’, as Babri masjid has been called ever since the idol of Lord Ram was planted in it in 1949. A procession was set off from Sitamarhi in Bihar for this purpose, and it reached Ayodhya on 6 October. The focal point of the procession was a lorry bearing large statues of Ram and Sita beneath a banner with the slogan ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’.[5]

Peter van der Veer describes how the response to the procession in Ayodhya was marked by extreme indifference: ‘As far as I could see only some five to seven thousand people had come to listen to the speeches. This seemed a disappointing number … The Hindu press was not taken aback by this number, however, and inflated it to fifty thousand and in some papers even to a hundred thousand, numbers which were taken over by the national press.’[6]

After halting in Ayodhya for a day, the procession started for Lucknow to present a petition to the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. The Ramanandi nagas’ largely unenthusiastic response in Ayodhya frustrated the VHP and the participating sadhus; van der Veer records it thus: ‘Some of Ayodhya’s sadhus had accompanied the procession to Lucknow and told, after their return, that it had had a far greater success in Lucknow and in the places on the way than in Ayodhya itself.’[7]

It was an unnerving time for the VHP. The lack of support from the ascetic community of Ayodhya, the epicentre of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, threatened to disrupt its new agenda. The VHP had devoted many months and all the resources under its command to raise the pitch of the campaign in order to mobilise Hindus in general and Ayodhya’s ascetic community in particular—a critical component for the success of its plans. The VHP’s campaign in Ayodhya was conducted by a handful of Ramanandi vairagis who had little support from the rest of the community, and, in the end, not much was accomplished.

In the months that followed, progress continued to elude the VHP. In the last week of November 1984, for example, Ayodhya witnessed three Ramayan Melas, gatherings at which the Ramayana would be recited. Two of them were organised by the government and the third by the VHP’s point man in Ayodhya, Ramchandradas Paramhansa, the shri mahant, or chief abbot, of the Digambar akhara, the smallest of the three main Ramanandi akharas of the Vaishnava sect. ‘While the two Melas organized by the Congress (I) governments [both at the Center and state] were reasonably well attended, Ramchandradas’s Mela was an abject failure,’ writes Peter van der Veer.[8]

Partly because of this inability of the VHP to expand its network among the naga vairagis of Ayodhya, it set up a Ram Janmabhoomi Trust and conferred its chairmanship on Jagat Guru Ramanandacharya Shivaramacharya, head of the Ramanandis of Varanasi, the holy town located close to Ayodhya. It was a shrewd move, because Shivaramacharya, said to command immense respect throughout Vaishnava circles, would help swing the majority of Ramanandis to the VHP, particularly in Ayodhya. Having set up the trust, with which BJP leader Vijaya Raje Scindia and a number of corporate representatives, like G.P. Birla, G.H. Singhania, K.N. Modi and R.N. Goenka, were associated, the VHP called on the government to transfer the property rights of the disputed site in Ayodhya to the trust so that the ‘biggest temple in the world’ could be built there.[9]

Soon, however, it became clear that even Shivaramacharya could not ensure the kind of foothold the VHP required in Ayodhya. The movement met with greater enthusiasm in other parts of Uttar Pradesh and, in fact, got a fillip following the order in early 1986 by a district and sessions judge in Faizabad—the district that houses Ayodhya—that the Uttar Pradesh government should unlock the gates of the Babri masjid–Ram Janmabhoomi temple to enable devotees to offer darshan and puja in the disputed structure. But the movement was still not particularly successful at the local level in Ayodhya,[10] and this seemed to get on the VHP’s nerves.

The Ram Janmabhoomi movement gave the temples of Ayodhya a keener edge and the local mahants an exalted position. Getting these temples and their mahants on board was a political necessity for the RSS and the VHP if they wanted to present themselves as leader of the Ram Janmabhoomi ‘liberation’ movement. The VHP knew that, it could not authentically act as a representative voice for Indian sadhus or for the ‘cause’, if the mahants of Ayodhya did not fall in line.

The VHP desperately needed pliable mahants in Ayodhya’s temples. For ambitious ascetics, this provided a new opportunity as well as readily available help to accrue material prospects or grab lucrative mahantships in Ayodhya. And in this little-studied internal history lies the unravelling of the sadhus. The VHP’s role in creating a killing field in Ayodhya has remained hidden.

‘The VHP has trained the sadhus of Ayodhya to achieve anything through crime,’ says Raghunandan Das, the mahant of Satsang Ashram temple at Swargadwar in Ayodhya. He was part of the VHP’s procession in 1984 and headed the procession in Darbhanga district of Bihar. Three decades later he admits: ‘In the name of temple movement, the VHP singlehandedly destroyed the tranquillity of Ayodhya. Violence, moneypower and political influence were used openly by it to get favourable mahants installed in the temples here. Goons in the garb of sadhus became powerful. Old and vulnerable mahants became victims. The dignity that the sadhus of Ayodhya have lost, because of the VHP’s direct or indirect interference in deciding successions in temples here, can never be reclaimed.’

As Ayodhya moved from the 1980s to 1990s, punctuated by the massive shock it received on 6 December 1992, when Babri masjid was eventually demolished, the power and prestige attached to a mahant in Ayodhya shot up. This was partly because the VHP and its sister organisations, after having overseen the demolition of the mosque, hastened the installation of pliable mahants in the temples of Ayodhya, and partly because the scramble for mahantship created a suitable ground for the entry of hardened criminals from the nearby areas of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar looking for safe havens. Together, they vitiated the atmosphere in Ayodhya even further. Over time, the situation deteriorated so much that today only a mahant with a band of armed goons of his own can feel safe. And even that cannot guarantee safety.

‘It would be stupid to pretend that politics has no role in it,’ fugitive mahant Ram Asare Das told me. ‘During the last three decades, such incidents have increased exponentially. Earlier, elder mahants used to be respected, but ever since the Ram temple movement was revived, the mahants of Ayodhya have lived in constant fear. The mahantship has now become a business here. Not just my temple, the VHP has been instrumental in getting its own men installed as mahants in several other temples of Ayodhya.’

That, however, was not the only way the Ram Janmabhoomi movement hit Ayodhya. Between 1950 and 1984, except for legal battles, there had been no on-the-ground action, no movement to demand the Hindu occupation of Babri masjid. Pilgrims to Ayodhya were mostly lay devotees from rural or semi-urban regions, without any political agenda. The means of these devotees were limited, so were their reasons for visiting Ayodhya. With the revival of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, the town began to witness a spurt in the influx of religious tourists. This spiked further during the 1990s and thereafter. Many temples were converted into dharamshalas and the prices of real-estate possessions of these religious institutions shot up.

‘There was also a change in the nature of religious tourists,’ said Raghuvar Sharan, an Ayodhya-based journalist. ‘Earlier, Ayodhya used to attract traditional devotees who had longstanding relationships with their gurus and their temples, and who had been visiting the town at regular intervals. But once the temple movement started heating up politically, a new variety of tourists began visiting the town in large numbers. This new variety of visitors had no traditional association with Ayodhya or its old temples, nor were they simpletons like their predecessors. They brought money as well as aggression. The sadhus of Ayodhya could not remain unaffected.’

It must indeed have been a turning point for Ayodhya. Many residents I interviewed said that these new tourists were less religious and more communal. They eulogised warrior Ram and his ferocious devotees, providing a psychological boost for those who had money and power. Spirituality started dying fast, so did the tranquillity of Ayodhya and its sadhus.

The bohemian sadhus of the town were converted into, or replaced by, those desirous of owning properties and wielding their power.

III

Ramananda, the medieval philosopher who inspired the foundation of these Vaishnava akharas, could not have imagined this future for his followers. To discover the extent to which spirituality has evaporated from the life of Ayodhya’s naga vairagis, one has to only look at the kind of cases that occupies the local courts here. ‘Almost 90 per cent of the cases in Ayodhya are of this very nature—crime being committed for mahantship is merely a reflection of what has been happening here for quite some time,’ said Ranjit Lal Varma, one of Faizabad’s best-known lawyers. ‘A good number of temples here have become shelters for criminals, who, after committing crime in other parts of the country, hide in Ayodhya in the garb of sadhus. After ten to fifteen years, if they succeed in becoming mahants, with or without the help of their political masters, they stay back. Else they return to their native places and start a new life, assured that the old cases would have gone into cold storage.’

This new class of sadhus, who have taken shelter in Ayodhya and who roam its streets in the garb of vairagis, might have made it easier for the VHP to further its own agenda. Bereft of religious ethos and desirous of the power and wealth available at the temples, these sadhus might well have been willing pawns for the Sangh Parivar.

What has made these machinations—whether of the VHP or otherwise—possible is the very nature of the properties attached to the temples. Legally, all the lands of the temples in Ayodhya are devottar, or endowed, lands owned by the presiding deities of the assorted religious establishments, and mahants are to act only as their managers. This means the temple properties cannot be owned by the mahants, only possessed.

‘Under the Property Dissipation Act of UP, the commissioner of every division is empowered to grant on merit the permission for sale of the endowed land,’ said Varma. ‘But that law is never followed. In reality, the land endowed to the deity is sold and purchased freely on the ground that it would benefit the endowment, that is, the temple.’ This selling and purchasing is carried out by the possessor on behalf of the presiding deity and the commissioner’s permission is hardly ever sought. Though illegal, such transactions occur regularly.

The succession of land in a religious establishment in Ayodhya is guided by the Riwaz-e-Aam, the customary law of Ayodhya’s vairagis, formalised during the first land settlement effected by the colonial masters after the Revolt of 1857 and the accession of Awadh to the British empire. Under the Riwaz-e-Aam, the ascetics of Ayodhya are treated as a special category of families—spiritual families, so to say—in so far as the succession of mahantship and the ownership of the religious establishments are concerned. Thus, like a natural family, a guru in a spiritual family of Ayodhya is always succeeded by a disciple, or a co-disciple, or disciple’s disciple, or nephew-disciple—disciple of a guru-brother or guru-sister—and so on. The only difference here is that, while in a natural family, the property gets divided among the descendants, in a spiritual family, it remains intact and passes on to a sole successor. Like a natural family, there is also a provision for adoption in a spiritual family. In case a mahant wants to nominate an ascetic who is not his disciple as his successor, he will first have to make such a person his sadhaka chela. A sadhaka chela is very much like an adopted son and his lineage would automatically change to that of his guru’s.

If a mahant suddenly dies without appointing a successor, ascetics of other temples, mutts and akharas belonging to the Ramanandi sect in Ayodhya assemble and select a suitable person from among the chelas of the deceased. The ascetics then sign a declaration, called mahazarnama, recognising the identified disciple as the new mahant. The formal announcement of the new mahant’s appointment is made at the bhandara in which a chadar is offered to the incumbent, who, in turn, gives monetary gifts to each of the ascetics attending the ceremony.

‘What is [now] being practised in Ayodhya is something completely opposite,’ said Varma. ‘Nowadays a sadhu becomes the mahant first. He then bribes some ascetics of Ayodhya and makes them sign the mahazarnama, following which he organises a bhandara and gets himself declared as the new mahant.’

This is likely to happen if a mahant dies—or gets killed—without formally nominating his successor. But there is no guarantee that things will go smoothly even if a mahant nominates his successor well in advance. By writing a will, the mahant actually risks becoming a burden and a threat simultaneously. The moment a mahant writes his will, the nominee no longer needs him. So long as the mahant is alive, the nominee lives in constant fear that his guru might change his mind. In Ayodhya, there is a rather disturbing trend of an abnormally high number of mahants dying mere days or weeks after writing their will.

‘Often, the crimes committed against mahants do not come to light because only rarely do sadhus allow post-mortem of the deceased,’ said Varma. The Ramanandi nagas believe that after a sadhu’s death his body must be submerged in the river Sarayu without being mutilated.

What more could a murderer want?

IV

Hanumangarhi, the de facto centre of Ayodhya, plays a pivotal role in this fratricidal war between sadhus. It enjoys a big advantage—in terms of sheer strength—over all the other temples. As the baithak, or main seat of power, of Nirvani akhara, it houses over 600 naga vairagis, who act in gangs and treat the landed property of Ayodhya as their own, emboldened by the brute force they brandish proudly. Until recently, Hanumangarhi had been a renowned centre of wrestling, but now its wrestling pit has lost its charm for the nagas, who consider gun power a more effective source of strength. These nagas are ruthless and are feared throughout Ayodhya.

‘In most of the disputes over mahantship in Ayodhya, one or the other group of Hanumangarhi nagas is invariably involved, either directly or indirectly,’ said Haridayal Mishra, a local sadhu whose astrological skills have made him a close confidant of the Ramanandi vairagis of Ayodhya, particularly those residing in Hanumangarhi. ‘For you, Ayodhya is the land of Ram, for the nagas it is the land of Hanuman. You come here to make offerings, they stay here to grab whatever they can.’

The astrologer is known as a prattler, and yet the nagas of Hanumangarhi seek him out and talk to him all day.

Mishra explained how the nagas of Hanumangarhi deal with mahantships: ‘Their modus operandi is simple. First they capture the body of the deceased, and then his temple.’

The operation begins as soon as the mahant of a temple dies. Since the nagas always keep an eye on every potential mahantship, it does not take them much time to get into action. First, a group—the size of which varies from case to case, ranging from a handul to several dozens—of Hanumangarhi’s nagas reach the temple of the deceased mahant. These nagas then take control of the dead body, prepare it for last rites and carry it to river Sarayu, where one of them, chosen in advance, performs the last rites for the departed soul. All this is done with fanfare to ensure that people know who is performing the last rites and who, therefore, is the real disciple. Immediately after, they prepare and sign the mahazarnama, declaring the chosen naga as the new mahant and successor of the deceased. This is often done by announcing that the new mahant was the sadhaka chela or the guru-brother—having shared a guru—of the deceased. Temples susceptible to such forcible occupations include those in which mahants die without a written will, or if the late mahant was ever associated with a naga vairagi of Hanumangarhi. The local administration often stays clear of such disputes. Even if a case is filed by the real claimant, the occupier uses the mahazarnama as well as the resources of the newly occupied temple to defend his claim to the mahantship. The civil court in Faizabad overflows with such disputes. The real claimants in most cases are helpless. The nagas of Hanumangarhi band together, and are too powerful to be defeated.

Even when there is a clear claim to the title, the would-be mahant is unlikely to succeed against the Hanumangarhi nagas. Take the case of eighty-year-old Ramrup Das, who, after transferring the mahantship of Rang Niwas temple in Ayodhya to his disciple Raghunath Das over a decade ago, had been living quietly in Samastipur, Bihar, looking after the temple’s land there. On 9 February 2013, his disciple Raghunath Das, a heart patient, passed away without writing a will. As was expected, a section of Hanumangarhi’s nagas led by Manmohan Das, who claimed to be the guru-brother of the deceased, took control of the body as well as the temple, which has to its name over 100 bighas (more than sixty acres) of land.

Manmohan Das, a prominent BJP leader in Ayodhya, asserted that the temple belonged to him because Raghunath Das, before shifting to Rang Niwas temple, had been a resident of Hanumangarhi, where he had been a disciple of Manmohan’s guru Satyanarayan Das of Nirvani akhara, making Raghunath and Manmohan Das guru-brothers. And since Raghunath did not hand over his mahantship to anyone, the temple must naturally go to Manmohan. He further claimed that it was because of this very relationship he had with Raghunath that he had paid for the treatment of the latter and, after his death, performed his last rites as well.

Raghunath Das’s guru Ramrup Das, who rushed to Ayodhya as soon as he received news of his disciple’s death, asserted that since he was still alive, mahantship of the Rang Niwas temple should revert to him. But when he reached Ayodhya eight days after his disciple’s death to stake his claim, he was not allowed to enter the temple, which was already occupied by the nagas of Hanumangarhi.

In the midst of all this, Ramrup Das met Arjun Das, a local resident who had been teaching Hindu scriptures in Shrinivas Bodhayan Ramanuj Sanskrit College in Ayodhya for the last five years, and who had of late developed ascetic ambitions and had been looking for a base temple in the town. ‘Ramrup Das asked me for help. I told him that fighting with the nagas of Hanumangarhi would require considerable amount of money and that I would do that provided I get a clear stake in the property,’ explained Arjun Das. Ramrup Das was present at the time of this conversation, and neither of them seemed to have any qualms in confessing to this.

The octogenarian had no option but to agree to the terms. The very next day, Arjun Das became Ramrup Das’s disciple. Later, on the same day, the guru registered the mahantship of Rang Niwas in the name of his new chela. ‘We came to an understanding that once the property is retrieved from the intruding nagas, my guru would remain the virtual mahant until his death. The entire property would revert to me only after his death,’ Arjun added.

Meanwhile, Manmohan Das handed over the temple to Rajkumar Das, a VHP-backed ascetic who had several murder charges against him. It is now a legal battle. Even if Rajkumar Das is defeated in court, it is difficult to say whether Arjun Das would stick to the promise he had made Ramrup Das. Chances are that Rang Niwas will never return to Ramrup Das no matter who wins the case—Rajkumar or Arjun Das.

This is the trajectory of most of these battles. Even Hanumangarhi, the nagas of which have wreaked havoc throughout the town, is not untouched by this ailment. This temple-fortress owns nearly half of Ayodhya and has huge properties in several parts of north India, reason enough for its resident ascetics to keep fighting among themselves. Technically, Hanumangarhi is run by a panchayati system, and its properties are divided into four pattis—Ujjainia, Basantia, Sagaria and Hardwari. In reality, however, these properties have passed into the hands of the nagas who command power. Legally, nagas can’t be the owners of the properties they command, but in reality they reap monetary benefits from the lands of Hanumangarhi.

One such powerful naga was Harishankar Das, who, until his death on 1 March 2017, was perhaps one of the richest sadhus in Hanumangarhi in terms of the extent of temple property he controlled. A few years before his death, one of his disciples, Murari Das, allegedly hatched a conspiracy to kill him.

‘Murari Das was desperate,’ Harishankar Das had told me. ‘He wanted to get rid of me so that he could inherit all my properties without any delay. But look at God’s wish, I am hale and hearty and walk on my own, whereas Murari Das had a paralytic attack and is now bed-ridden.’

Harishankar Das had reason to believe that a conspiracy was afoot. He was attacked on 28 October 2008 in a temple at Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh. Though owned by Hanumangarhi, the temple, which has nearly 150 acres of fertile land attached to it, was in Harishankar Das’s possession. One evening, he was taking a walk in the fields of the temple. Suddenly, a Maruti van drove up to him and five men jumped out of it and started firing indiscriminately. ‘I received six bullets, but I chased the miscreants and fell only after that,’ he claimed. He was rushed to Lucknow for treatment. Harishankar Das, like Ram Asare Das of Chauburji temple, believed that he might not have survived had it not been for divine intervention.

‘Since Murari Das was not part of the group that tried to kill Harishankar Das, he was not named in the FIR,’ said Balram Das, another disciple of Harishankar Das. ‘But later, his name was included in the charge sheet when it was found in course of the investigation that it was all the handiwork of Murari Das. The case is still on but my guru is no longer interested in pursuing it.’

Harishankar Das had come to Ayodhya from Basti in 1958. In those days, Hanumangarhi was known for its wrestlers. ‘I was twelve years old then and wanted to become a wrestler. That was why I came to Ayodhya,’ said Harishankar Das. ‘But at Hanumangarhi, I was told that I could become a wrestler only after becoming a naga. I, therefore, became the disciple of Awadhbihari Das Pathak, who was at that time a wrestler of national repute.’ Under the guidance of his guru, Harishankar Das emerged as one of the most powerful wrestlers Hanumangarhi had ever produced. As his fame grew so did his control over Hanumangarhi’s properties, which he guarded aggressively.

‘The man who tried to get me killed had lived with me since his childhood,’ Harishankar Das told me. ‘I taught him wrestling and he, too, emerged as a very good wrestler, but later, he developed a relationship with a woman and started drifting from nagapana [the naga way, which has a strict celibacy policy]. I used to scold him for such deviations and warned him that if he did not mend his ways, I wouldn’t nominate him as my successor. This might have made him desperate and led him to commit the crime. Otherwise, he’s not a bad person.’

The manner in which the properties are managed and controlled in Hanumangarhi often produces a violent way of life for the nagas, who do not mind shedding blood for even a small piece of land. In fact, its affairs are now so tangled that, in early 2013, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court— expressing serious concern over the innumerable litigations pertaining to the claims and counterclaims of the properties of Hanumangarhi—asked the Uttar Pradesh government to appoint a senior bureaucrat as administrator of the temple. The court also directed the government to consider the creation of a trust, similar to that of the Vishwanath temple in Varanasi. The court’s suggestion was vehemently opposed by the nagas of Hanumangarhi as well as the VHP, which accused the Congress government of interfering in the management of Hindu religious institutions. Promptly, the nagas of Hanumangarhi obtained a stay from the Supreme Court on the Allahabad High Court’s order. The case, however, is still on.

V

The other religious establishment that is notorious for its fierce ascetics is Mani Ram Das Ki Chhawani, a temple complex known as Chhoti Chhawani, also in Ayodhya. Over 200 naga vairagis belonging to the Digambar akhara live in this complex. Its mahant, Nritya Gopal Das is, for all practical purposes, the supreme leader of the VHP in Ayodhya. Since 2003, Nritya Gopal Das has also been the head of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas, which was founded as an independent trust by the VHP in 1986, and then reorganised in 1993 with the objective of taking charge of the disputed site and building a Ram temple on it. Even as the Babri masjid–Ram Janmabhoomi dispute remains pending in court, the trust has been organising workshops in Karsevakpuram—a major encampment of volunteer activists, the infamous karsevaks—outside Ayodhya, to undertake the construction of the proposed temple.

Like the nagas of Hanumangarhi, the residents of Chhoti Chhawani are also known for taking a keen interest in the succession of mahants and the management of temples in Ayodhya, and for working ruthlessly to expand their influence. Even though the two groups are careful not to engage in any direct showdown, they have virtually divided the town into two camps. On rare occasions, the conflict between the naga groups of Ayodhya’s two most powerful establishments has descended into physical violence. The rest of the time, their relationship is defined by a sullen hostility and bitter rivalry.

The two sides came dangerously close to a showdown towards the end of 2012 when Rambalak Das, the mahant of Bhanpur Ram–Janaki temple located in the vicinity of Chhoti Chhawani, suddenly died while travelling in Basti, a district adjacent to Ayodhya. ‘Even before the body could arrive, nearly fifty nagas of Chhoti Chhawani barged in and took control of our temple,’ recounted Nandini Dasi, who had served Rambalak Das for over three decades and was his chosen successor.[11] ‘Two of them, Bajrang Das and Vijayram Das, sat in the courtyard and started talking to their friends about the last rites of Maharaj as if I did not exist. When the body came, they asked me to stay away, took the body to the Sarayu and performed the rites themselves. Once all that was over, they asked me to leave the temple. I refused and told them that Maharaj had chosen me as his successor and that they were the intruders.’

As the dispute escalated, Nandini Dasi called her neighbours for help. ‘It was risky to carry on the fight alone. So I called my neighbours, and one of them informed the police. But no one could stop them. Despite the police presence, they put their own lock on the gate of Maharaj’s room and took into their possession all the jewellery, property-related papers and bank passbook. They also appointed their own priest to perform regular puja in the temple.’

Vijayram Das, the Chhoti Chhawani resident who was among the leaders of the group, rejected her claims outright. ‘Rambalak Das was the disciple of Ramratan Das, who was the priest in Mani Ram Das Ki Chhawani [Chhoti Chhawan],’ he explained, when I interviewed him on 20 January 2013. ‘Later, Rambalak Das came out and started staying in the Ram–Janaki temple. Since his guru belonged to Chhoti Chhawani, this temple should go back to it simply because Rambalak Das did not have any disciple.’

For a week after Rambalak’s death on 29 October 2012, the nagas of Chhoti Chhawani had control of it, and it seemed like Nandini Dasi would be thrown out any time. What followed was something the nagas had not expected. In a dramatic turn of events, one fine morning, Bhavanath Das, a powerful naga vairagi of Hanumangarhi known for his close ties with the top leaders of Samajwadi Party, then in power in Uttar Pradesh, reached the Ram–Janaki temple along with his own group of sadhus and formally declared Nandini Dasi the successor of Rambalak Das and the new mahant of the temple. He also offered her the ceremonial chadar.

The nagas of Chhoti Chhawani were taken aback. Instead of resisting Bhavanath, they watched the development coldly, knowing that any attempt to stop him would bring all of Hanumangarhi into the picture. That would have meant a humiliating defeat for them. Nandini Dasi, emboldened by the support from Bhavanath Das, moved the court. Ousting her was no longer possible. For the time being, that was victory enough. The rest would be decided by the court.

VI

Sometimes a mahant takes extraordinary steps to ensure that he can die in peace. Ramlakhan Das, mahant of Sitaram Vaikuntha Vihar Kunj temple at Begumpur in Ayodhya, was ill for over a year before he was diagnosed with stomach cancer in the first week of January 2013. By then, he had become quite weak and it looked like he would not survive for long.

‘The moment the cancer was diagnosed, our friends in Hanumangarhi told me that some nagas of Nirvani akhara [who live in Hanumangarhi] were planning to forcibly capture my temple after my death,’ Ramlakhan Das, who was then in his late seventies but looked as if he was over ninety years old, told me on 20 January 2013.[12] ‘I cannot leave it like that. I will fight it out whether it takes a week or a year. There’s no other way.’

Roughly two weeks later, he passed away. But before that, he did what no mahant had ever done: he submitted a petition to the district magistrate of Faizabad detailing his properties and the successor he had identified and expressing the apprehension that a conspiracy was afoot. ‘I have come to know that after my death the mahant of Ujjainia patti of Hanumangarhi [Santram Das] and his disciples together with some criminal elements would try to capture my body forcibly so that they can capture my properties,’ Ramlakhan Das wrote in his petition.

He also laid out his last wish in it: ‘It is my last wish that after my death my body should be cremated instead of immersing it in the water, and my last rites should be performed by my ablest disciple Avadhesh Das.’ He even wanted, as he mentioned in the petition, to personally go to the district magistrate’s office and record his statement in the magistrate’s presence. But his condition deteriorated so fast that he could not do that.

Ramlakhan Das’s story followed a familiar pattern. He and Santram Das were disciples of Sarayu Das of Hanumangarhi. Later, while Santram Das stayed back, Ramlakhan Das left Hanumangarhi and became the sadhak of Vaikuntha Das, from whom he inherited the Sitaram Vaikuntha Vihar Kunj temple. Over time, using his own resources, Ramlakhan increased its landed properties. But as he fell ill, the motives of Santram Das started becoming clear. ‘Santram Das is now claiming that since he is the guru-brother of Ramlakhan Das, all the properties in the latter’s name should revert to Hanumangarhi after his death,’ Prahlad Saran, a close aide of Ramlakhan Das, told me while the ailing mahant was still alive.

The last few weeks of Ramlakhan Das’s life were extremely hectic. Not only did he have to battle cancer but also struggle to live long enough to foil the unholy plot. The end came silently in the early hours of 4 February 2013. ‘When I went to wake him up in the morning, Maharaj-ji was lying motionless, his body as cold as ice, his open eyes reflecting the rays of the morning sun streaming through the window of his room,’ Saran recalled.

‘Despite all kinds of rumours that started spreading after his death, no one from Hanumangarhi dared to enter our temple,’ Saran told me later. ‘He tortured himself towards his end so that he could rest in peace forever.’

VII

The change in Ayodhya’s atmosphere has taken its toll. Violent coups by disciples desperate to grab mahantships—often helped by outside forces acting for political or financial reasons—have, in particular, ruined the relationship between gurus and chelas. It is unlikely that any other Hindu religious establishment in the country knows such toxic levels of distrust in that most sacred of bonds.

The guru–chela relationship has been the bedrock of Hindu asceticism for many centuries. The bond with the guru is considered the most important social connection for a sadhu. Looking for or meeting a guru often marks the beginning of renunciation. The preceptor is seen as the pivot in a renouncer’s social life and the route to his spiritual awakening. The guru leads the novice into ascetic life, provides him with a new name, a new religious practice and a plan for religious education. The religious experience itself is contingent upon the guidance of a realised guru.

The importance of this relationship cannot be overstated. The guru is worshipped like god, not because of his ascetic accomplishments, but because he is considered the necessary intermediary between the chela and God.[13] In all Hindu ascetic discourses, guru-tattva, which literally means ‘the element, or the reality, of the guru’, is repeatedly underlined as the route to the highest spiritual plane—the transcendence of the material world. Surrendering to a guru is a precondition for obtaining real knowledge.

To reciprocate this devotion, the guru takes up the responsibility of his chela and ensures his protection. Not only does a guru set out his disciple’s programme of religious instruction but also initiates him into his own lineage. Once initiated, the disciple becomes part of a new social order with an individual identity within the larger ascetic community. This relationship ensures that a renouncer is never outside of a monastic social structure. Even if he opts for complete isolation, he remains part and parcel of a social web through his connection to the guru.[14]

In Ayodhya, this very relationship has now come under huge strain. The forcible expropriation of mahantship has injected a massive dose of suspicion in an association that was once akin to a parent–child relationship. Earlier, a mahant could choose a favourite disciple as his successor and the disciple used to inherit the temple without much trouble. But now, almost every succession here gets contested, and every time a mahant dies, rumours about whether the death was natural or not start doing the rounds. Most of these stories contain an element of truth, too.

It is largely in this backdrop that mahants, haunted by an obsessive need for security in their old age, have increasingly started falling back on their relatives. Theoretically, as per the Ramanandi tradition, an ascetic is supposed to observe strict celibacy and remain cut off from his family, burning his attachments through ascetic initiation.[15] That is why the Ramanandi sadhus in Ayodhya immerse the body of a dead sadhu in the Sarayu instead of cremating him as in a Hindu household.

The theoretical world of naga vairagis is a far cry from what they practise. Though the VHP’s intervention in Ayodhya greatly accentuated this gap, it existed earlier too. Even in the late nineteenth century, this deviation did not elude the watchful eyes of John Collinson Nesfield, who writes, ‘In Ayodhya, Ramanandi sadhus have acquired large properties in land given them by pious laymen as offerings to Vishnu and for the benefit of the poor. The boy disciples whom they initiate into their order are often their illegitimate sons, and it is to such disciples that they bequeath the lands given to them for the purpose so entirely different. Probably the day is not far distant when marriage will be openly recognised as one of the customs of the order.’[16]

Though marriage is yet to be recognised among naga vairagis, the sadhus’ dependence on their relatives—especially since the 1980s—has become so widespread that it is no longer a secret in Ayodhya. The great majority of young vairagis to whom I spoke remarked that their future seemed bleak because, by and large, mahants have been appointing their relatives as successors. ‘We become vairagis in order to obtain knowledge from the guru,’ said Ram Milan Saran Shastri, the disciple of Yugal Kishore Shastri of Saryukunj temple in Ayodhya. ‘We don’t come here to become a mahant or grab a temple. But knowledge nowadays has become obscure, and property has become all important. In the majority of cases these days, the mahant’s overwhelming concern to keep his property within the family makes him declare his nephew or some other relative as his successor, bypassing even the ablest of his disciples in the temple.’

The unsuspecting disciples—those who would like their temples to provide them with basic sustenance, and have no interest in being part of the marauding group of ascetics out to grab temples by force—blame both sides for this bloody scramble. ‘It is true that disciples in many cases behave like criminals, but what about gurus? Do they always give disciples their due? Don’t they use disciples for all sorts of work and, when it comes to nominating their successors, they bring their relatives from villages? Do they ever think about what would happen to their disciples, who, after having snapped ties with their families, come to their gurus believing that they will show the way?’ asked Ram Milan Saran Shastri.

The sorry state of affairs goes further than fighting over mahantships. Take the case of fifty-year-old vairagi Raghuveer Das. In his teens, he renounced the world and became the disciple of Gopal Das, mahant of Shyama Sadan, a well-known temple located in Ayodhya’s Ramghat area. Around the beginning of the twenty-first century, the mahant announced publicly that Raghuveer Das would be his successor. A few years later, he brought his brother’s grandson Shridhar Dubey to the temple and initiated him into the Ramanandi order under a new name—Shridhar Das. Later, he formed a trust and named Shridhar Das the future mahant of the temple. For some time, Raghuveer Das resisted his guru’s move, but when it became difficult for him to stay on in Shyama Sadan, he left the place forever. He, however, did not wish to speak against his guru. ‘Guru is like God,’ he said. ‘Perhaps this is my destiny.’

However, Ajit Das, disciple of Dharam Das, the shri mahant of Nirvani akhara, defends a mahant’s need to depend on his family: ‘The place is just not safe for our sadhus. What should the mahants of Ayodhya make of this change of atmosphere, which is full of instances of disciples turning into monsters? Isn’t it safe for a mahant to rely more on a known disciple than on someone whose past he hardly knows?’

Perhaps. But what about the mahant acting out of a desire to keep the temple properties within his own family? Ajit laughed. ‘Ram and Janaki alone are real owners of properties in Ayodhya.’

VIII

The vairagis for whom it all goes wrong have little to look forward to. Some have no idea how to go about getting back their lost empires. Others, blithely believing that they will be able to return to the premises they were banished from, continue to roam the courts and corridors of power. Increasingly, most mahants who have been thrown out of their temples, often by their own disciples, seem to accept it as their fate and walk away without a fight.

Many ousted mahants can be seen living in makeshift huts of tarpaulin and thatched roof in a desolate corner of Ayodhya called Vasudev Ghat Manjha on the banks of the Sarayu. In one of these huts lives Chitrakoti Baba, who, till about a decade ago, was the mahant of the famous Chitrakoti Asthan temple in Ayodhya. After he was ousted, he took a vow of silence, talking to no one and rarely emerging from his hut. Though he warded me off with his silence the first couple of times I approached him, eventually his bitterness got hold of him and he hurled abuses at me, breaking his vow.

There is another category of victims, for whom the sense of abandonment is so profound that they simply leave Ayodhya to never return. I was told one such story by three different nagas, each time accompanied by the laughter of those present or overhearing it. About a decade ago, Yugal Bihari Das, an old resident of this temple-fortress, was away from Ayodhya, when his disciple Ramagya Das declared him dead, organised a bhandara in honour of the ‘departed soul’ and became the mahant of his aasan in Hanumangarhi. Soon after that, Yugal Bihari Das returned, and for months tried to convince the nagas of Hanumangarhi as well as the local officials of Ayodhya that he was not dead. But no one believed him. He became so frustrated that he left Ayodhya for good and is said to be living somewhere in Bihar.

Life in Ayodhya seems normal at first glance, holy even; the town’s blood-soaked underbelly is well concealed by a thick layer of faith; after all Lord Ram was born here.

2

THE THUGS OF AYODHYA

Finding nothing to arm himself with before entering the fight raging between the two groups of naga vairagis of Ayodhya, Ajit Das surveyed the dead body of the old naga lying abandoned on the ground. The bamboo tikhti, on which the corpse had been kept, was dismantled, its canes repurposed for the fight. The face of the dead naga made Ajit Das pause momentarily, before the war cries from the fighting nagas spurred him into action. He held the body by its legs and lifted it off the ground. Fiercely swinging the corpse in the air, he raced into battle.[1]

Welcome to Hanumangarhi, the baithak of Nirvani akhara. It is the most prominent akhara of the Nirvani ani, one of the three main anis of the Vaishnava sect that has under it several akharas, among which Nirvani, Nirmohi and Digambar are the most prominent. The 600-odd residents of this massive fortress-like building of red sandstone in the centre of Ayodhya are the most influential group of sadhus in town and wield power over not only Hanumangarhi’s and Nirvani’s subsidiary temples but also the local economy of Ayodhya.

This temple-fortress does not look more than a few decades old, but it took almost two centuries for Hanumangarhi to become what it is today. At the centre of this high-walled structure lies an old, magnificent temple dedicated to Lord Hanuman. Scattered haphazardly around it are one-room tenements for the naga vairagis. Some of these dark but spacious rooms, called asan, are carved out in the hidden corners of Hanumangarhi, revealing a glimpse of nineteenth-century architecture otherwise camouflaged by the restoration work of recent times. Outside the complex are hundreds of shops, all owned by Hanumangarhi and leased out. To the south is an undulating stretch of land called Imli Bagia, literally tamarind garden. In the past, Imli Bagia used to serve as a garden for local vairagis, but now a major portion of it is occupied by a double-storey building, which houses Gyan Das, Hanumangarhi’s most influential naga vairagi since the 1990s.

It was on a dusty tract of Imli Bagia, between the main structure of Hanumangarhi and the house of Gyan Das, that the unusual fight took place on the morning of 25 November 2005. A violent showdown ensued between the naga followers of Gyan Das—who abhorred the VHP’s interference in Hanumangarhi’s affairs—and Dharam Das—a highly ambitious ascetic who had gained status and influence by leveraging his connection to the Sangh Parivar. The two naga heavyweights, in their younger days, used to wrestle in Hanumangarhi’s wrestling pit under the guidance of the same ustaad, Harishankar Das, a senior naga vairagi and wrestler par excellence. But the two students gradually became sworn enemies.

Gyan Das, whose writ no naga in Ayodhya would dare challenge, had been the de facto ruler of Hanumangarhi, and by extension, all of Nirvani ani, till the morning of the fight. His large army of ferocious followers, who guarded him and his empire, were ruthless in meting out severe punishments to anyone caught defying him. Meanwhile, Dharam Das, a naga with a small but dedicated following of his own, enjoyed the backing of the VHP, which had been steadily gaining a foothold in the akharas of Ayodhya. Gyan Das was determined to prevent Dharam Das from getting what he wanted the most: the coveted post of shri mahant of Nirvani ani.

This position has special significance—apart from leading sadhus of his own akhara and that of all the other akharas of the ani to the shahi snan, or royal bath, during Kumbh and Ardh Kumbh Melas, the shri mahant also represents his ascetic order in the festival’s management. He plays a pivotal role in the allotment of temporary campsites in the Kumbh Mela area to sadhus and ashrams affiliated to the ani, and this responsibility is ripe with opportunities for profiting from commissions and underhand deals. The post, therefore, is considered a source of wealth and prestige.

The various administrative divisions of the Nirvani akhara take turns to nominate a shri mahant, which means that any individual with an eye on the post has a long wait. Since Gyan Das’s turn was not on the horizon, he started handpicking and backing his puppets from the section of Hanumangarhi that was to nominate the shri mahant.

Dharam Das had initially restrained himself from waging an open war for the post of shri mahant, fearing repercussions from Gyan Das, whose support base was much bigger. But the VHP was desperate to have him occupy that post. The Hindutva outfit had failed to co-opt Hanumangarhi even at the height of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement during the early 1990s; the elevation of its own man as shri mahant would allow it to finally wield influence over the baithak of Nirvani akhara, and hence all of Nirvani ani. As time passed, and the current shri mahant’s term approached its end, it became clear to Dharam Das that Gyan Das would never allow him a chance to have his due unless, as he told me later, ‘the horns of this bull are pulled down so forcefully that the story ends then and there itself’.[2]

Their rivalry came to a head that November morning. Along with the fate of the shri mahantship, it also ended up defining the future of Hanumangarhi and, importantly, the VHP’s status in Ayodhya’s largest monastic establishment.

II

Gyan Das’s authority in Hanumangarhi started growing during the first half of 1990, when he, along with a dedicated band of young and energetic nagas, emerged as the local facilitator for the then Congress prime minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao. It is when Rao set out to break the bond that had emerged between the sadhus and the Sangh Parivar in the aftermath of the Babri masjid demolition in 1992, that Gyan Das, known for his razor-sharp acumen, became critical to the anti-VHP Congress. Back then, Gyan Das also had the blessings of Chandraswami—a powerful godman who was Rao’s guru and hence among the first to be deployed by him to rupture the bond between Ayodhya’s sadhus and the VHP, and to thwart the Sangh Parivar’s attempts to exploit the Babri masjid–Ram Janmabhoomi issue for political gains.

Chandraswami started his career as a Youth Congress leader. Subsequently, he fell off the political radar, but re-emerged in the 1970s as a tantric guru commanding a transnational spiritual empire. In 1988, he was arrested on charges of fraud and then released.[3] The godman’s role in the Iran–Contra scandal through dealings with his devotee Adnan Khashoggi, reputed to be an international arms dealer, set him apart from the other jet-setting gurus of this period. Equally legendary were his close links with politicians, which was demonstrated when political bigwigs, including Rao’s son P.V. Rajeshwar Rao, V.C. Shukla, Kamal Nath, Chandra Shekhar, Devi Lal and ‘many others’, attended his mother’s funeral in April 1993.[4]

Chandraswami’s first step towards achieving the task assigned to him by Rao was to organise a gathering of 300 sadhus and dharmacharyas in Delhi in April 1993. Gyan Das played a key role in this exercise. Among those present in the meeting was Jagatguru Ramanandacharya Haryacharya, a Ramanandi sadhu who enjoyed a majority support among the naga vairagis of Ayodhya, particularly those of Hanumangarhi. One of the main resolutions adopted in the meeting urged Hindu religious figures to abjure politics.[5]

In the first week of June that year, Chandraswami also organised a som yagya ritual in Ayodhya, aimed at breaking the monopoly of the Sangh Parivar in the temple town and making a parallel show of the vairagis’ strength. That the venture had the patronage of the Centre could not remain a secret. ‘There is little doubt that the Congress (I) was behind the Rs 2-crore extravaganza,’ a detailed report that appeared in India Today said. ‘Apart from senior leaders’ presence, the state government danced to New Delhi’s tune. The District Magistrate of Faizabad, V.N. Pandey, who refused to give permission for the yagya on security grounds, was replaced. SSP Harbhajan Singh’s objections on similar grounds were overruled.’[6] Once again, Gyan Das played a crucial role in this event. Though this political gambit to counter the Sangh Parivar ended in an embarrassing fiasco and Chandraswami had to abruptly end the som yagya a day earlier than scheduled in view of the poor attendance of vairagis, Gyan Das’s stock had risen. He became a focal point for all anti-VHP forces in Hanumangarhi.

Later, when Rao decided to work on a new plan to break the BJP’s consolidation among the sadhus, Gyan Das participated with equal enthusiasm. This time, instead of Chandraswami, Rao relied on the shankaracharyas of the four main peethas, or monasteries, believed to have been set up by Adi Shankara—Jyotish peetha in Uttarakhand in the north, Sringeri peetha in Karnataka in the south, Govardhan peetha in Orissa in the east and Dwarka peetha in Gujarat in the west. Of the pontiffs of these four peethas, Swaroopanand Saraswati, the shankaracharya of Dwarka peetha, who also claimed to be the head of the Jyotish peetha, was the most hostile to the Sangh Parivar. It was he who took the lead in organising a meeting of the pontiffs of the four peethas on 27 June 1993 in Sringeri.[7] In this meeting, they decided to constitute an independent, apolitical and religious body to oversee the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, and called upon the Central government to hand over the disputed land to this body.[8] The government had acquired the land through an ordinance in the aftermath of Babri masjid’s demolition. For this, a convention was organised by the three shankaracharyas at Fatehpur in Rajasthan in October 1993. The convention, which was attended by a large number of sadhus, was followed by the launching of the Congress-backed Ramalaya Trust—as against the one founded by the VHP—to build a Ram temple.[9]

Once again, it was Gyan Das who arranged local support for this new body. Soon, however, the trust fell into disuse because of differences among the shankaracharyas and because the high court belied their hopes of an early judgement on the issue. Yet, the exercise succeeded in dividing the sadhus and ensuring the emergence of Gyan Das as the counter force to the VHP in Ayodhya. His clout multiplied and by the turn of the century he became the unopposed ruler of Hanumangarhi. His position was further bolstered when he was elected president of the All India Akhara Parishad in March 2004.

By the time the VHP mounted its attack on Gyan Das in 2005, through its point man Dharam Das, control over the Nirvani akhara had become the focal point of the RSS outfit’s efforts in Ayodhya.

III

Historians don’t have a consensus on exactly when Ramananda, the founder of the Ramananadi order, lived. But the order established in his name has the largest ascetic membership and the biggest contingent of nagas in the country today. The most probable timeline, provided by G.S. Ghurye, is that Ramananda was born in Prayag, now called Allahabad, in 1300 CE and spent most of his time as a Vaishnava sadhu in Varanasi.[10] Similarly, very few historical sources are available on the origin and evolution of Ramanandi akharas. However, it is certain that the Ramananadi akharas, said to have taken shape between 1650 and 1700 CE,[11] came into existence only after the Dasanami akharas were formed no later than 1600 CE.[12] Ramanandi akharas greatly resemble the Dasanami akharas in their militarised organisational structure, suggesting that they might have been inspired by the Shaiva sanyasis’ organisational skills.

Ramanandi akharas were founded primarily to protect vairagis from the violent attacks of sanyasis and to free Vaishnava religious places from the clutches of Shaivas. There is evidence of how, for centuries, Shaiva and Vaishnava ascetics had been at loggerheads and had killed one another in fairly large numbers. Ghurye lists many such instances. Legend goes that Bhairav Giri, a Shaiva sanyasi, had vowed not to eat if he did not kill at least one Vaishnava vairagi everyday. The Vaishnavas have a similar story in vairagi Ram Das. With such deep-rooted animosity, it is not surprising that there were frequent bloody fights between them, especially at the time of religious assemblages. Some of these are well recorded, including the massacre of Vaishnava sadhus by Shaiva sadhus at Nasik in 1690 and a violent fight between the two groups at Haridwar in 1760.[13]

It is against this backdrop that, sometime in the late seventeenth century, a conference of Vaishnava ascetics was held near Jaipur. Here, Balanand of the Ramanandi sect was entrusted with the task of organising the naga section of the vairagis to protect their holy places from the well-militarised Shaiva sanyasis. Balanand is said to have formed the three anis[14]—Nirvani, Nirmohi and Digambar—which were then subdivided into akharas, the places where the militant ascetic members called astradharis, or bearers of arms, would reside.

This structure of the Ramanandi akharas continues till date. Thus, while Nirvani ani consists of Nirvani, Khaki and Niralambhi akharas, Nirmohi ani consists of Nirmohi, Mahanirvani (distinct from the Dasanami akhara of the same name) and Santoshi akharas, and the Digambar ani has under it Ram Digambar and Shyam Digambar akharas.

The site where Hanumangarhi stands today was in the possession of the Shaiva sadhus of Juna akhara until the early eighteenth century. It was only after a bloody fight that Vaishnava nagas of Nirvani akhara, led by their legendary shri mahant Baba Abhay Ram Das, succeeded in capturing what is referred to in the eighteenth century records as Hanuman Tilla.[15] Legend has it that Shaiva nagas and Muslim fakirs worshipped an idol under a tree at Hanuman Tilla. While the Shaivas took it to be the idol of Hanuman, the fakirs considered it to be that of Hathile, a Muslim pir revered in that part of the country. When the nagas of Nirvani akhara under the leadership of Abhay Ram Das came there, they were not allowed to worship the idol and were forced to retire to their camp on the banks of the Sarayu. Lord Hanuman appeared in the dream of Abhay Ram Das, the myth goes, and asked him to chase the Shaivas and Muslims away and build a temple in honour of Hanuman, because it was where the god had stayed when Lord Ram had ruled over Ayodhya. The legend concludes with Abhay Ram Das, armed with magical powers given to him by Hanuman, driving out the Shaiva sanyasis the next day.[16]

Later, under the patronage of the nawabs of Awadh, who had succeeded the Mughals as the dominant rulers in north India in the early eighteenth century, Hanuman Tilla was first converted into a temple and then a fortress—Hanumangarhi—and it acquired a central position in Ayodhya.[17] Soon it became the baithak of Nirvani akhara, and nagas belonging to this order started flocking to the temple-fortress from different parts of north India. Around the mid-nineteenth century, just when internecine clashes threatened Hanumangarhi, Balram Das, the sixth shri mahant of the Nirvani akhara, restructured the functioning of Nirvani’s baithak on the basis of the panchayati system. This meant that the decision-making would rest not with an individual but a group of elders chosen and accepted by the community for a fixed period of time. Balram Das is also said to have started the practice of orderly rotation of various posts in order to forestall skirmishes among the ascetics residing in Hanumangarhi.

IV

It was when Gyan Das blocked this system of rotation of posts, to institute his protégé as the shri mahant of Nirvani ani instead of the VHP’s point man Dharam Das, that the fight broke out in 2005. All the akharas in an ani are supposed to take part in the election of their shri mahant, but in practice, it is the major akhara of the ani that proposes the name of the chief abbot, which is then approved by the other akharas of the group. In the case of the Nirvani ani, the decision was invariably taken in Hanumangarhi, where, at least theoretically, arbitrariness has no place.

For this system to function smoothly, the nagas of Hanumangarhi are divided into four pattis—Hardwari, Basantia, Ujjainia and Sagaria. Each patti is further subdivided into three jamats, called jhundi, khalsa and dundi. Each jamat has under it two toks—a lineage, under which there are several asans.[18] Whenever there is a vacancy in the shri mahant’s post, the right to nominate someone alternates among the pattis and further among the jamats and the toks. A naga’s ascension to a post depends on his acceptability among the asans in a tok that has to fill the vacancy.

The rotation system sanctioned by the ani’s niyamawali, or rules and regulations, could have given Dharam Das, who belonged to the Ujjainia patti, a fair chance to become the shri mahant of Nirvani ani. Even in this patti, it was the turn of not just the jamat but the very tok that he belonged to. There was a consensus in Ujjainia patti on nominating him. However, Gyan Das—who belonged to Sagaria patti and whose word was final in Hanumangarhi—seemed determined not to let that happen.

The race began early in 2004, almost three years before the term of the then shri mahant, Shivnandan Das, was to end.

‘After Shivnandan Das, it was the turn of my jamat in Ujjainia patti to fill this post,’ said Dharam Das when I spoke to him in 2012. ‘There was a consensus in Ujjainia patti to nominate me. Even in the other pattis there was hardly any opposition to my candidature. But Gyan Das wanted to break Hanumangarhi’s traditions and make his own puppet the shri mahant of Nirvani ani.’

Traditionally, the tenure for the shri mahant of Nirvani ani is twelve years, though there have been some exceptions—Shivnandan Das’s predecessor Santsevak Das, for example, held the post for over two decades. Shivnandan Das became the shri mahant in early 1995, just before the beginning of Ardh Kumbh—a Kumbh-like congregation that takes place between two Kumbh Melas—in Allahabad on 14 January that year. Going by the twelve-year rule, a new shri mahant should have been set to take over the reins of Nirvani ani before the beginning of 2007 Ardh Kumbh in Allahabad.

Dharam Das claimed that, at a meeting of the Nirvani akhara held at Hanumangarhi on 19 March 2004, his name was unanimously endorsed as the successor. ‘But a few months later, Gyan Das called a fresh meeting of some senior nagas at his residence and told them that he wanted Avadhesh Das, another naga from my tok, to become the next shri mahant,’ he said. He filed a case in support of his claim on 9 December that year.

Dharam Das’s suit, though filed prematurely, two years before the vacancy would have risen, had a clear tactical purpose. In 1995, Gyan Das mobilised the senior nagas of Hanumangarhi to replace the incumbent shri mahant of Nirvani ani, Santsevak Das, with Shivnandan Das. Santsevak Das, however, refused to accept the verdict and went to court against his removal. Two years later, after he had an altercation with Gyan Das, Santsevak Das suddenly disappeared and there has been no trace of him since. Dharam Das considered his own safety when he decided to go against the wishes of Gyan Das.

‘The days when he [Gyan Das] could make someone disappear are long gone. He knew this and he also knew that I was not Santsevak Das. Removing me from the scene was not all that easy. But he wielded power and I had to guard myself against him. I expected that the case would act as a deterrent. Also, with this case in court, an attempt to assault me, which was not unthinkable in those days, would have given me an upper hand and strengthened my claim to the post,’ Dharam Das told me.

He started mobilising all the anti-Gyan Das sadhus in Hanumangarhi with the backing of the VHP. In this, he was greatly helped by a regional divide prevalent among the nagas of Hanumangarhi. Dharam Das was from Bihar, while Gyan Das was not. The former was able to persuade a large section of Bihari naga vairagis to back him.

Once assured of support, Dharam Das decided to take on Gyan Das directly, though still only via a legal suit. To build a case, he used Gyan Das’s political activities, which were aimed at preventing the VHP from expanding its influence in Hanumangarhi. Gyan Das had organised an iftaar party at his residence in 2003 and 2004. The move was aimed at creating an atmosphere of communal harmony so as to restrict the VHP’s influence. The next year, when he announced a similar party, Dharam Das was ready to strike. He filed a case against Gyan Das on the basis that Hanumangarhi’s niyamawali prohibited non-Hindu religious activities on its premises. He argued that not only should Gyan Das be stopped from holding the iftaar party but also that disciplinary action should be taken against him for violating the niyamawali. According to Ranjit Lal Varma, senior advocate and Gyan Das’s counsel, ‘This case was intended to create pressure on Gyan Das. It is true that he had organised roza-iftaar at his residence, but it is also true that his residence was part of the Hanumangarhi complex.’ The suit in itself was enough to cast a long shadow on this enormously powerful naga vairagi Ayodhya. The trap was well-considered, and if Gyan Das was proven to be guilty of violating the niyamawali, his membership in Hanumangarhi could have instantly come to an end.

The case brought the two sides face-to-face, and tempers started soaring in Hanumangarhi. Dharam Das was no match for Gyan Das, yet he wasn’t easy to dispose of. His disciples and loyalists kept him secure all the time; they only moved in groups and were always prepared for an attack. Though this was not an insurmountable problem for Gyan Das, he didn’t lash out at Dharam Das. ‘He had seen bigger challenges before, but the unity of purpose that we exhibited was so intense that no one could have crushed us so easily,’ explained Ajit Das. It is also possible that either Gyan Das didn’t want to complicate his legal battle or he was too preoccupied with his own affairs to consider Dharam Das a real threat.

As 2005 headed into its last quarter, Hanumangarhi was tense, but no one thought that Dharam Das would dare to meet Gyan Das head-on.

V

Without the context of this rivalry, the clash of 25 November will seem like a trifle blown out of proportion. On the surface, it appeared to have been triggered by Gyan Das’s refusal to allow Dharam Das and his henchmen to take part in the funeral procession of a naga vairagi. But this was merely an excuse for the two groups to engage in a fist fight. If not this, they would have erupted over some other equally trivial issue.

The trigger that day was the death of naga Makhsudan Das, also called Shukul Baba. He belonged to the same patti as Gyan Das—Sagaria patti—but the two had never been on good terms. Shukul Baba’s asan in Hanumangarhi was right opposite Gyan Das’s residence. ‘During his last days, Shukul Baba stopped moving around. He was usually seen seated outside his asan in complete silence, interspersed only by abuses hurled at Gyan Das,’ said Ajit Das. Predictably, Shukul Baba was respected by the dissidents in Hanumangarhi and not by the followers of Gyan Das.

Upon their death, nagas are smeared with salt and then either buried seated in the meditation posture or are immersed in a sacred river tied to a rock or a sack full of sand to weigh the body down. Nagas believe cremation to be superfluous for them as they have already ‘burnt’ their attachments through ascetic initiation, opting for a life of austerity and renunciation.[19] In Ayodhya, a naga vairagi is immersed in the Sarayu, the river that flows by the town.

But in the broil over the right to attend Shukul Baba’s funeral, the first casualty was the old man’s corpse.

It all began around eight in the morning and ended within an hour. Brisk early-hour trade was on in the shops around Hanumangarhi, and devotees, mostly from the rural surroundings of Ayodhya and nearby districts of Uttar Pradesh, had flocked there in large numbers for a darshan of Hanuman. It was like any other morning in the temple complex, until Dharam Das’s men, after a few minutes of abusive verbal exchanges with Gyan Das’s men, dashed to the bamboo tikhti, unmindful of Shukul Baba’s body. Within minutes, all the bamboo poles from the tikhti were in the hands of these successors of warrior ascetics. Shopkeepers ran away in panic, many of them without even pulling down the shutters of their shops, and devotees fled leaving behind their belongings. And when Dharam Das’s nephew and disciple Ajit Das entered the mayhem with his wrestler’s body, even the corpse became a weapon, and the battle took a bizarre turn.

‘Around eight that morning, while I was riding my horse [which he claimed to do without fail every morning], my guru summoned me,’ recalled Ajit Das. ‘A young naga sent by my guru from Hanumangarhi told me that the body of Shukul Baba would soon be carried for immersion in the Sarayu and that we would have to be part of the funeral procession.When someone dies, the tradition in Hanumangarhi is that the nagas of all the pattis participate in the funeral procession. It is not exclusive to any patti.’

Ajit Das wasted no time and immediately steered his horse in the direction of Hanumangarhi. There he saw Dharam Das and his followers engaged in a verbal duel with Gyan Das, who was seated on the elevated veranda of his house. ‘As I jumped off my horse, I saw nearly a dozen of Gyan Das’s goons carrying rods and cycle chains rushing towards my guru and his supporters, who were unarmed. With lightning speed, my guru’s followers snatched the bamboo poles from the tikhti. By the time I got close to them, there were no bamboo poles left for me, and I had nothing to protect myself with. So I lifted the dead body and started swinging it with all the strength I had,’ he recounted.

‘Instead of running away, we faced them bravely. Soon we forced them back. Then they ran to the veranda of Gyan Das’s house and started pelting stones and bricks at us. We threw these back at them with equal force.’

Gyan Das watched helplessly from the veranda. Dharam Das and his supporters seemed to be gaining an upper hand in the fight, and Gyan Das had never faced a defeat since he began his reign in Hanumangarhi over a decade ago. He could probably see his empire beginning to weaken. Till then, no one had even dared lift their heads to meet his eyes. But now, the choicest of abuses were being hurled at him, and he could do nothing.

‘We shouted at him, abused him and dared him to come down, but he remained silent as if he had suffered an electric shock,’ said Ajit Das. When Gyan Das could take it no more and attempted to go down to join the fight, his security guards, arranged for by the government as he was the president of the Akhara Parishad, held him back.

The news of the clash spread like wildfire in Ayodhya and the town braced for a blood bath. But the police reached the spot on time and were also immediately deployed across Ayodhya. The police also managed to take possession of Shukul Baba’s body, which they immersed in the Sarayu.

Although no one died, close to two dozen nagas were injured. A dozen each from both the sides were taken into custody and sent to Faizabad jail. This included Dharam Das but not Gyan Das, who managed to get his name out of the First Information Report (FIR). Both sides filed cross cases under Section 307 (attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal Code.

VI

The fight, which lasted only an hour, entered the legal arena, and Gyan Das appeared to retain his position of power, but a statement had been made. For the first time since the late 1990s, he no longer seemed invincible. Though he was still the uncrowned king of Hanumangarhi, the shocking defeat at the hands of a small group of nagas became the main talking point in Ayodhya. Dharam Das emerged as the new nucleus, and gradually all the nagas who felt victimised by Gyan Das started to drift towards him.

‘Gyan Das used to be a despot till he suffered defeat that morning. I am not saying that it changed him completely, but it turned him into a somewhat milder version of what he used to be before that incident,’ said Ajit Das, who became a naga in 1992 and had witnessed Gyan Das’s reign right from the beginning. ‘In those days, the panchayati system held no meaning for him. He used to decide all the important matters in Hanumangarhi. He used to enforce his decisions through his clique, which included all those holding significant posts in Hanumangarhi. Ordinary nagas had no option but to prostrate before him. The slightest of suspicions used to evoke the hardest of punishments in Hanumangarhi. Expulsion of nagas was the order of the day.’

The most invoked statute of Hanumangarhi’s niyamawali is Rule 17. This rule states: ‘Sadhus of Hanumangarhi are nihamga [unmarried]. According to the customs and traditions, they cannot marry and may not have any connection with women. As per the consensus of the majority, they would be at once turned out and expelled when any doubt of this nature is raised.’[20] It is impossible for any naga to prove his innocence if the majority does not support him.

Hanumangarhi owns immense immoveable properties in Ayodhya as well as other parts of north India. Although on paper these assets are divided in the name of four pattis, in practice their management has always been a matter of contention, and frequent litigations are a fact of life here. The management of these properties has, therefore, remained a lucrative affair for those who have wielded power in the past.

The office of the pujari of the Hanuman temple is almost as sought after as that of the shri mahant. As per the panchayati rule, every patti appoints a pujari for a year, so that each year four priests are in service. Only an upper-caste naga is eligible to perform a puja. If the appointed priest is not from the upper caste, then an upper-caste naga performs the puja in place of the priest. A naga’s chances of coming in line for the pujariship depends on his seniority in the asan and the number of asans in a tok. Thus, in every patti, this right alternates among the three jamats. When a jamat’s turn comes, the right is given in turn to one of the two toks and within a tok to one of the asans, where the principle of seniority is followed. The post is lucrative because it is the pujari who collects the daily offerings made to the deity. He uses this income to meet the expenses of the temple, including food rations allotted to the pattis, called ser-siddha, and repairs to the temple building. The temple, needless to say, sees vast amounts of offerings on a daily basis.

Whether it was the management of Hanumangarhi’s properties or the appointment of pujaris, the final word used to lie with Gyan Das. Until that November morning.

Hanumangarhi is one of the few complexes that houses such a large number of nagas on a permanent basis. A majority of these nagas are wrestlers and ferocious fighters. This ensures that outsiders do not interfere in its affairs. The nagas of this complex, on the other hand, have made it their right to meddle in everything that happens in Ayodhya. As such, Gyan Das’s authority, during his heyday, extended over all of Ayodhya.

The emergence of a de facto king is not a new phenomenon in Hanumangarhi. The baithak of the Nirvani akhara has seen a series of naga despots, many of whom ended up being killed in gang rivalries. The reigns of such naga despots has become so frequent in the last few decades, that the term ‘shahi-ship’—the reign of a shah or a king—has become common parlance among Ayodhya’s nagas. The first of these despots was Bajrang Das, who, after a few years of his shahi-ship, was murdered sometime in the early 1970s. Thereafter began the shahi-ship of Ramkhelawan Das, a naga of Hanumangarhi who had been accused in a high-profile murder.

The baithak of Nirvani akhara gradually became the headquarters of organised crime in the region. Criminality became a symbol of power and many naga residents of Hanumangarhi began pledging their allegiance to anyone who was willing and had the ability to bend the rules to suit a group’s interests.

This change in the ethos was also accelerated by the murder of Bihar’s most dreaded gangster Kamdeo Singh. He was killed in a police encounter in 1980 in his native village in Begusarai, a district close to Patna. Singh used to share a good rapport with the mahants of the Bhumihar caste—a land-owning upper caste in north India—in Ayodhya and, particularly, Hanumangarhi. After his death, his gang members dispersed and many found shelter as nagas in Hanumangarhi. The new entrants brought with them a more aggressive criminal mindset as well as new kinds of firearms, which had till then been unfamiliar to the naga vairagis. Later that year, the shahi-ship of Harbhajan Das of Sagaria patti came to an abrupt end after he was shot dead by his own disciples and supporters.

Around the mid-1980s, Hanumangarhi witnessed the rise of a new organised gang led by Ramkripal Das, who was originally a resident of Munger in Bihar and was attached to Ujjainia patti. The VHP, struggling to find a foothold in Ayodhya, backed him, but he had other plans. Under him began a new era of murder, extortion, kidnapping and intimidation that continued for almost a decade. It was the longest shahi-ship thus far. He was killed in 1997, and it is widely believed by the residents that someone from Hanumangarhi had hired one of the top gangsters of Uttar Pradesh to eliminate him.

After his death, though gangs became fractured into smaller units that functioned in isolation, the shahi-ship of Hanumangarhi passed on to Gyan Das. In many ways, his stranglehold on Hanumangarhi surpassed that of his predecessors. A vast network of his men, all young nagas, efficiently manned every nook and corner of the complex, while those who occupied official positions meekly carried out all his instructions. The mahants of all four pattis as well as the gaddi-nashin, the titular head of Hanumangarhi under the panchayati system, were under his control; the panchan, or the decision-making group of elders, existed only in name.

‘After the fight, Gyan Das seems to have loosened his grip of Hanumangarhi,’ said Ajit Das. ‘Rotation and seniority have once again become important in decision-making processes. The panchayati system seems to be back on track.’

Yet the source of Gyan Das’s strength—his vehement opposition to the VHP, which resulted in attracting political backing from the Samajwadi Party and Congress; his network of loyal nagas of Hanumangarhi; and his position as the president of All India Akhara Parishad—remains more or less intact even after that face-off. He continues to wield power, though with lesser impact.

VII

Remarkably, Dharam Das survived Gyan Das’s reign of repression. Born in 1945 in Dumari village of Bihar’s Buxar district, he came to Ayodhya in his teens. His preceptor, Abhiram Das—who planted the Ram idol in Babri masjid—introduced him to wrestling early on, as per Hanumangarhi’s tradition.[21] In no time, Dharam Das started getting noticed for his excellent performance in the akhara’s wrestling pit. When his preceptor grew old, Dharam Das started wrestling under the guidance of Harishankar Das, a famous wrestler and ustaad of Gyan Das as well.

Much later, when Dharam Das and Gyan Das were locked in a fierce rivalry, Harishankar Das sided with Dharam Das, even though he used to favour Gyan Das in the wrestling pit.

Initially, Dharam Das stayed away from the politics of Hanumangarhi’s nagas. He had the special blessings of Abhiram Das, who liked him much more than his other two disciples: Satyendra Das and Ramvilas Das. While these two disciples spent more time studying Sanskrit and the Vedas, the latter even added ‘Vedanti’ to his name, Dharam Das, much to the liking of his guru, preferred to practise wrestling. Once, Dharam Das expressed his desire to study along with Satyendra Das, but his guru denied him permission saying, ‘Ninety-eight percent Indians are illiterate; only 2 per cent are intellectuals. Therefore, it is better to lead the majority than to wander among intellectuals like a fool.’

It is not surprising that Abhiram Das made Dharam Das his successor. On 10 July 1981—nearly five months before his death—Abhiram Das willed all his moveable and immoveable properties to Dharam Das. Twelve days after Abhiram Das’s death on 3 December 1981, prominent nagas and mahants of Hanumangarhi signed a mahazarnama declaring Dharam Das the successor of Abhiram Das.

Once he became the mahant of his guru’s asan, Dharam Das zealously pursued the legacy of Abhiram Das. In 1984, when the VHP was relaunched and adopted the Ram Janmabhoomi issue as its central theme, he drifted towards it. Soon thereafter, he attacked and vandalised the Ramchabutara, because his guru had placed Lord Ram’s idol beneath the central dome of the mosque, turning it into the ‘real’ Janmabhoomi. The Ramchabutara was under the control of the Nirmohi akhara. A case was filed against Dharam Das and he had to spend a few months in jail. Once out of jail, he was once again actively involved in the VHP’s activities. In 1989, he became one of the petitioners in the Ram Janmabhoomi–Babri masjid case and was an active participant in the demolition of the mosque. His name also figured in the Central Bureau of Investigation’s charge sheet that listed nearly two dozen accused, including VHP leaders Acharya Giriraj Kishore, Ashok Singhal and Mahant Avaidyanath and the BJP’s L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Uma Bharati, for conspiring to demolish the mosque.

During the 1990s, when politics became a difficult ball game for Dharam Das, he chose a different route. As mentioned before, he not only mobilised the nagas belonging to his own caste but also exploited the division between Biharis and non-Biharis, which began to widen once Gyan Das—a non-Bihari—became the supreme authority in Hanumangarhi.

The clash in November proved that Dharam Das had carved a niche for himself, and the new group that he led, though small in size as compared to Gyan Das’s vast network of loyalists, was no less fierce in its approach and was known for its ability and desire to settle matters by violent means.

VIII

When these two rival gangs—a dozen each—had to be locked up after the clash, the Faizabad jail authorities were in for a hard time. The fearsome nagas, known for breaking rules, created chaos in the jail from the very beginning—they entered shouting abuses at each other.

Dharam Das led his confident and jeering naga supporters inside the prison, while Gyan Das’s men were without their leader as he hadn’t been arrested. ‘First we occupied the open space under a huge banyan tree in the centre of the jail’s central courtyard,’ said Ajit Das, who was taken into custody as well. This space soon became the kitchen for Dharam Das’s group. Stove, LPG cylinders, raw materials for cooking—milk, curd, ghee, mustard oil, spices, salt, sugar, etc.—were brought in from outside and a ferocious commune started operating there. Bewildered by the new set of prisoners, the jail authorities had to take refuge in their manuals, which provided for separate cooking facilities for sadhus.

In contrast, Gyan Das’s men, who lived in a separate camp some ten metres from the one marked for their opponents, tried not to provoke Dharam Das and his men, who were aggressive and seemed ready to do anything to protect their newly acquired status. Gyan Das’s men spent most of their time inside the barracks. ‘Abhay Singh, a dreaded gangster from the region, was in the same barracks. Our opponents remained huddled under his protection,’ Ajit Das said. Singh had been a BJP member in 2005. Later, he joined the Samajwadi Party and became an MLA from Gosainganj in Faizabad in the 2012 state elections.

Weeks later, when the nagas came out on bail, Dharam Das’s men retained their aggressive attitude to deter Gyan Das’s gang. The deadlock continued for a few months, till the two sides started gearing up for another confrontation in the run up to the Allahabad Ardh Kumbh, scheduled to begin on 14 January 2007. Dharam Das, whose claim for the post of shri mahant was still pending, sought an order from the court to prevent the reigning shri mahant Shivnandan Das from leading the shahi julus, the royal procession for the royal bath, in the Kumbh. He argued that since Shivnandan Das had become shri mahant before the first shahi snan of the 1995 Ardh Kumbh, his twelve-year term would come to an end before the first shahi snan in 2007.

In the Kumbh and Ardh Kumbh assemblages at Allahabad, there is a shahi julus on each of the three main bathing occasions—Makar Sankranti, Mauni Amavasya and Vasant Panchami. In 2007, these occasions fell on 14, 19 and 23 January, respectively.

The advocate of Shivnandan Das and Gyan Das for this case, Varma said, ‘When the Ardh Kumbh approached, Dharam Das filed one writ petition after another in the Allahabad High Court to expedite the case pending in Faizabad’s civil court. At the instance of the high court, the arguments in this case took place on a daily basis in January 2007 and continued up to Vasant Panchami.’

Dharam Das claimed that Varma’s marathon argument in court delayed the proceedings further and that this was part of Gyan Das’s larger strategy to deny him his due. The case continued to be heard through the three important bathing dates and was concluded only after Dharam Das lost the opportunity to possibly lead the last shahi snan in the Ardh Kumbh.

‘Shivnanadan Das’s defence was that though his term was to end only at the time of the first shahi snan of 2007, Dharam Das had staked his claim for the post on the basis of a resolution passed in 2004 [by the Ujjainia patti nominating Dharam Das as the next shri mahant]. Therefore, we pleaded that this resolution on which Dharam Das had based his case be declared erroneous,’ said Varma. ‘The court’s ruling came on 12 November 2007. It rejected the claim of Dharam Das to be Shivnandan Das’s successor.’

But even before the court’s decision, Gyan Das took another step to block Dharam Das from becoming the shri mahant. Soon after the Ardh Kumbh, he got Shivnandan Das to resign from the post and declared his loyalist Avadhesh Das as the new shri mahant. Since Avadhesh Das belonged to the same tok as Dharam Das—the tok whose chance it was to nominate the shri mahant—the latter could not go to court again.

Dharam Das, however, was not ready to give up his claim. He knew that he could not file a legal suit against this appointment, but he had other ways to force his way to the top of the akhara. He intensified his efforts to trap Gyan Das through legal means. On the one hand he continued to pursue the roza-iftaar case, and on the other, he tried relentlessly to get Gyan Das included in the charge sheet for the clash of 25 November. Finally, under the direction of the Allahabad High Court, Gyan Das was included in the charge sheet.

The more Dharam Das pursued the cases, the more Gyan Das came under pressure. His advocate Varma told me later, that in the event of a defeat in either of the cases, Gyan Das would have to resign as president of the AIAP, which would hugely diminish his power. It would also mean that the security cover provided to him by the government would be withdrawn. Similarly, a defeat in the iftaar case would mean that he would no longer remain a resident member of Hanumangarhi, which would also strip him of his power.

‘At one point of time, things became really difficult for Gyan Das,’ said Varma. ‘Dharam Das’s supporters used to shout in court that they were ready to go to jail but that Gyan Das should also be arrested. They knew that if Gyan Das remained in jail for even forty-eight hours, he would lose his post of president of the All India Akhara Parishad.’

It was against this backdrop around the beginning of 2009 that Gyan Das looked to settle things with Dharam Das. ‘A civil judge of Faizabad took the initiative and called the two for a compromise,’ said Varma. ‘Gyan Das agreed not to hold roza-iftaar gatherings in the future. Dharam Das agreed to withdraw both his cases, but only if he was made the shri mahant of Nirvani ani.’

Gyan Das had no option but to appoint Dharam Das as the shri mahant. Only by accepting defeat could Gyan Das buy time for himself. Therefore, on 15 July 2009, he agreed to the terms, and the civil judge of Faizabad gave his ruling, upholding the compromise between the two warring naga leaders.

To implement the compromise, Gyan Das first tried to persuade Avadhesh Das, the naga he had made shri mahant only two years ago, to resign from the post. But Avadhesh Das wouldn’t agree. Gyan Das, therefore, organised a meeting in Hanumangarhi and invited both Avadhesh Das and Dharam Das. ‘Avadhesh Das didn’t turn up and as such he was removed from the post of shri mahant. Dharam Das was declared the new shri mahant,’ said Varma.

Avadhesh Das challenged this decision in court, and Varma now became his counsel. ‘He is still fighting, but his case has started becoming weak because he doesn’t want to spend money,’ Varma explained.

Nevertheless, Dharam Das got what he wanted. Once the preparation for the 2010 Haridwar Kumbh began, it was he who represented Nirvani ani in the meetings of officials and heads of other akharas for the allotment of land in the mela area. And once the shahi snan began, it was he who led, sitting on his favourite white horse, the shahi julus of all the akharas attached to the Nirvani ani. He will continue to do so until the beginning of the next Kumbh in Haridwar in 2021, which would mark the end of his twelve-year term, perhaps even longer.

His stock rose further after the BJP won a landslide victory in the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections in 2017, and Yogi Adityanath, the mahant of Gorakshapeeth temple in Gorakhpur, who continues to share a good rapport with Dharam Das at the time of the publication of this book, became the chief minister of the state. The change of guard in the state weakened Gyan Das, and further fuelled Dharam Das’s ambitions. Although Gyan Das has already started working on his plans to make his own protégé the next shri mahant of Nirvani ani, Dharam Das does not intend to vacate the post in the near future. After all, not all his predecessors followed the twelve-year norm. ‘Twelve years? What twelve years? Do you know for how many years Santsevak Das was the shri mahant? I’ll give you the answer: he remained in this post for more than twenty-four years,’ Dharam Das said, when asked if he would vacate his post voluntarily after twelve years.

Not only did he seem determined but also appeared certain that the decision to resign from the post would be his alone. ‘Only when a fool rules, do his opponents disappear. But now money can buy you anything. Don’t worry; nobody will disappear,’ he said, referring to the high-handed manner in which issues used to be settled in Hanumangarhi when Gyan Das reigned supreme.

Hanumangarhi’s history tells a different story. Gyan Das, the naga whom Dharam Das eventually defeated, must have also been as certain, just as all the other despots who spread terror. Dharam Das, who overthrew a giant to make his way to the top of the Nirvani ani, will now have to be on his guard. After all, discontent and ambition created him, and may, if allowed to grow, wipe him out, too.

By March 2019, Dharam Das had embarked on the latest chapter of his career—he was fighting a case, along with BJP leaders L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharati and over a dozen others, for the conspiracy to demolish Babri masjid.

3

KUMBH MELA AS POLITICAL THEATRE

There now exists a class of sadhus who are not quite like the rest of the fraternity. In the past, they were swayamsevaks, or volunteer-activists in the RSS, or even pracharaks, who are full-time members of the organisation, and the Sangh’s endorsement continues to play an important role in their lives—and success—even after they become sadhus. The difference between this class of sadhus and the rest may not be visible to outsiders, but in the insular world of Hindu monastic orders, the strain of their presence is undeniable. Though these men claim that they don’t function as a distinct group among the sadhus, they are, because of their past, known to work in tandem with the political outfit, pursuing the RSS’s mandate furiously and stubbornly, sometimes co-opting the rest of the fraternity in service of this political agenda.

It is difficult to establish whether these men became sadhus as part of the Sangh Parivar’s strategy. None of the sadhus I spoke to admitted to any such plan. They claimed that they had been driven to a spiritual career because of the urge to discover their true selves and free themselves from the cycle of birth and death, and that the ‘ideals’ taught to them by the RSS had helped in this transformation. ‘It didn’t happen because of any planned conversion of swayamsevaks and pracharaks into sanyasis,’ Yatindranand Giri, who rose from the ranks of the RSS to become a sanyasi and then a mahamandaleshwar of Juna akhara, explained to me.[1] ‘There is a thin line of demarcation between the life of a pracharak and a sanyasi. Neither of them marries and both live an austere life, and so the transition takes place rather seamlessly the moment a pracharak begins his spiritual quest. Even a swayamsevak has many of the qualities of a pracharak.’

Until becoming a sanyasi in 1994, Yatindranand Giri was known as Yatindra Nath Sharma. He had worked as a pracharak of the RSS for almost fourteen years, between 1980 and 1994. ‘Since 1990 I started going into trances and began to have visions of God, and I was finally initiated into sanyas in 1994,’ he said. His preceptor, Satyamitranand Giri, is known as the founder of Haridwar’s famous Bharat Mata temple, which is considered the hub of the VHP’s activities in the region. ‘In 2007, on the insistence of Satyamitranand Giri and Avdheshanand Giri [also Satyamitranand’s disciple and the acharya mahamandaleshwar of Juna akhara], I became one of the mahamandaleshwars of Juna akhara,’ Yatindranand Giri said.

He is not alone in asserting that a pracharak—or even a swayamsevak—can seamlessly become a sadhu. Religious leaders with an RSS background often claim this, as have VHP leaders, right since its inception in 1964. Swami Chinmayananda, the founder president of the VHP, used to tell RSS members that there was ‘virtually no difference between swayamsevak and sanyasin, except that one is saffron-clothed while the other is in white’.[2] Ashok Singhal, one of the best-known leaders of the VHP, described a pracharak similarly, in an interview given to researcher Christophe Jaffrelot in 1990. ‘He wears white clothes but he is a sannyasin. He is a first-class engineer, he has a degree from the BHU [Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi], a top institution, but he never entered in that profession; he has not married. He is not a householder and he is devoting his entire life for the service of Hindu Dharma. Like him there are hundreds of workers of VHP and RSS who are not married, who devote their entire life for the service of Hindu society. They are not in Bhagwa [saffron] dress but they are like sadhus.’[3]

Yet, the rise in the phenomenon of RSS cadres embracing sanyas coincided with the VHP’s revival in the early 1980s, when it went all out to deepen its foothold among sadhus. This might be suggestive of the fact that at least a section of these RSS-converts might not have taken sanyas simply to find their true selves but with the clear objective of mustering support from within the Hindu monastic orders for the VHP’s political agenda. A report published in 1982 in the RSS weekly Organiser indicates that at least part of this phenomenon was planned with serious intent.[4] Titled ‘Haridwar Makes History’, it recorded that the VHP got 100 of its men initiated as ‘sanyasins’ by ‘seven local historic akharas’ of Haridwar as part of its newly launched ‘Sanskriti Raksha Yojna’. ‘In fact, [the] project marked a dramatic turn in Hindu history when the sanyasins will go to the doors of all Hindu people, irrespective of caste or class status, for preaching of Dharma [religion], instead of the people coming to them,’ the report said. These newly initiated ‘sanyasins’ were deployed in different parts of the country to work among the laity as well as religious leaders. The VHP has since remained silent on whether it pursued this strategy. But, everything that has come to pass suggests that a section of the RSS cadres must have realised the opportunity that lay in the political market of spirituality, which seemed poised for a massive expansion after the VHP re-launched the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in 1984.

Vijay Kaushal Maharaj, a pracharak-turned-sadhu based in Vrindavan, explained that this was a ‘natural fallout’ of the RSS cadres’ interaction with sadhus in the meetings organised by the VHP. ‘The RSS cadres are already suffused with the desire to serve Hindu religion and culture. When the VHP brought them into contact with the sadhus, many of them must have got so inspired that they might have simply decided to take sanyas.’ He added that his was a similar journey—giving up the life of an RSS pracharak after twenty years in 1989 to take up sanyas and devote his life to Ramkatha, the narration of Lord Ram’s story as religious discourse.[5]

II

No religious leader might have contributed as much to this phenomenon as Haridwar-based sadhu Satyamitranand Giri. Though never a pracharak, he was close to top RSS leaders and was a swayamsevak in his student days.[6] Born in a Brahmin family in Agra, he became a sadhu and then, in 1960, at the young age of twenty-eight, was consecrated shankaracharya of Bhanpura peetha in Madhya Pradesh.[7] Soon, he developed a transnational spiritual empire with disciples spread across Africa and Europe. Since Dasanami theology did not allow a shankaracharya to travel abroad, he resigned from the post in 1969. Shortly after that, he embarked on a project, which has since been considered central to aligning Indian nationalism with the Hindu religion—the conceptualisation of India in the form of a Hindu goddess. The significance of the project has been recognised by the forefathers of RSS. For instance, Swami Shraddhanand, an Arya Samaj missionary and Hindu Mahasabha leader, was among the first to stress upon the symbolic importance of temples dedicated to ‘Mother India’—Bharat Mata—in promoting a kind of nationalism that identifies exclusively with the Hindu religion. In a book published in 1926, about a year after the RSS was formed, he wrote:

The first step which I propose is to build one Hindu Rashtra Mandir in at least every city and important town. … The Rashtra Mandir will be in charge of the local Hindu Sabha. … While the sectarian Hindu temples are dominated by their own individual deities, [the Rashtra Mandir] should be devoted to the worship of the three mother-spirits: the Gau-mata, the Saraswati-mata and the Bhumi-mata. Let some living cows be there to represent plenitude. Let ‘Savitri’ be inscribed over the gate of the hall to remind every Hindu of his duty to expel all ignorance and let a life-like map of Mother-bharat be constructed in a prominent place, giving all its characteristics in vivid colours so that every child of the Matri-bhumi may daily bow before the mother and renew his pledge to restore her to the ancient pinnacle of glory from which she has fallen.[8]

A temple dedicated to ‘Mother India’ was already constructed in Varanasi in the early 1920s.[9] But no one had paid it much attention and this basic Hindutva project remained on the back burner, until it was given a crusading fervour by Satyamitranand Giri. With much fanfare, in 1978, he laid the foundation for the monumental eight-story Bharat Mata temple in Haridwar. The opening of the temple on 15 May 1983 was publicised throughout the country. Advertisements were published in newspapers, inviting ‘all citizens’ to attend the ceremony, and invitations were sent to heads of religious sects and to politicians.[10] Five hundred Brahmins performed a Vedic yajna on the occasion of the consecration, and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi performed an arti before the statue of Bharat Mata.[11]

A hagiographical account of Satyamitranand Giri’s life, written by two of his devotees, Divyalok: Parivrajak Ki Divya Yatra, puts him in the same league as V.D. Savarkar.[12] Published in 1986, it contains, among other things, Satyamitranand Giri’s views on Bharat Mata and his teachings, which claim that Bharat is the oldest culture in the world and is the land where God repeatedly chose to incarnate in. Interestingly, instead of being based on the tricoloured Indian national flag, the Bharat Mata temple flies a triangular saffron dhwaja similar to the VHP’s flag. The temple features Savarkar and RSS founder K.B. Hedgewar in a section commemorating Bharat Mata’s ‘illustrious’ sons and daughters—as its signboard describes the display.

The VHP’s role in organising rallies and yajnas to raise money for the construction of the Bharat Mata temple and Satyamitranand Giri’s long association with the Sangh Parivar are well known in Haridwar. But like most sophisticated gurus, he takes care not to reveal his Hindu supremacist views to the world at large. Lise McKean, who interviewed him in November 1987,[13] recalled the encounter thus: ‘I was not given the opportunity to ask the numerous questions I had about his organisation, the Bharat Mata temple, and his involvement with the VHP. After a brief exchange Satyamitranand dismissed me, saying that he was busy preparing for another trip abroad.’ Now in his late eighties, Satyamitranand Giri has simply stopped talking to journalists and researchers, though every day between 4 and 5 p.m. he makes an appearance for his devotees at his residence, located close to the Bharat Mata temple.

In his long career as a sadhu, Satyamitranand Giri initiated over two dozen disciples into sanyas, most of them after 1986, when, during the Kumbh Mela at Haridwar, he was made mahamandaleshwar by Niranjani akhara. ‘Swami-ji has given sanyas diksha mainly to those disciples whose spiritual prowess combines with a strong nationalistic feeling,’ said Akhileshwaranand Giri, another RSS pracharak who was also initiated into sanyas by Satyamitranand Giri. ‘That’s why most of his sanyasi disciples have Sangh background. In his student days, Swami-ji had himself worked as a swayamsevak. After becoming a sanyasin, he developed good relations with Golwalkar. All the sarsanghchalaks since Golwalkar, including Mohan Bhagwat [the current chief], have held Swami-ji in high respect.’[14]

Ever since Akhileshwaranand Giri became an RSS pracharak in 1989, he has remained attached to the VHP, taking an active part in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement and campaigning aggressively against cow slaughter and Christian missionaries. ‘In 1998, at the time of the Haridwar Kumbh Mela, Swami Satyamitranand Giri initiated me into sanyas. After that I shifted my base from Haridwar to Jabalpur [Madhya Pradesh]. My status in the VHP also changed. Till then I had participated in the activities of the VHP in the capacity of a pracharak of the RSS, but after becoming a sadhu, I started representing the sadhu community and became a member of the VHP’s Kendriya Margdarshak Mandal,’ he said. ‘In 2010, following the advice of Swami Satyamitranand Giri, I became a mahamandaleshwar of Niranjani akhara. In 2016, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan [of BJP] made me the chairman of the Cow Protection Board of Madhya Pradesh, and I got the status of a minister in the state. Now I divide my time between Jabalpur and Bhopal.’ In December 2018, six months after I interviewed him, the BJP was defeated by the Congress in the Madhya Pradesh assembly elections and Akhileshwaranand Giri lost his ministership.

Akhileshwaranand and Yatindranand Giri are among the four most prominent sanyasi disciples of Satyamitranand Giri. The other two are Avdheshanand Giri and Govind Dev Giri. The latter resides in Pune and has set up a string of Ved Vidyalayas for teaching Vedic knowledge, in several parts of northern and western India. ‘While Avdheshanand Giri was a swayamsevak, Govind Dev Giri was a pracharak before taking sanyas,’ said Akhileshwaranand Giri. These disciples of Satyamitranand Giri, in their capacity as preceptors, have in turn been instrumental in initiating the RSS cadres into sanyas. One of Yatindranand Giri’s disciples, for instance, is Prabodhanand Giri, a former RSS pracharak who now runs a Hindu militia organisation called Hindu Raksha Sena from his ashram in Haridwar.

III

A majority of the religious leaders I spoke to while researching this book remarked that the number of sadhus with an RSS background grew considerably in size by the end of the 1980s. Among the many consequences of this new phenomenon was the transformation of the very character of Kumbh Melas.

The VHP started making efforts to promote its Hindu supremacist ideology in the Kumbh Melas as early as in 1966 at the Allahabad Kumbh, where it organised the first World Hindu Conference. Held on 22 January that year, the conference was well attended by sadhus from various akharas.[15] It was facilitated by Prabhudatt Brahmachari, a Vaishnava sadhu who had contested against Jawaharlal Nehru and lost by a huge margin in India’s first parliamentary election; he was the joint candidate backed by all the Hindu supremacist parties from the Phulpur seat.

Encouraged by the attendance at the World Hindu Conference—the first serious attempt to establish the VHP as a consistory of Hinduism—the VHP asserted itself, along with a host of other Hindu organisations, later that year on the prohibition of cow slaughter. This issue had been fiercely debated in 1948–49 in the constituent assembly between secularists like Nehru on the one hand and Congress traditionalists and Hindu revivalists on the other. The debate resulted in the incorporation of this issue as one of the Directive Principles of State Policies, which, instead of being legally enforceable, are broad guidelines in the Constitution that governments are expected to bear in mind while framing state-level policy. However, those in favour of the prohibition were far from satisfied and kept raking it up from time to time.

On 25 September 1966, the Sarvadaliya Goraksha Maha-abhiyan Samiti (SGMS) was founded and Prabhudatt Brahmachari was made its head. The steering group of the SGMS consisted not only of members from the VHP but also from the RSS, Hindu Mahasabha, Ram Rajya Parishad, Arya Samaj and the Hindu traditionalists from Congress—such as Gulzarilal Nanda, who was home minister in the Indira Gandhi government—and members from Bharat Sadhu Samaj, which had been founded under Nanda’s patronage.[16] At the call of SGMS, over one lakh sadhus descended on Parliament Street on 7 November 1966 and went on to gherao Parliament House, demanding a prohibition on cow slaughter. Police had to resort to firing when repeated tear-gassing and lathi-charging failed to stop the violent mobs from trying to get inside ‘Parliament House and All India Radio and attacking buildings along the way and setting fire to over 100 cars and a dozen buses’.[17] Seven persons were killed and about 140 injured in the police firing, till the army was called in the afternoon and curfew imposed.

The violence and arson by sadhus put many of those who had supported the prohibition of cow slaughter on the back foot. The three-hour mob rule—first of its kind by sadhus in the national capital—was seen as a well-planned attempt to discredit parliamentary democracy. Nanda, the union home minister, tried to extricate himself from the mess by telling Lok Sabha that ‘it was the highly inflammatory speech of Swami Rameshwaranand [shankaracharya of Puri] that had converted the till then comparatively peaceful assembly of sadhus and people campaigning for a ban on cow slaughter into a violent and destructive mob in Parliament Street’.[18] Two days later, Indira Gandhi, who had remained firm all through the agitation, sacked him.

This was certainly not the outcome the sadhus might have expected from their unprecedented action. Never before had they so completely thrown their weight behind the Hindu revivalist bandwagon, despite their support to it in the past. They had been led to believe—as they came out of their ashrams to occupy Parliament Street—that they would be marching forth to change the destiny of the nation. The expectations that the VHP and its associated bodies had generated in them was vastly different from the outcome of their demonstration in the national capital. That they were made pawns in the game of politics was evident also from the fact that the demonstration had been organised merely months before the next general elections, scheduled in early 1967.

Indira Gandhi’s resolute stance left the sadhus high and dry. They were chased, caned, arrested and shot at. Even three hours of holding Parliament Street hostage had delivered absolutely nothing to them. If anything, it proved that the muscle power they had become used to wielding had little space in democratic India. Prabhudatt Brahmachari and the shankaracharya of Puri went on a public fast a few days later to force the government’s hand, but the majority of the sadhus, deciding not to waste their time in Delhi, returned home. Even those on the fast had to suspend it by the end of January 1967 having failed to move the government.[19]

The debacle of this anti-cow slaughter agitation left a large section of the sadhus disillusioned and they did not respond to the VHP’s calls at the next Kumbh Mela held in Allahabad in 1977. Even though the Kumbh took place in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s decision to withdraw Emergency and call for a general election, the VHP and the RSS, despite all their efforts, could not mobilise the sadhus using the anti-Congress sentiment. The second World Hindu Conference organised in 1979 was poorly attended and it seemed like the VHP had lost its relevance. Most sadhus had seen through the VHP’s plan to use them for the electoral gains of the Jayaprakash Narayan-led Janata Party, which was supported by the Sangh Parivar. Instead, the sadhus provided an overwhelming welcome to Indira Gandhi in a meeting to honour her at the 1977 Kumbh, organised by the shankaracharya of Jyotish peetha. Gandhi received benediction from ‘the holiest godmen ever assembled on a single dais’, the Times of India reported. The article further said:

Mrs Gandhi assured the religious leaders that the government would not interfere with sacred Hindu traditions and practices but at the same time requested them to banish ignorance, blind faith and superstition from the minds of the people. Though it was her first public speech since the announcement of the election decision, she strictly avoided politics.

The sadhus pledged their full support in propagating and implementing the 25-point programme [of the government].

Shri Shantanand Saraswati, the Shankaracharya of Badrikashram [Jyotish peetha] who is known as ‘Dharma Samrat’ sat behind a square solid silver table topped by a pair of ‘padukas’ symbolising the presence of the Adi Shankara, founder of the four peethas. The Shankaracharya carried the holy staff sheathed in saffron clothes to signify his religious authority. His forehead was smeared with sandalwood paste, superimposed by a king-sized kumkum tilak. Other sadhus wore triple horizontal yellow stripes (tripundra) on their brows to signify their Shaiva beliefs, while some others had double vertical lines of holy chalk with a vermilion stream in between (urdhava pundra) according to the Vaishnava tradition. […]

Mrs. Gandhi in her brief speech recalled the unique Hindu tradition of veneration of sadhus and sanyasis which set India apart from other nations. […]

She recalled that she had carefully explained the true meaning of secularism in her recent speech in Parliament and wished to declare from this holy dais that the government believed in ‘sarva dharma sama bhava’ (equal respect for all religions).[20]

Her call to secularism did not change the priorities of the sadhus; they were still attached to the idea of Hindu revivalism and were anxious to protect and promote their interests. Many had simply lost hope that the VHP and its sister organisations could actually deliver on their tall promises. A good number of sadhus stayed away from the VHP meetings in the 1977 Kumbh. The general anti-Congress wave, quite visible in most parts of northern India at that time, hardly touched the sadhus attending the Kumbh. This was a serious blow to the VHP, especially as it came at a time when the RSS outfit desperately required a boost to its sagging morale.

In the decade after the failed march of sadhus on Parliament Street, the VHP, despite all its efforts, was unable to regain the sadhus’ confidence. In fact, the Kumbh Mela of 1977 only accelerated the VHP’s free fall.

IV

Things might have not worked out in the VHP’s favour had a large number of swayamsevaks and pracharaks not infiltrated the ranks of sadhus. Although this infiltraton began in the early 1980s, it intensified towards the end of the decade. This new class of sadhus, particularly in the Shaiva akharas, worked from within. Not only did they bolster the VHP’s efforts to use mass ritual actions and religious imageries for the political mobilisation of Hindus but also laid the foundation for what the RSS outfit had been longing for—transformation of the Kumbh Mela into a massive political opportunity. ‘The change was witnessed in the Allahabad Kumbh Mela of 1989, but this change started taking shape in 1986 with the help of the new class of sadhus when the VHP facilitated the formation of Akhil Bharatiya Sant Samiti [ABSS] by Swami Vamadev [a prominent Dasanami sanyasi of the time],’ said Swami Jitendranand Saraswati, a Varanasi-based dandi sadhu of the Shaiva sect, who had worked as an RSS pracharak between 1989 and 2004.[21] ‘All sadhus with Sangh background as well as those active in the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, including Ramchandra Das Paramhansa, Nritya Gopal Das and Hansdevacharya, joined the new body, which was presented as an organisation independent of the VHP.’ The equivocation was meant to ensure that the VHP could attract even sadhus who wanted to stay away from the Sangh Parivar.

The ranks of the new body swelled as the number of sadhus with an RSS background increased. ‘By the time the Allahabad Kumbh Mela was held in 1989, the Sant Samiti was in a position to ensure limelight for the VHP’s efforts,’ said Jitendranand Saraswati, who has been the national general secretary of ABSS since 2016. A three-day Dharma Sansad was organised by the VHP in the last week of January 1989. The Dharma Sansad is a conclave of sadhus, unlike the World Hindu Conference, which is attended by ordinary supporters of the RSS as well as sadhus. Both continue to be conducted till this day, with the former being the bigger focus. The Dharma Sansad became notable for the large participation of sadhus as well as for its uber militant tone. A report that appeared in the Statesman said: ‘The Shankaracharya of Kanchi [Jayendra Saraswati] and most other heads of Hindu sects were present, thus ensuring a mammoth crowd of Kumbh Mela pilgrims.’[22] Journalist Mark Tully describes the turnout thus:

The stage in the vast tented pavilion on Kumbhanagar’s main road was crowded with holy men wearing saffron, lemon-yellow, dark-red or white robes. Some were old and frail; some young, sleek-skinned and prosperous. Some were lean and intense, and some rather stout and somnolent. Thousands of people sat shoulder to shoulder on straw strewn on the floor of the pavilion, and thousands more stood outside listening to the speeches on loudspeakers.[23]

However, one sadhu’s presence on the VHP dais created much buzz and surprised many—that of Deoraha Baba’s, ‘the most revered hermit of Vrindavan, who agreed to speak from the VHP rostrum’.[24] He had great influence among Vaishnava sadhus, who had till then largely stayed away from the VHP’s area of influence. Mark Tully records his appearance quite vividly:

The holy man was naked except for a deerskin he held loosely round his waist. His thighs were emaciated, his skin was blackened by the sun, his eyes were rheumy with age, his hair was matted; but, surprisingly, his beard was quite neatly trimmed. He sat down hurriedly and raised both his hands. […] A model of the temple of Ram which the Vishwa Hindu Parishad planned to build if it succeeded in getting that mosque [Babri masjid] destroyed was brought to the baba, who laid hands on it. The baba, still sitting, pulled himself to the edge of his platform, clasped a microphone and started speaking in a quiet but remarkably clear voice. He told the now silent crowd, ‘Protecting this temple of Ram is holy work. You protect your religion and it protects you. My platform from which I give my blessing every day is the platform of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad. They have my blessings. I want everyone to cooperate with their work.’[25]

The media reported that Deoraha Baba’s disciples claimed this was the first time he graced a VHP rostrum. Closer scrutiny however, reveals that this Vaishnava sadhu and follower of Ramanuja had been closely associated with the RSS outfit right since its inception. He was, for example, present on the VHP dais during its first World Hindu Conference in 1966.[26]

In any case, Deoraha Baba’s views and outlook was shared by a large number of sadhus attending the Dharma Sansad during the 1989 Kumbh Mela. Of many resolutions that it passed, one that gave the VHP much traction was the building of a Ram temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. In fact, the manner in which the Dharma Sansad was conducted, particularly on its last day, stopped short of calling for the demolition of the Babri masjid, as is clear from a report that appeared in the Statesman:

The temple in Ayodhya would be built with bricks that would be worshipped as ‘Ram Shilas’ in every village of the country before being brought to the site, it was decided today. This worship would start on September 30. Today, five bricks were worshipped symbolically as ‘Ram Shilas’ here and then placed on the dais.

There was a scramble to pay donations in front of the ‘Shilas’, though the organisers kept declaring they wanted only Rs 1.25 per head for construction of the temple. That would raise Rs 100 crores if all Hindus paid their share, they added.

Most of the clergy who spoke today took a strong anti-Muslim and anti-government tone. Mahant Avaidyanath of Gorakhpur pointed that the Quran prohibited Muslims from constructing mosques on the holy places of other religions. ‘And telling us to construct the temple in another place to avoid conflict is like telling Lord Rama to wed another Sita to avoid war with Ravana.’[27]

The effect of the VHP’s mega show was sensational. The Dharma Sansad ended on 31 January 1989, and the very next day it organised a mammoth public meeting in the Kumbh Mela area, which was attended by ascetics in large numbers. According to a report in the Statesman, the ‘Hindu power’ presented itself as even more aggressive and intolerant than in the Dharma Sansad. Much of what the sadhus said, the report claimed, ‘could not be reported’ for fear of libel or a riot. ‘The suggestion from the dais that only by standing for elections themselves would the sadhus be able to ensure that the government took the steps they wanted it to—ban on cow slaughter, declaration of a Hindu rashtra and abolishing special privileges to minority groups under the law, to mention a few—received a thunderous applause,’ the report added.[28]

These meetings, speeches and propaganda using the platform of the 1989 Allahabad Kumbh provided an unprecedented edge to Hindutva politics. In days to come, the VHP built on this momentum to mobilise sadhus as well as devout Hindus for its Ayodhya project. The series of events this Kumbh Mela set off—including Advani’s rath yatra in 1990—culminated in the demolition of the Babri masjid. A large number of the naga vairagis of Ayodhya, who had largely remained lukewarm to the VHP’s call until the Allahabad Kumbh, enthusiastically participated in what was, by far, the most serious assault on the Indian State, one that shook its basic character.

In the 1990s, after the demolition of the Babri masjid, prominent sadhus and akharas went back to focusing on their day-to-day activities, managing real estate properties and hobnobbing with politicians of all kinds, although it was clear that the BJP had greater penetration among them. This was also the time when sadhus belonging to Other Backward Castes (OBCs) started becoming more assertive in what was an upper-caste-dominated world. Politics in north India had been animated by this assertion too, since the beginning of the 1990s, when the Central government announced job reservations for OBCs based on the Mandal Commission Report. A substantial number of Dasanami and Ramanandi sadhus at that time were OBCs, and still are. It would have been difficult for this section of sadhus to remain untouched by the caste-based political upheavals. Thus, the rise of the Samajwadi Party (SP), which derived its core strength from the OBCs in Uttar Pradesh, was followed by the formation of Samajwadi Sant Sabha, a group of Ramanandi vairagis headed by Bhavanath Das of Ayodhya. Though the new body was never directly associated with the SP, it became a magnet for sadhus from the OBC communities, and for some time subordinated itself to Mandal politics. Mulayam Singh Yadav, the leader of this new politics in Uttar Pradesh, became a political patron of Bhavanath Das.

Yet, the impact of the OBC assertion among the sadhus was largely limited because the large number of RSS-workers-turned-sadhus acted as sheet anchor, keeping the VHP’s support base stable. RSS members who opted to become sadhus mostly belonged to the upper castes and a majority of them were Brahmins by birth. In the aftermath of the Mandal Commission, they acted in unison to maintain the status quo among sadhus. In fact, it was partly to offset the disruption caused by OBC reservations that the VHP, firmly backed by the new class of sadhus, increased the pitch of its rhetoric during the subsequent Kumbh Mela held at Allahabad in 2001. At its Dharma Sansad organised in January in the Kumbh Mela area, the RSS outfit issued a diktat to the Central government, asking it to clear the way for construction of the Ram temple.[29] The government could not have complied with the diktat since the case was subjudice in the Allahabad High Court. The VHP did not press the issue further, given that its sister organisation, the BJP, was leading the coalition government at the Centre at that time.

The VHP’s rhetoric became even shriller in the 2013 Allahabad Kumbh when it strongly urged ascetics to communicate to Hindus across the country that supporting the BJP and Narendra Modi in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections was a divine project. The political overtones of the religious fair attended by millions of Hindu devotees and thousands of sadhus was evident in the VHP’s politically charged slogan, which could be heard frequently in the meetings of ascetics organised by the VHP and seen in the hoardings it put up on the streets of the Kumbh Mela area—‘Jo Ram ki baat karega, wohi desh par raaj karega (Only those who talk of Lord Ram shall rule the country)’. Of the two major congregations of sadhus organised by the VHP, one was addressed by BJP leader Rajnath Singh and the other by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. What gave the 2013 Kumbh an extra frisson was the image creation of Narendra Modi—the chief minister of Gujarat during the anti-Muslim carnage of 2002, who seemed set to become the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate—as the best choice for political leadership in the country because he alone could ensure the success of the divine project of Hindus.

V

How the Sangh Parivar used the new class of sadhus and what was achieved in the bargain is no small feat. Using the Kumbh Mela to spread political messages has been the long-standing dream of various political groups. But even the most popular of Indian leaders, like Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru failed to connect with the akharas as effectively as the VHP. In fact, Gandhi was the first to use the Kumbh Mela as a platform for politics, but all his exhortations failed to move the sadhus even when the freedom struggle was at its peak.

Immediately after his return to India from South Africa, Gandhi made his way to Haridwar for the Kumbh Mela in 1915. He was quite keen to be at the great religious gathering and was eager to meet with the sadhus of Haridwar. He had expected a utopian world of respectful holy men, but he was sorely disappointed. Gandhi revealed this a few years later in January 1921, while addressing a large number of sadhus of the Swaminarayan sect at Vadtal village in Kheda district of Gujarat:

I am always eager to meet sadhus. When I visited the Kumbhmela in Haridwar, I tried to go into all akhadas of sadhus in search of a sadhu who would gladden my heart. I met every sadhu who had acquired some reputation but I must say I was disappointed. I am convinced that sadhus are an ornament to India and that, if the country lives, it will be thanks to them. But I see very little of the goodness of sadhus today. On the last day in Haridwar, I spent the whole night thinking what I could do so that sadhus in the country would be real sadhus. Finally, I took a hard [dietary] vow. I shall not say what it is, but many believe that it is a difficult one to keep. By God’s grace, I have still kept it inviolate.[30]

Despite Gandhi’s evident disgust for what he perceived as the travesty of modern akharas, naga sadhus were initially attracted to him. Over 100 nagas attended the meeting of the Indian National Congress at Nagpur in 1920. This session was significant not only because it passed a resolution on the non-cooperation movement but also because it was here that Gandhi seized the reins of power in the Congress. In the meeting, it was decided that nagas and sanyasis would carry the message of swaraj and non-cooperation around India. According to a British intelligence report:

Sadhus visited most of the villages and towns and the masses had a high regard for them, and thought a great deal about their instructions and preachings. When these nagas took up non-cooperation, the scheme would spread like wild fire among the masses of India and eventually government would be unable to control 33 crores of people and would have to give Swaraj.[31]

The report also added that Gandhi urged these nagas to ‘visit the vicinities of cantonments and military stations and explain to the native soldiers the advisability of giving up their employments.’[32] The British government got so alarmed—partly because it took some time for it to differentiate between the ascetic nature of Gandhi’s leadership and the one it had encountered while dealing with naga warriors over a century ago—that after the Nagpur Congress, the intelligence department became increasingly concerned with the activity of people it termed ‘political sadhus’.[33] But the naga sadhus’ enthusiasm for Gandhi did not last long, and they went back to their old world as quickly as they had come out of it.

Though Gandhi’s initial eagerness to recruit sadhus to the nationalist cause was extinguished by the overwhelming narrowness of mind displayed by the akharas, Kumbh Melas continued to attract a section of Congress leaders, such as Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Madan Mohan Malaviya and even Nehru, who saw it as a platform that could carry their propaganda deep into the country. They were not yet ready to accept that a religious congregation of this kind was too narrow and tradition-bound to act as a conduit for an inclusive nationalism. Thus, at a time when Gandhi was busy firming up his strategy to launch the civil disobedience movement, the Congress party was very active in the 1930 Allahabad Kumbh, for spreading the message of the proposed agitation through meetings and processions ‘wherein the British were compared to Aurangzeb and reference made to the 75,000 cows slaughtered daily under British rule.’[34] It even set up permanent camps in the Kumbh Mela area.

In 1930, as the Kumbh Mela began, sanyasis played a leading role in turning the festivities into political rallies. On 13 January, a day before the first shahi snan, ‘fifteen sanyasis held a procession when they sang a national song at the Kumbha Mela’.[35] The issue of boycotting foreign goods, especially cloth, soon became a central point of discussion at the Allahabad Kumbh. The support of religious leaders was important in making this campaign a success because they could qualify the wearing of fabrics made by the colonisers as ritual pollution, thereby lending a crucial religious stamp to the movement.[36]

Support at the Allahabad Kumbh had a cascading effect and the boycott campaign received religious sanction at several other Hindu pilgrim centres as well. In Haridwar, ‘sadhus and pilgrims led by Swami Muktanand entered into an oral pact with the Congress’ in May 1930 to abide by its call to boycott foreign goods, and in August, sadhus of Varanasi, enraged over the arrest of Pandit Malaviya, founder of Banaras Hindu University, ‘pledged themselves to support the local Congress’.[37] Similarly, the Parivrajak Mahamandal, an organisation of sadhus, ‘did not delay in associating itself with the Congress propaganda from the start of civil disobedience’.[38] Nehru frequently addressed large audiences at both Allahabad and Haridwar to capture the attention of ascetics and pilgrims.[39] But, as it turned out, the Congress’s efforts seldom had any long-term impact as it could not sustain the sadhus’ enthusiasm beyond the duration of the Kumbh Melas. The pledges of these ascetics proved to be hollow and the Kumbh an empty vessel. The Parivrajak Mahamandal too did not feature in the activities of the Congress outside this religious event.[40]

This tepid involvement of the sadhus might have caught the Congress off-guard, but certainly not Mahatma Gandhi, whose disillusionment with the akharas and religious gatherings was cemented from the very beginning. He was so disheartened by Kumbh Melas that he mostly avoided them for the rest of his life. In 1942, during the Allahabd Kumbh, Gandhi passed through the city and briefly stopped at Anand Bhawan, the local Congress office, before boarding a train for Wardha, but he did not visit the religious gathering in the adjacent Sangam area.[41]

VI

Thus, where even Gandhi and Nehru had failed, the VHP succeeded. The transformation of the Kumbh Melas was nothing short of a coup. Moulding the monastic orders from within to produce a widespread political impact is one of VHP’s biggest accomplishments. The extent of its impact on the world of sadhus can only be understood over time. However, this much is clear: the sadhus with RSS links have largely succeeded in controlling the thought processes of the majority of the Hindu monastic orders.

‘There was a time, and not so long ago, when sadhus and the Sangh used to speak in different languages as the priorities of the two were vastly different. Sadhus with an RSS background used to have more clarity with regard to challenges the Hindu religion faced and they were more concerned about issues related to national security and national pride than other members of the community,’ said Vijay Kaushal Maharaj, Vrindavan-based pracharak-turned-sadhu. ‘In course of time, however, the situation has changed. Interactions in the last few decades have flattened out all distinctions among sadhus. Now most of the sadhus, irrespective of whether they come from an RSS background or not, speak the same language.’

The political motivation of the majority of sadhus today is straightforward: to make India a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ in which they hope to attain the status of an ecclesiastical headquarter. This signifies the emergence of what seemed rather hard to imagine even a few decades ago—the making of political Hinduism in secular India. The RSS’s role in this is undeniable and so is its presence in the ascetic community—a presence that has turned a certain section of sadhus into a spiritual machine.

The efficacy of this machine was put to test in 2013, when the Sangh Parivar was in the midst of planning for the Narendra Modi-led Lok Sabha election campaign. The RSS organised a three-day conference of select sadhus in its Nagpur headquarters. The conference devised religious idioms that would resonate well with the electorate. ‘Over fifty sanyasis, including mahamandaleshwars, who had formerly been RSS pracharaks, attended the meeting, and nearly thirty-five such religious leaders could not turn up because of personal reasons,’ Yatindranand Giri, who presided over two of its sessions, told me. ‘The meeting continued for three days and we discussed ways in which sanyasis could play a role in uniting Hindus and bringing tribals close to the Sangh Parivar. All the central office-bearers of the RSS, including sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat, were present throughout the conference.’

It is difficult to predict or learn what effect these sadhus had on the elections, given that an election outcome is dependent on numerous factors. But the BJP did win a landslide victory in the Lok Sabha elections that followed.

The influx of RSS cadres into the world of sadhus seems set to continue. In the present day, the spread of modern education and proliferation of other sources of income has meant that Hindu monastic orders no longer get enough new entrants. RSS pracharaks, though, are a readymade breeding ground for Hindu asceticism. Pracharaks perhaps begin with idealism, setting out to steer the nation towards the RSS’s vision and protect what they are taught is the true nature of Hinduism, all the while living the life of a wanderer and surviving on contributions from swayamsevaks. When the initial enthusiasm starts to fade, their options are limited to either making a U-turn and becoming householders or shifting to active politics. But not everyone can easily make that switch. For those who can’t, Hindu asceticism offers a sustained source of income and sometimes even the possibility of crawling up the ladder if they can muster clout with the Sangh Parivar.

4

THE BROKEN LEG TEST

Where do they all come from, this weird tribe? Wearing nothing but garlands of marigold on their ash-smeared bodies. Shrieking with joy as they march in the shahi julus for a holy dip at the prescribed auspicious time during the Kumbh Mela, on the command of Jupiter’s twelve-year cycle. And where do they all vanish, once the Kumbh ends? Do they really go back to their mythical confinement—perhaps cold caves in the Himalayas—after tasting the amrit, the nectar of immortality? Legend has it that when the gods were transporting a kumbh, or urn, filled with amrit to hide it from the demons, drops of it fell at four places—Allahabad, Haridwar, Nasik and Ujjain—where the Kumbh Mela is now celebrated.

But what happens if one decides, before these nagas vanish after the Kumbh, to take a closer look?

On 4 February 2013, just when the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad was at its peak, the media blew the lid off this spectacle, reporting that ‘many akharas’ were parading ‘fake nagas’ during the shahi julus.[1] The procession of naked men, the biggest attraction of the fair, appeared to be a stage-managed act rather than an impromptu gathering of nagas moved by a divine calling.

But it led to nothing. No akhara responded to the news reports nor did the devotees seem affected. The Allahabad Kumbh’s last two shahi snans, which were held after the news broke, were normal as could be; nagas continued their processions in the barricaded track, while devotees continued to jostle for a glimpse.

This shocking discovery, however, was not exactly new. Nearly six decades ago, there were similar revelations in the aftermath of a tragedy that struck the Allahabad Kumbh in 1954. Several hundred pilgrims, mostly women and children, were killed in a stampede, while thousands others were injured. An enquiry committee set up by the government a couple of days later, apart from examining the reasons for the mishap, also scrutinised the organisation of the shahi julus.

The Kumbh Tragedy Enquiry Committee noted, ‘Some of the naked men who join these processions are men who ordinarily wear clothes but agree, on payment, to join the group of naked men in the processions,’[2] indicating that the akharas had hired non-nagas for money in order to inflate the number of nagas in the procession.

While the committee was recording testimonies for its report, this closely guarded secret of Dasanami akharas was laid bare by the media as well. Scholar Kama Maclean, referring to media reports in the aftermath of the Kumbh tragedy, writes: ‘The revelation that some sadhus had been paid to parade naked (to inflate an akhara’s numbers and importance), not just in 1954 mela but at previous Kumbhs as well, did not help the sadhus’ cause [before the enquiry committee], as it made them appear disingenuous and overly obsessed with their processions.’[3]

From the outside, it is hard to understand who, precisely, benefits from the parade of naked ascetics. But the Dasanami akharas have been long aware of the importance of maintaining the public’s belief to fuel their own sustenance. The Kumbh Mela, to these akharas, is an occasion for the nagas to collectively showcase the strength they claim to have wielded through the ages. That strength is their unique selling point—it is not enough that they once possessed it; they must be seen to possess it now as well. This mythical strength has to be demonstrated, even if symbolically, from time to time in order to retain the devotees’ awe. Their image as a wild throwback to a pre-modern form of asceticism is central to this.

And thus the shahi julus taken out for the shahi snan must continue to remain enigmatic and awe-inspiring for the devotees, onlookers and tourists, even if it requires staging the Kumbh.

II

To understand how the Kumbh is orchestrated and by whom, I visited Haridwar. On a bright afternoon in October 2012, as I stood in a relatively quiet corner of Har-ki-Pauri, the holy city’s main bathing ghat on river Ganga, two alms-seekers seated close to me were making plans to visit the Allahabad Kumbh to begin in two months. The younger of the pair, who had a slight body and a soft face framed by a scanty black beard and a halo of long curly black hair, said to his companion, ‘We should go to Prayag [ancient name for Allahabad] at least a week before the Mela.’[4]

His companion, a taller, bigger, bearded man who seemed to be in his fifties, with white hair peeking out from under his grey turban, replied softly, ‘Ilam wants to go after the first snan.’

‘Maharaj, can I sit down here?’ I asked the pair.

Neither of them showed any interest in me. I sat down nevertheless and asked again, ‘Do you attend every Kumbh Mela?’

The elder one, who later introduced himself as Kanhaiya Lal, removed his turban to scratch his head, and white hair flowed over his face. Initially, he kept his eyes down and his thoughts to himself. He then removed a cotton pouch from beneath the plastic sheet he was sitting on, silently filled his chillum, lit it and took a heavy drag, looking straight at me. ‘Of course, everyone here will go to Prayag,’ he said, passing the chillum to his younger companion.

‘To bathe at the Sangam?’ I asked casually.

He remained quiet.

The younger one, Gopal, pitched in. ‘No,’ he said, returning the chillum to Kanhaiya and blowing smoke out through his nostrils. ‘We will go there as guests of the nagas.’

‘Guests of the nagas?’ I was puzzled.

But neither of them said anything more. Gopal got up, picking up a stainless steel glass and walked away. I looked at Kanhaiya, but he too appeared to be getting ready to leave. The conversation had ended; they were no longer interested in continuing with it. Although I did not understand what Gopal had said, the expression he used—guests of nagas—made me curious.

The next morning, I encountered them again at the same spot. Kanhaiya was more forthcoming; perhaps the previous day’s acquaintance had made him less wary of me. I spoke to him for over two hours, trying to understand what Gopal had meant by ‘guests of nagas’. I also met two of their friends—Ilam and Ballu—that day. Soon, it became clear that these four alms-seekers were among those who had helped inflate the contingent of the naga army during the previous Kumbh Mela held in Haridwar in 2010 and were planning to repeat the act in Allahabad this year.

Kanhaiya and his friends said that many Dasanami akharas had been hiring alms-seekers in Haridwar to be paraded as part of their naga armies. ‘The first time I was invited to stay in the camp of a Dasanami akhara was in 2010,’ recounted Kanhaiya. ‘It all happened suddenly. Just before the Kumbh Mela, the police swooped down on us and asked all alms-seekers to vacate the ghat. Around the same time, a Dasanami akhara invited us to stay in its camp and have meals in its bhandaras. I accepted the invitation, so did most of my friends here. The akhara had started bhandaras almost a fortnight before the beginning of the [Haridwar] Kumbh. During the feast, they told us that those participating in the shahi julus would get dakshina. It was not a bad idea, and this is how we started becoming nagas during the shahi snans.’

For the upcoming Kumbh, Kanhaiya informed me, he and his friends had already received invitations from two prominent Dasanami akharas. He claimed that he had been staying at the ghat in Haridwar for over three decades but it was only during the 2010 Kumbh that he and his friends took part in the akharas’ shahi julus and received remuneration for their services.

III

Through these conversations I developed an initial understanding of how the Kumbh is staged. Still, I was sceptical. The claims of Kanhaiya and his friends were not backed by proof. Confirming these claims in the secretive world of akharas seemed impossible.

I met them two more times over the next two months and discussed this phenomenon in detail. Then, to check the veracity of their claims, I reached Allahabad a day before the first shahi snan. In the Hindu lunar calendar, it is the day of Makar Sankranti, which falls on the winter solstice in mid-January. Early morning on that day, armed with the Uttar Pradesh government’s special media pass issued for the occasion, I found a suitable spot well inside the barricaded track through which the shahi julus was to proceed towards Sangam, the confluence of rivers Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati.

One by one, the contingent of naked naga armies of the akharas passed by me, each led by a naked sadhu mounted on a pony, who frenetically beat a dhol placed in front of him, followed by others playing martial tunes on turahis of different shapes and sizes. As chants of ‘Har Har Mahadev’ rent the air, I started becoming impatient as none of the four alms-seekers I had met at Har-ki-Pauri could be found. I felt foolish for having believed them.

Then, my eyes found a familiar face—it was indeed Kanhaiya, waving his hands at me, wearing nothing, as he walked at the end of the last contingent of naked sadhus. I did not immediately recognise him even though he was at a distance of merely three or four metres. He looked quite different in his avatar as a naga. I had assumed he would appear worried and nervous, but he looked confident, and seemed to belong among the nagas. He was walking swiftly along with the shahi julus, and I had to run a few steps to catch up with him. Now it was easy to recognise his friends, too. Gopal, Ilam and Ballu were marching alongside Kanhaiya, also naked, waving their hands frantically at me and smiling. Before they could move away, I shouted: ‘Namo Narayan, Maharaj. Where are you staying?’

Gopal, who was the closest to me, yelled back: ‘Come outside Juna.’

‘When?’

‘Four o’clock [in the evening].’

Kanhaiya and his friends had been right—not all the naked men who took part in the shahi julus were naga sadhus. The main attraction of the Kumbh was no longer what it might have been in the past.

That evening, when I reached the camp of Juna akhara a little before four, Kanhaiya and his friends had already gathered outside the gate awaiting my arrival. We went to a relatively deserted area along the Yamuna and spoke until it was late in the evening.

‘How do you feel about what you did today?’ I asked in course of our conversation. ‘You’re not a naga, and yet you were confidently marching with the nagas in the morning as if you were one of them?’

‘How do you know all the others in the julus were nagas?’ Kanhaiya replied.

What did Kanhaiya and his friends get for impersonating nagas?

‘For every shahi snan, each of us gets Rs 501 as dakshina,’ he said.

That, however, was not the only attraction for them. In Haridwar, they survive on alms. With no permanent place to stay, they live mostly on the ghats near Har-ki-Pauri. During the Kumbh, for five to six weeks—the average duration of a Kumbh Mela—they do not have to beg. ‘We came here on 13 January and will rest here for the whole of the Kumbh,’ Kanhaiya explained.

Gopal, Ilam and Ballu were also living in the same camp, lounging around, eating meals served at bhandaras meant for nagas and earning dakshina for the few hours of exertion required of them on one day.

According to Gopal, ‘temporary nagas’ could be found in the camps of most Dasanami akharas. ‘You won’t find anybody at Har-ki-Pauri now. All of them must have come to Prayag to live like nagas for the next few weeks,’ Ilam said.

IV

Around ten that night, as calm started to return following the frenzy of the first shahi snan, and the crowd began to thin rapidly, I hurried towards my guest house, wondering how the actual naga sanyasis—not the pretenders but the real ones, those who might have come here not to participate in the show, but out of sheer devotion—would feel about this. As I was passing through a pontoon bridge on one of the streams of the Ganga, I noticed three naga sanyasis getting ready for a quick ganja session on the river bank. I walked closer to them and sat down uttering, ‘Om Namo Narayan.’

I did not get a response. The group seemed focused on the chillum that had started passing around.

‘From the smell I can tell, Maharaj, it’s pure stuff,’ I tried again.

Silence continued, but this time one of them smiled, and after his hit, passed the chillum to me. The chillum went around twice, and as one of them paused to refill it, I asked, ‘Maharaj, I would like to understand something.’

The one who had subtly welcomed me into the group with his smile looked up but said nothing.

‘Are all who were part of the shahi julus real nagas like you?’ I shot my question straight at him.

‘Maharaj,’ he said, holding the earthen chillum in his hand. ‘You want to know who fake nagas are? What do you expect a naga of Juna akhara to tell you? You noticed them today, I noticed them three years back,’ he said, passing the chillum to the sadhu sitting next to him. He was lost in thought for a while, and then said, ‘In the very first shahi julus at Haridwar, I noticed that the murti [as ordinary nagas call each other] by my side was so aroused that he was not able to walk properly. I was shocked. A sanyasi who has been initiated as a naga can not get an erection.’

This was a rather strange way of identifying fake nagas and certainly the most powerful statement I had heard about the phenomenon. Secret Dasanami rules prescribe a set of mandatory esoteric initiation rituals to become a naga. The last of these, held in complete secrecy, is notable for the mark it leaves on the man.[5]

At a later point, I asked a Haridwar-based naga sanyasi of Awahan akhara, called Shivraj Giri, about this ritual. He seemed shaken by the mere memory of it. ‘It was so painful that I almost fainted. It took me hours to regain my feet, and only after that could the remaining rites be completed. Had I known about this part of the ritual, I might not have gone for it.’

‘But you could have refused when you felt the pain or you could have simply run away in the midst of those rites, couldn’t you have?’ I probed.

‘When they grab your penis, your mind stops functioning,’ he said, his eyes reddish from cannabis. ‘When I got up and the initiation rites resumed, I told myself I would pretend to be an observer rather than a participant. That helped me brave those painful hours.’

There is nothing extraordinary about the first two stages of initiation that prepares a novice to enter nagahood. It begins with the candidate’s formal initiation into the life of a Shaiva akhara, with the kaarbaari, or keeper of records, noting his name, his guru, the date on which the initiation begins as well as acknowledging that he has paid his dues to a marhi, which functions as a sub-lineage within Dasanami akharas. On the appointed day, the candidate, already shaven except for the top knot, presents himself along with a group of other initiates. A pandit, the guru and the initiate sit in a triangle in front of the sacred dhooni and offer water and flower petals to God. Besides the initiating guru, who is called mantra guru, four other gurus from the same akhara present the candidate with vibhuti, langoti, rudrakshamala and janeu, and are, accordingly, called vibhuti guru, langoti guru, rudraksha guru and janeu guru. Together they constitute the panch guru, the five preceptors. The initiate’s top knot is shaved off and the guru mantra is whispered three times in his ear by the mantra guru. The initiate is then given a new name, with a suffix denoting one of the ten Dasanami names. He is now called a mahapurush, the great one, or vastradhari, the clothed one.

‘The second initiation is more elaborate,’ explained Shivraj Giri. ‘It involves severing the link with your past as well as the cycle of birth and death.’

Central to this phase of initiation, which turns a mahapurush into a sanyasi, is a yajna planned well in advance. The virajaa havan, the rite of the hero, or vidya sanskar, as this yajna is called, is nearly always performed at the time of a Kumbh Mela. While the major rituals of this rite are performed by a Brahmin pandit, some are also performed by the acharya guru or the mahamandaleshwar. As part of the preparation on the day of the yajna, the acharya guru informs the candidates that this is their last opportunity to return to their homes and families should they wish to do so. The candidates briefly discard their clothes and walk a few steps towards the north before being called back by the acharya guru. These steps symbolise ‘the Great Journey to the Himalayas’, undertaken, theoretically, without food and water until the traveller dies. These symbolic rituals are performed at the bank of the river early in the morning. At sunset, the candidates return to the akhara, which has four funeral fires burning at each corner. It is around these fires that the main sanyas sacrifice, virajaa havan, or homa, is conducted. While the candidates offer oblations and perform the yajna, the Purush-sukta—sixteen verses from the Rig Veda, which in the Hindu tradition are recited during funeral rites—is chanted by the sanyasis of the akhara. The candidates then perform, elaborately, their own funeral rites, which are said to free them from the cycle of birth and death. It is believed that having performed his own shradha, a sanyas will be united immediately with the ancestral spirits and not roam the afterworld as a ghost, as ordinary Hindus might. The next morning before sunrise, renunciates, along with the acharya guru, go to the river, where they perform another set of rituals, calling on the sun and moon, wind and fire, earth and sky, heart and mind, morning and evening twilights, and all the gods to witness the candidate’s resolution to become a sanyasi. This is followed by the recitation of a series of mantras, particularly Gayatri and Praisa mantras, the latter chanted in three different pitches, and the taking of a series of vows, usually performed in waist-deep water. Thereafter, a mahapurush becomes a sanyasi, who must now live as if he is dead to the world.

Then comes the third and last stage of initiation for those sanyasis who wish to become nagas. ‘Earlier, there used to be a gap of several years between the second and the third initiation, but nowadays, naga initiation usually takes place barely a day or two after the virajaa havan,’ Shivraj Giri said. ‘It is conducted in the dead of the night, when the sanyasi stands next to the kirti-stambha, a tall column in the middle of the akhara, accompanied by four shri mahants, who represent four sets of marhis, and the acharya guru, who gives him a mantra. Then his mantra guru pours water on his head and pulls the sanyasi’s genitals thrice with all his force. You can’t imagine what it takes away. Only a man with great will can withstand it.’

This ritual—called tang tode, meaning ‘broken leg’—is said to break the membrane beneath the skin of the sanyasi’s penis and it is believed that this emasculates him before he becomes a naga. The authenticity of a true naga is determined by the status of his penis, which is what the Juna akhara naga I met that night in Allahabad had referred to.

V

Dasanami akharas, particularly the bigger ones, are aware of the devotees’ expectations during a Kumbh Mela and that they can retain their status as spiritual centres only by meeting these. This is an ordeal for the managers of akharas. Office-bearers are selected only from those class of nagas who have gone through the tang tode ritual; as such, the organisation of the show—both the Kumbh Mela as well as its central spectacle, the shahi julus—rests on fully initiated nagas. These nagas feel the constant heat of the competition in the market, and of the need to live up to the image of the mysterious yogi.

Religion matters. So do those who reinforce people’s faith in religion. Perhaps, the akharas would not feel the need to perpetuate the stereotype if they had continued to get enough new entrants and if Kumbh Melas were just a straightforward religious fair for ascetics and devotees. But during the last few decades, there has been a paucity of naga aspirants and there has been a powerful effort to convert the Kumbh into a political theatre. All this seems to have pushed the Dasanami akharas to the edge, forcing them to deploy desperate measures to make the show look grand. Most sadhus have had to adjust to a new way of life, one in which spirituality has been replaced by manufactured acts to keep up appearances.

But there are also nagas who are unwilling to join the game. They come in three varieties. The first set are those who can’t find an entry point into this new world. The second set are so upset at being rejected by those running the show that they grow bitter and blame the akharas for everything under the sun. Nagas belonging to the third category are the ones so distressed by the turn of events that they start wandering in search of the ‘real truth’, having been devastated by the ‘experienced truth’ in the akharas.

‘Kumbh is an empty pot, and all its nectar has flown away,’ said Anand Giri, a tang tode naga of Juna akhara, who could qualify for the third category. ‘When I realised this I felt outrage and pain. But who cares nowadays? Everyone is busy in the drama, some organising it and others taking part in it. There is no idealism left there. Why should youngsters join them?’ he asked. ‘The last Kumbh I attended was in 2001 [in Allahabad]. I lost interest after that.’[6]

I met Anand Giri, a wandering sanyasi who claimed to have no dwelling place, a few weeks after the 2013 Allahabad Kumbh at the outskirts of the Himalayan town of Joshimath in Uttarakhand. From our brief conversation, I gathered that the overriding concern of the ‘real’ nagas was that their population was shrinking.

For their part, akharas remain opaque and highly secretive, preferring to divert attention away from their crisis rather than to examine it. It is true that the akharas are fighting for survival. But the harder they fight the waters closing over them, the faster they seem to be drowning. They, for example, blame Kaliyug, the dark ages, for the decline in the number of newcomers to their kind of life. ‘Kaliyug has affected both religious and material spheres,’ said Ravindra Puri, the secretary of Mahanirvani akhara. ‘The number of nagas in every akhara has been falling. Till 1925, the Mahanirvani akhara had a force of 30,000 nagas. Later, it started coming down. Now it is much less,’ he said, but was evasive when asked to give details of Mahanirvani’s present strength of nagas.[7]

Yet, the fact that the Kumbh retains its allure as the largest congregation of Hindus and that the nagas are vital to it gives akharas hope that this decline can be reversed and that their contingent of nagas will rise again. Though they try to put up a brave face, in an age of all-pervasive media, their true colours show whenever there is a Kumbh Mela. A fierce competition among the larger Dasanami akharas, particularly Juna and Niranjani, to put up a show of being the most influential, the most powerful in terms of the number of nagas and the most aggressive, makes their pathetic state only more visible.

Senior office-bearers, like Ravindra Puri, feign ignorance about the presence of fake nagas in the Kumbh Mela, even though most of them admit that there is an ever-increasing pressure to make a show of numbers. ‘I don’t know anything about fake nagas, but there is certainly competition to claim the largest contingent of nagas. This competition started only in the last two or three Kumbhs. Earlier, this was not the case,’ Ravindra Puri said. Most nagas, who don’t hold any positions of power, tend to fall silent when asked about fake nagas. It is hard to believe that they are unaware of the farce carried out in their name by the akhara authorities. Given their dependency on the akharas for sustenance, it is possible that they prefer not to risk the wrath of their benefactors by speaking out openly.

Whatever the case, the nagas have been shrinking in numbers for quite some time.

In the medieval ages, various princely rulers, both Hindus and Muslims, used to hire the services of organised akharas for battles, which, in turn, attracted a good number of youths, particularly those belonging to the lower strata of society in north India. A large number of ascetic warriors continued to bear arms and to rent out their fighting services even during the early years of the British rule in India. Naturally, their numbers were much larger in parts not under the East India Company’s rule.

But the number of warrior ascetics started declining as the British rule reduced the probability of princely states fighting among themselves. Private armies could neither be kept nor assembled. It is not surprising that J.N. Farquhar found many old weapons of war hanging on the walls of a deserted temple near Jaipur in 1922.[8] G.S. Ghurye also refers to the presence of these rusted specimens in many akharas in 1951.[9] Nevertheless, the nagas and their akharas survived, continuing to get patronage from the remnants of the medieval order—local rajas and zamindars. Thus, as noted by Robert Lewis Gross, even until the early part of the twentieth century, large contingents of sadhus used to tour the country in great processions giving blessings and receiving tributes wherever they went.[10] Roderick Neill mentions instances of ‘Dashnami Naga Panch [the governing body of these akharas]’ travelling all year long with supplies and tents for thousands of naga sanyasis, and wherever they camped, the local rajas and zamindars would support the ascetics with food and gifts.[11] Once the rajas were derecognised and zamindari estates were abolished after Independence, the patronage of the local ruling elite ended, and these huge annual processions completely disappeared.

Though asceticism continued to draw newcomers, it happened at a diminished pace. It remained an alternative lifestyle and strategy for many youths from poverty-stricken parts of the Gangetic plain, particularly those incapable of dealing with modern life or those who did not wish to live within the narrow confines of the domestic setting of family, kin, caste and village. It also provided, to many, a convenient and socially recognised ‘escape’ from worldly life. Whatever rigours and deprivations an ascetic life might have represented, it also offered certain compensations. It provided, for instance, a form of financial security that was sometimes greater than the kind offered by other occupations. That asceticism also acted as an adaptive strategy for survival has been explained quite vividly by Gross[12]—a fact that most ascetics today will vehemently deny, choosing to instead give philosophical reasons for their choice.

But change has been rapid in the last few decades. The de-ruralisation of the Indian economy and the spread of modern education have opened up new avenues for those social groups that had until recently been the recruiting ground for akharas, particularly in north India. The life of a naga ascetic today neither has the glamour nor is a viable alternative for sustenance, as it was in the earlier times.

Though the decline in the number of nagas started becoming a matter of concern around the mid-twentieth century, it began to affect the nerves of the akharas only by the turn of the millennium. This was also the time when the practice of hiring fake nagas, which was in vogue earlier too, became more aggressive.

One of the reasons the akharas, particularly the bigger ones, became conscious of their image could be the media boom during this period. Though every Kumbh in the past had been a religious spectacle, the 2001 Allahabad Kumbh was arguably the first one to receive massive international press coverage. The BBC ran special programmes on that Kumbh every day for a month. Sondra L. Hausner points out how the number of foreign and local journalists trailing around with their microphones, wires, cameras and photography equipment was itself no small a spectacle.[13] The Guinness Book of World Records had also started taking note of the massive turnout on the days of the shahi snan.

In the days before the grand rediscovery of Kumbh by the media, the akharas had not felt this kind of pressure to project a certain image, or to present themselves as the true representatives of a glorious militant past. The temptation to outshine other akharas and seize the limelight during the Kumbh Mela’s grand spectacle, the shahi snan, is something that at least some of the Dasanami akharas are not able to resist. The extent of this corruption is yet to be recorded, and will probably be impossible, given how guarded the akharas tend to be.

VI

Even though there is ample evidence that the procession of naked ascetics is neither natural nor spontaneous and is kept alive primarily through the power of money, all attempts so far to clothe the nagas at Kumbh Melas have met with obstinate resistance from Dasanami akharas. For the ‘kings of the mela’, to borrow Maclean’s phrase, these processions are the only expression of their militant past. Being witnessed in splendid formal processions en route to the shahi snan, adorned with garlands, bearing ceremonial weapons and accompanied by all manner of regalia, is important for the nagas and their akharas, and crucial to their selling of illusions. The assembled audience at the site of the Kumbh and those watching on their television sets at distant places dignify and add meaning to their performances.

This parade of naked ascetics has remained a contentious issue throughout history. In the interest of imposing ‘public decency’, the British had banned public nudity in 1840, but nudity within religious arenas remained a grey area and even the colonialists had to concede the right of these ascetics to carry out naked processions.[14] The imperial authority must have calculated that too much interference in religious practices could excite disaffection. ‘In Allahabad, there were several wistful attempts, usually articulated by British newspaper editors or missionaries, to eliminate naked processions,’ writes Maclean, ‘but these petitions were not taken seriously by administrators who were more interested in managing the mela with reference to good sanitation and crowd control.’[15]

This was a point of dispute not only between the nagas who practised it and the colonial administration but also among the various akharas themselves. Dasanami nagas have jealously guarded their right to be the only ones naked in these processions. The district gazetteer of Nasik recorded the fights that erupted at the Mela in the town in 1861 and then in 1872 when the nagas of Nirmal akhara, one of the three akharas influenced by Sikhism, attempted to walk naked in a procession to river Godavari. The Dasanami akharas objected to this, and the British managers, concerned primarily with maintaining peace, sided with them.[16]

The practice of naked processions continued uninterrupted and became a matter of debate once India won independence. The context for the renewed debate was provided by the tragedy that struck the 1954 Allahabad Kumbh. The probe panel set up in its aftermath lamented the amount of resources wasted on naked processions by Dasanami nagas.[17] Recommending that the naked processions henceforth be banned, the Kumbh Tragedy Enquiry Committee said:

Lastly, I am convinced that the time has come when the participation of naked men in these processions of sadhus should be banned. The original idea underlying nakedness was that in the spiritual development of a Yogi a stage is reached when his renunciation is so complete that he does not require even the minimum of clothes. When that stage is achieved, the Yogi becomes Digambar. The sublimity of the ideal is obvious. A true Digambar, however, does not go about parading in a procession.[18]

The committee also appealed to the nagas and akharas to give up the practice of naked processions during Kumbh Melas on their own: ‘I suggest that the sadhus should themselves give up all this pomp and show and should go to the Sangam on foot in the manner in which sadhus originally used to do.’[19]

But neither Dasanami akharas nor the government was ready to listen to the enquiry committee’s suggestions. This became clear as the next Ardh Kumbh approached. The first Ardh Kumbh since the tragedy of 1954 was to happen in Allahabad in 1960. Two years prior to this, the Uttar Pradesh government, apparently working under the pressure of nagas, set up another committee, purportedly to enquire into the privileges allowed to akharas but actually to upturn the recommendations of the 1954 committee. Neither was the constitution of the second committee made public nor was its report. The state government merely issued a letter on 14 November 1958 upholding the rights of the akharas to take out naked processions with all their paraphernalia. The UP Information Newsletter said:

The view that the traditional, religious and customary rights of the akharas to take out their procession with all paraphernalia to bathe at Sangam in Allahabad during Kumbh and Ardhkumbh Melas, which is being enjoyed by them since time immemorial, should not be interfered with has been expressed by the committee appointed by the state government to inquire into the privileges allowed to akharas. […] The tradition of the sadhus going naked to take their bath at Sangam in procession should not be interfered with has also been recommended by the committee.[20]

A section of the media objected to this clandestine decision of the government, which overrode the recommendations of the earlier enquiry committee. An editorial that appeared in Amrita Bazar Patrika on 21 November 1958, for example, criticised the move thus: ‘It is indeed difficult to locate the reasons which induced the UP government to appoint a committee to inquire into the privileges allowed to akharas on the occasion of Kumbh and Ardhkumbh melas.’

Nevertheless, the decision had been taken and the only serious attempt to clothe the nagas had ended. In the Ardh Kumbh of 1960 and the Melas that followed, the nagas have continued with their naked processions, unfettered by all the debates surrounding them.

5

A JAMUN TREE, A NAGA AND THE RAINBOW FAMILY

It was nearly noon. The sun was high in the sky. The cool waters of the Ganga made their way down the vast flat plains of north India. The bustle at Vishnu Ghat—one of the bathing ghats of Haridwar, the town that sprawls along where the mountains meet the plains—decreased once the devotees dispersed after their morning oblations and holy dips.

As the crowd thinned and calm started to return, Shivraj Giri took out a pack of hundred-rupee notes and quickly distributed them among the occupants of Vishnu Ghat—mostly nagas, vendors and alms seekers. That way, he told me later, he bought peace with his potential neighbours before setting out to reclaim his dhooni at the ghat. ‘I had no choice,’ he explained to me.[1] ‘They would have chased me out again. I could guess that a lot of them didn’t like to see me back.’

The sacred hearth had slipped out of Shivraj Giri’s hands two years ago when he had to flee from rival nagas in the locality, who had ganged up and attacked him enraged by his immense popularity among foreign devotees—and frustrated by their own failure to attract them—during the 2010 Kumbh Mela that took place in this town. None of their tricks could match the charm of this naga of Awahan akhara, one of the smaller ones within the Dasanami order. Shivraj Giri’s lavish dreadlocks and his splendidly long beard mesmerised foreign devotees and tourists just as his well-calculated acrobatic feats did. For all of the Kumbh, he remained the centre of attraction, while the other nagas of the locality simmered with envy.

‘The anger of these nagas became visible even before the Kumbh ended,’ Shivraj Giri said. ‘By the time the last shahi snan of Mesh Sankranti was performed, I could notice an uneasy calm at Vishnu Ghat.’

Shivraj Giri’s dhooni is located under a jamun tree almost at the centre of Vishnu Ghat, between Hathiwala Setu and Vishnu Ghat Setu, two pedestrian bridges across the Ganga. Dhooni is a sacred firepit dug in the mud, beside which a Shaiva ascetic lives. The fire that continuously burns in the dhooni is important in a Shaiva naga’s life—it serves as a focal point for meditation and provides warmth as well as the sacred ash that he rubs on his body and forehead.

Shivraj Giri was a model naga till 2010; he had held his own in the bathing ghats of Haridwar where the dice is always loaded against sadhus lacking in protection from their akharas or, more often, from the VHP’s strong network of religious leaders. He was at loggerheads with those in command of his akhara and could never become part of the VHP’s clique in the temple town. Yet, by the time the Kumbh ended, Shivraj Giri, with his charisma, had become a star attraction. His dreadlocks were almost seven feet long, about one and a half feet more than his own height, and his beard touched the ground when he stood up. Equally remarkable were the unusual physical feats he performed all through the Kumbh: he could be seen hanging upside down on the jamun tree holding a damru with both his hands, or standing on one leg in knee-deep water with his hands folded and raised above his head. All this had turned him into something of a phenomenon, and the media flashed his pictures quite regularly.

Shivraj Giri had not been feeling well the day he was attacked. He suffered from piles, which worsened just before the last shahi snan of the 2010 Kumbh, leaving him quite weak. ‘Just before noon, following the morning havan, Pintu Yadav came and told me that he had brought thirty-five thousand rupees sent to me by Amarnath Giri,’ he recalled.

Amarnath Giri was the name Shivraj Giri had given to a Russian national who became his disciple and studied Hindu scriptures in Varanasi. Around the beginning of the Kumbh, Amarnath Giri had made a short visit to Haridwar and purchased a gold-plated one-mukhi rudraksha seed from Shivraj Giri. The rudraksha rosary—said to have magical powers—is worn not just by Shaivas but also by the followers of many other subsects. The outer surface of the rudraksha seed is indented and has protuberances, which are called mukh, or mouth. It is believed that the rudraksha seed is born from the eyes of Rudra, a manifestation of Shiva and the form in which he opens his third eye to carry out the work of destruction. One-mukhi rudraksha, the seed with only one mouth, is considered to be Shiva’s incarnate. Both sanyasis and devout Hindus covet it. Seeds with eleven mouths are preferred next, and so on.

The rudraksha seed that Shivraj Giri had sold to his Russian disciple cost Rs 50,000, of which Amarnath Giri had paid Rs 15,000 in cash. After returning to Varanasi, Amarnath Giri transferred the remaining Rs 35,000 to the bank account of Pintu Yadav, a young man who worked in a private company in Haridwar and was known to both.

‘I told Pintu Yadav that I would collect the money from him later, but he insisted he deliver it in full public view because he wanted witnesses for the handing over of such a big amount,’ Shivraj Giri said. ‘At that time there were several devotees and disciples around my dhooni.’

As Yadav started pulling out neatly stacked currency notes from his bag, Shivraj Giri began to feel his nerves tighten. ‘I thought he had gone mad. I could see most of the sadhus around us straining their necks to see the notes, which Pintu kept counting for almost half an hour. I became tense and told him that he was putting me in danger by doing this so openly. But he stopped only after completing his count. I then asked one of my disciples to take the money and keep it in his bag,’ he said. ‘That very moment, a sanyasi of Juna akhara, who had started staying close to my dhooni in the last couple of months and was a habitual drunkard, asked me for some money. I refused, and said that I could not give money for buying liquor. He became angry and threatened that I would have to face the repercussions very soon.’

In a few hours, however, Vishnu Ghat regained its normalcy. The events of the morning seemed to have faded from the minds of those who stayed around Shivraj Giri’s dhooni. Some of his disciples, however, became restive. These included two of his Indian disciples—Gyan Giri and Dharma Giri—as well as a French woman whom he had ordained in his sect under the new name Uma Giri. She had, performing her role as a disciple, looked after Shivraj Giri during the entire Kumbh in Haridwar. ‘They [his disciples] asked me repeatedly if there was any impending threat. Uma Giri, who had rented a flat, requested that I go with her that night,’ he recounted. ‘But I told her that would be inappropriate on my part. If they attacked and killed me at her place, my image would be tarnished. People would think that I was sleeping with her. If, on the other hand, they attacked me at my dhooni, I would just have to roll over and drown in the Ganga. She then took the money with her when she left for her flat after sunset.’

Shivraj Giri thought that his disciples’ apprehensions were exaggerated and that the other nagas would eventually calm down. But, he had misjudged the intentions of the rival nagas.

As night fell, the crowd at Vishnu Ghat started thinning. Shivraj Giri and his disciples, Gyan and Dharma Giri, went to bed early. They were to travel to nearby Rishikesh the next morning, to meet some foreign devotees who had been camping there. It was a pleasant night, but Shivraj Giri could not sleep. He got up and filled his chillum and took a few deep drags, trying desperately to fall asleep. He finished the round and went back to bed again.

‘Around eleven there was some commotion on one side of Vishnu Ghat,’ he said. ‘Within a few minutes I could see some fifteen to twenty nagas moving quickly through the ghat. I got up and started watching them, instinctually knowing that a great treachery had taken place. Gyan and Dharma Giri also got up. In the light of the lone bulb hanging just outside the semi-concrete structure covering the dhooni, I could see a puzzled expression on my disciples’ faces. Before we could think of anything, the nagas attacked us. First they broke the bulb. In the darkness, while some of them started beating us mercilessly, others from that group began ransacking my dhooni and the structure around it.’

The last blow that Shivraj Giri remembered was to his neck, after which he lost consciousness. It was still pitch dark when he awoke. ‘For a few minutes, as I slowly regained my senses, I lay still trying to understand whether I had been sleeping or I had been reborn. It was dark everywhere. Nothing was visible. As I tried to get up, a searing pain shot through my body. I yelled out for Gyan Giri and Dharma Giri, but did not get any response. Then I saw a shadow limping at the outer edge of the ghat, just near the jamun tree. It was Gyan Giri, who was collecting some wood. He came back and lit a fire.’

In the dancing light, Shivraj Giri stared at the ruins left behind by the attackers for a few moments. Both pucca and kuccha structures in and around the dhooni had been razed to the ground, and everything had been ransacked. There was blood here and there. ‘It must have been around three or four o’clock. It seemed as if Yamraj [the god of death] had visited my dhooni. I asked Gyan Giri about Dharma Giri. He told me that Dharma Giri had got so scared that he ran away as soon as the attack had begun,’ Shivraj Giri said.

Given he was still alive, he didn’t understand the actual motive of the attack, till Gyan Giri pointed it out. ‘I was shocked. As I ran my fingers over my head and my face, I felt as if I were someone else. It had taken me almost two decades to grow such a mighty jata, which had been the main attraction for the devotees throughout the Kumbh. Photographers used to ask me to pose with my open jata. My disciples used to feel proud of my jata. In the entire Kumbh area only a few nagas had jatas longer and thicker than mine. They had stripped me of the most precious thing I had. Without my jata, I was good for nothing. Life seemed meaningless to me. I saw my jata and beard lying on the ghat next to me. I turned away. I could not bear to look at it. Gyan Giri understood my trauma. Before I could say anything, he lifted the pile of hair and immersed it in the river.’

With Gyan Giri’s help, he got up. His left leg was swollen and felt completely battered. His body felt numb. Gyan Giri, who was in no better condition, suggested that it was no longer safe to stay near the dhooni. The two managed to cross the Ganga, walking across Vishnu Ghat Setu and reached a small temple of Lord Shiva on the other side of the river. Many years ago, long before he had built his dhooni in Vishnu Ghat, Shivraj Giri used to visit this temple frequently. Back then, it was just a lingam with no other structure around it. Shivraj Giri often stayed there for days together whenever he visited Haridwar. Only when he made an abode at Vishnu Ghat did this temple cease to act as his temporary base.

‘By dawn, some of my old acquaintances got to know about the incident. An old lady, who used to supply milk to me every morning whenever I stayed there in the past, was the first to come. That morning, after seeing my condition, she left and returned with a cup of tea for me. Soon, another devotee also arrived. They took us to a nearby hospital. But the doctor on duty, after listening to our story, made it clear that he won’t treat us until we filed a complaint with the police. This proposition had huge risks. A police complaint would have killed whatever possibility I had of regaining my dhooni and staying peacefully at Vishnu Ghat in the future. Having lived in Haridwar for many years, I knew that going to the police station to file a complaint against the local nagas would have meant inviting more trouble,’ he said.

In the world of nagas, the guillotine falls suddenly. There is no notice period, no right of appeal, no trade union representation, no industrial tribunal and no compensation. Incidents similar to the one narrated by Shivraj Giri seem to reflect the everyday ups and downs of nagas eager to acquire wealth and power by marketing their spiritual prowess; at most they appear to be periodic adjustments in a world insulated by a facade of spirituality. Though such ups and downs have not been unknown to ascetics, their occurrence has increased considerably since the Hindu ascetic world’s exposure to the dazzles of politics and business. The new circumstances have caused a quantum leap in the materialistic aspirations of these ascetics, likening their world to the world outside, of grihasthas.

II

Shivraj Giri believed that Lord Shiva had intervened to save him. He left the hospital without protest and made his way to the temple again. The sun had risen by then, and he could see a group of beggars rummaging through whatever the rival nagas had left behind at his dhooni. The entire incident had left him so disgusted that he looked the other way. ‘I didn’t want to think about the previous night or of those who were involved in the attack. I knew that most of the attackers belonged to Juna and Awahan akharas. I could even have filed a complaint against them. But what was the point?’ he said and fell silent.

Shivraj Giri had formally renounced the world in his late twenties. He had, however, started working as a wage labourer for ashrams and akharas when he was quite young. He became shri digambar, meaning sky-clad or naked, the term used in Dasanami akharas for a naga—during the 1992 Kumbh Mela at Ujjain. ‘It happened few months before the demolition of Babri masjid,’ he recalled. He was twenty-nine then. His reasons for choosing this way of life are no different from those narrated frequently by ascetics at places like Haridwar, Varanasi or Allahabad: he had always leaned this way, ever since his childhood he had been attracted to religion and spirituality, temples used to entice him rather than schools, and so on.

A naga is usually reluctant to talk about his personal life, particularly about his time before becoming an ascetic. The reluctance emanates from the belief that at the time of initiation into an ascetic sect, a naga ‘dies’ with respect to his previous social identity. Therefore life before his initiation, at least theoretically, becomes meaningless to him. Now his lifestyle, ritual practices and belief systems emphasise separation and detachment from the material world, and his religious activities and aspirations are directed towards spiritual transcendence and union with God.

But Shivraj Giri had no qualms in talking about his former life. He grew up in extreme poverty and worked for sustenance even as a child. He was named Shamsher Bahadur and was born in 1963 (although, his date of birth is recorded as 1 May 1967 in his official papers) in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh, and was the eldest of three siblings. His father, Ramashankar Ram, was a landless labourer. It was always difficult for his mother, Ramrati Devi, to run the household on the meagre and irregular wages his father earned by working in the fields of upper-caste landholders. They lived in a hut built on a small piece of land reclaimed from the bed of a local river.

Despite the grim living conditions, his father wanted him to study and sent him to school, but Shamsher was an unwilling student and soon dropped out. ‘When I was ten, a relative who had helped us build our home on the reclaimed land, took me to Banaras,’ he recounted. ‘Thereafter, I started working in ashrams and akharas.’ Over the years, after serving for meagre wages in these religious establishments at Varanasi, a major hub of Dasanami akharas, he finally decided to become a sanyasi, and then, a naga.

On the face of it, the life of a sanyasi may appear to be inherently insecure: living solely on the infrequent and unreliable generosity of others. Yet Shamsher saw this differently. Despite the apparent rigours and deprivations of an ascetic life, it also offered certain compensations. Being attached to an akhara would definitely provide, for instance, a form of financial security that was not available to Shamsher otherwise. So, he, a wage-earner in the akhara so far, decided he would rather be a master than a servant, that is, instead of selling his labour to the representatives of God, Shamsher chose to sell it directly to him.

Shamsher chose his preceptor carefully; the ability of a newly initiated sanyasi or a naga to grow within the akhara’s hierarchy depends greatly on the status of his preceptor in the akhara. Shri Digambar Omkar Giri, the naga who ordained Shamsher to asceticism at the 1992 Ujjain Kumbh and gave him the name of Shivraj Giri, was no ordinary ascetic. He was the shri mahant of his marhi in Awahan akhara. Immediately after his formal initiation, Shivraj Giri shifted to Haridwar from Varanasi with his guru.

A marhi, literally ‘small hut’,[2] apart from deciding the lineage of a naga, acts as the basic administrative unit in a Dasanami akhara. The term marhi may have been derived from the term ‘matha’, a religious institution run by a guru, and it is believed that there were originally a total of fifty-two marhis before the six Dasanami akharas—Juna, Niranjani, Mahanirvani, Atal, Anand and Awahan—were formed.[3] The seventh akhara, Agni, is different from the other Dasanami akharas not only because none of its members are nagas but also because it has no marhi-based lineages.

There is, however, some inconsistency in the available literature about the identity of individual marhis and their significance. Lineages of this kind—in which mythology and history get intertwined—are notoriously complex, not only because of the problems inherent in historical sources but also because lineages tend to subdivide over time and also, in some cases, amalgamate.[4]

As they exist today, these marhis are grouped under either four or eight categories, depending on the akhara. These divisions are called dawa, meaning claim, a term derived from the voting procedures within the akhara. Thus, whereas marhis represent lineages, dawas—or a set of marhis—are units of administration that, at least theoretically, run the akhara collectively. The reorganisation of marhis into dawas, which is peculiar to the Shaiva akhara organisation, was done at a later stage.[5] The Mahanirvani akhara consists of eight dawas, while other Dasanami akharas have four dawas.

The dawas facilitate elections. They are like wards in a city, which have only an administrative function and an imaginary and arbitrary boundary, while the marhis are like mohallas, or localities, which have definitive interactional social boundaries.[6] Earlier, dawas used to be organised only for the purpose of elections, nowadays they have become permanent functional units, and are named after the most important marhi in the group.

Within akharas, marhis are usually referred to by number, for example, as the chaar marhi or the terah marhi. A naga in the akhara is recognised by this number, which denotes the lineage of that ascetic as well as the dawa or the set of marhis he belongs to.

In case of Awahan akhara, there are four sets of marhis—terah, chaudah, solah and chaar. While terah and chaudah marhis are dominated by Giris, solah marhi is dominated by Puris and chaar has Bharatis, Saraswatis, Vans and Aranyas in large numbers. Omkar Giri belonged to chaudah marhi, and so did Shivraj Giri, by virtue of being his disciple.

Each of the four sets of marhis in this akhara elects a representative, called shri mahant. The group of four shri mahants collectively make decisions for their akhara.

In practice, however, there is further grouping and the more powerful group runs the show. Usually, in Awahan akhara, chaar and chaudah marhis decide as a group, while terah and solah go together. Both groups compete against the other. Moreover, a shri mahant requires money and muscle power to succeed in his role. Also, though a shri mahant is elected for a period of six years, in reality, he continues to influence the functioning of the akhara even after he gives up the post.

Omkar Giri, who became the shri mahant of chaudah marhi in 1992, continued to exercise his influence in the functioning of his marhi—and thereby over Awahan akhara—till as late as 2004, when he was eclipsed by Madhusudan Giri, the newly elected shri mahant of the rival terah marhi.

‘Immediately after becoming shri mahant of terah marhi, Madhusudan Giri started persecuting the influential nagas of chaudah marhi,’ Shivraj Giri said. ‘The harassment by the new dispensation forced many nagas to leave the akhara while a number of others compromised. My guru refused to submit to Madhusudan Giri and, therefore, he was ostracised several times on flimsy grounds. At the time of his death in 2006, he was living as an ostracised man.’

For Shivraj Giri, too, trouble started building up as soon as Madhusudhan took over. For some time, he tried to placate the new ruler, but soon, he realised that no matter what he did and how he changed himself, he would not be able to win the confidence of the shri mahant of terah marhi. ‘Unless you submit to the politics in the akhara—and by submit I mean become a sycophant—you have no future there,’ he said. ‘Even submission is not enough if you belong to a rival camp because once the regime changes you get marked out and you become the target of attack by the new shri mahant and his henchmen.’

III

Small wonder that akharas today are run by people who see the business of religion as being about who’s up and who’s down, who’s in and who’s out. In such an environment, as Shivraj Giri remarked, ‘what brings a naga to the top is not his tapas or his superior intellectual ability but, more often, his intense desire for power, his ability to see an opportunity even in a crisis and his promptness in manipulating any crisis for his own benefit.’

One such crisis erupted in the 1998 Haridwar Kumbh when the holy men of the Dasanami akharas fought an unholy war, when the divisions and petty politics within Juna akhara as well as between Juna and Niranjani akharas came to the fore, when nagas terrorised, looted, fought and burnt things down and turned this town, considered God’s abode by Hindus, into the site of one of the most shocking riots in the recent past.[7] Though Awahan akhara was not directly involved, the rioting shook it from within and also sealed the fate of Shivraj Giri.

It all began near Har-ki-Pauri, on the banks of the Ganga, early on 15 March 1998, just when the shahi snan of Somvati Amavasya, an auspicious day in the Hindu calendar, had begun. A section of Juna nagas vandalised and looted the rath of Madhav Ashram, who is one of the three claimants to the seat of shankaracharya of Jyotish peetha.

Jyotish peetha in Badrinath–Kedarnath is one of the four great monasteries believed to have been set up by Adi Shankara. For some time, before the Haridwar Kumbh had begun, a fight had been on for the control of Jyotish peetha. Apart from Madhav Ashram, Vasudevanand Saraswati and Swaroopanand Saraswati were the other two claimants. While one section of Juna akhara recognised Madhav Ashram as the shankaracharya, another supported the case of Vasudevanand Saraswati. Swaroopanand Saraswati, who had no backing from Juna and was seen by the VHP as its enemy number one, had developed his own source of strength, independent of the akharas to claim the title—he has a considerable following among the dandi sadhus, who are not directly under the control of the akharas, and he also exercises influence over a good number of nagas in Niranjani akhara.

Madhav Ashram, who sustained serious injuries in the riots of 1998, alleged that the nagas who attacked him had been sent by his rivals Vasudevanand and Swaroopanand Saraswati, an allegation they refuted. But the attack and Madhav Ashram’s allegations created the initial skirmish among the nagas of Juna akhara. Tempers were, however, temporarily cooled by the prompt intervention of the local administration, and the shahi julus of Juna akhara proceeded for Har-ki-Pauri, where a pitched battle ensued between the nagas of Juna and Niranjani akharas on the timing of the shahi snan.

For the shahi snan, Awahan and Agni akharas are attached to Juna, Anand is attached to Niranjani and Atal is attached to Mahanirvani. At the Haridwar Kumbh, the time-honoured practice has been that Niranjani akhara bathes first, followed by Juna akhara, accompanied by Awahan and Agni akharas. The joint contingent of Mahanirvani and Atal akharas take the holy dip thereafter. And then comes the turn of Vaishnava and other akharas.

When Juna reached the ghat, some nagas of Niranjani akhara were still taking bath. Seeing the ghat occupied, Juna akhara’s nagas were enraged and they attacked the nagas of Niranjani akhara.

‘Soon, a full-fledged battle began. Swords, spears and tridents were out, and a chaotic violence ensued on the ghat. As all fighting ascetics were naked and smeared in ashes, it was just impossible to identify who belonged to which akhara,’ recalled Shivraj Giri, who, as a naga of Awahan akhara, was part of the larger contingent of Juna. ‘There was so much confusion on the ghat that I did not know what to do. Then, suddenly, the murti standing by my side was hit by a sword. As I bent to help him, I saw another sanyasi running straight towards me with a sword in his hand. Finding no route to escape, I jumped into the Ganga and let myself be carried away by its currents until I was certain I was out of danger.’

Even after the shahi snan, the nagas of Juna akhara continued to attack ashrams on their way back. Niranjani akhara’s camp became a target of their anger. Many other ashrams were also ransacked, and some of them were even burnt down. By the end of the day, Juna had established its dominance among the Dasanami akharas, particularly over Niranjani akhara.

But Awahan, too, was affected. The crude display of power by the nagas of Juna rekindled an old debate within Awahan. Madhusudan Giri of terah marhi launched a campaign to separate Awahan from Juna and to have a different time slot for Awahan’s nagas to bathe during Kumbh Melas. Following the madness exhibited by the nagas of Juna, there were many takers in Awahan for his line of argument.

Although chaudah marhi, that of Shivraj Giri and his preceptor, remained dominant in the functioning of Awahan akhara for a few more years, its grip started weakening as more and more nagas were influenced by the campaign launched by terah marhi. This reached its peak in 2004, when, during the Kumbh Mela at Ujjain, Awahan, together with Agni, another akhara tied to Juna during the shahi snan, announced their separation and asked the Mela administration to allot a separate time for them to take their holy dip. This move by the two subordinate akharas enraged Juna, which asked the Mela administration not to permit this. Later, Awahan and Agni moved the court, which authorised the Mela officials to take a decision on the matter. The deadlock persisted, and the Ujjain Kumbh Mela ended without the nagas of Awahan akhara taking part in any of the shahi snans. The dispute continued and Awahan akhara boycotted the shahi snans during Nasik Kumbh in 2005 and Allahabad Ardh Kumbh in 2007. Only during Haridwar Kumbh of 2010 did the dispute end, and Awahan and Agni akharas agreed to take part in the shahi snan together with Juna once again.

The dispute, however, saw a rise in Madhusudan Giri’s stock. In 2004, when Awahan announced its separation from Juna, he became shri mahant of terah marhi and, with the escalating rebellion, he succeeded in establishing his sway over the entire akhara. ‘Madhusudan Giri started canvassing that we should severe ties with Juna. He exploited the general anti-Juna mood in the akhara and became shri mahant and the leader of the most powerful faction in Awahan. Only later did we realise that we had been fooled and been used by him,’ Shivraj Giri said.

Madhusudan Giri’s rise eclipsed Omkar Giri and that, in turn, marginalised Shivraj Giri. When terah marhi used to dominate the akhara, Shivraj Giri enjoyed a lot of privileges. For three years, between 1995 and 1998, he had even held the coveted post of kothari, or storekeeper, of Awahan akhara, and had, in addition, secured the possession of two of the akhara’s temples, both of which had huge chunks of agricultural lands attached to them. ‘These temples of the akhara I became mathadheesh of in 1996 are located in Madhya Pradesh’s Gwalior district. When I took over, a good portion of the agricultural land of these temples had been encroached by some of the locals. I freed most of the plots and brought them under cultivation. Even after the end of my term as kothari, I held the two temples and continued to work for the akhara,’ Shivraj Giri said.

But once the regime changed, a difficult period began for him. The situation worsened after the death of his preceptor Omkar Giri. As two of Awahan’s temples were still under his control, attempts were made to force him to give them up. The akhara asked for a higher share of revenue from his temples and Shivraj Giri could hardly retain anything from the temples’ earnings. Trying to get into the good books of the new master did not help either, as Madhusudhan Giri could not be swayed.

Shivraj Giri did what he could to meet the demands of the new lord of Awahan. But the atmosphere was decidely hostile. ‘Four months before the 2010 Kumbh, I was asked to deposit Rs 17,000 with the akhara,’ he said, referring to the money the akharas had levied on him for being the mathadheesh. ‘It was a big amount for me. I, therefore, requested that I be given some extra time so that I could arrange the levy amount. But they refused and threatened me with dire consequences in case I delayed the payment. I then rushed to Gwalior and somehow arranged for the required sum and deposited it with the akhara.’

Partly in anticipation of uncertainties of this kind, right after Madhusudhan Giri took over, Shivraj Giri started looking for an alternative means of sustenance. The two temples—the only source of income for him—belonged to the akhara, and he was aware that he might not be able to hold on to them for long. ‘I might still have moulded the situation in my favour had I succeeded in obtaining backing from the VHP. The web of network that the VHP has created among the sadhus in Haridwar is so widespread and strong that your life becomes secure once you get a place in it. My guru was one of those who never liked the activities of the VHP, and so I stayed away from it till his death. But later, as I looked for respite from the oppression in the akhara, I sought to build some kind of rapport with the VHP. For the first time in my life, I started attending its meetings. I kept doing so for almost a year, but I just could not manage to get any foothold there because I could never really understand many of the things they said,’ he said.

Besieged and isolated, Shivraj Giri set his eyes on a dhooni lying deserted at Vishnu Ghat. Though he had taken possession of it before Madhusudan Giri’s rise to power in Awahan akhara, he had never really given it much consideration. But the new circumstances left him with no option but to develop the dhooni as his new abode. ‘The dhooni was started long ago by a naga, who also planted a jamun tree beside it. As that naga belonged to the Bharati lineage of Dasanani sanyasis, the dhooni is still called Jamun Bharati’s dhooni,’ he said. Interestingly, Jamun Bharati was the only naga in the long list of the occupants of this dhooni who stayed here till his death. None of the others who succeeded him could retain it for long. After the death of Jamun Bharati, the dhooni passed on to his disciple, Maujanand Bharati, who had to leave the place following differences with some local nagas. In the subsequent years, the dhooni changed hands several times, with nobody being able to turn it into a permanent abode.

‘The first time I visited the dhooni, it was under the occupation of one Ram Puri. That was in 1998, a few days before I left the post of kothari in Awahan akhara. Later that year, while I sat beside this dhooni during one of my short trips to Haridwar, I saw Ram Puri quarrelling with a local person, who was notorious as a goon. Ram Puri suspected that this person—I don’t remember his name now, though I was acquainted with him—had stolen a beautiful portable tent, which had been gifted to him by a foreign devotee. That very night, a group of unknown people came and vandalised this dhooni. Ram Puri was beaten up and chased away. He never returned.’

For over five years, no one dared to revive the dhooni of Jamun Bharati and it remained abandoned. Shivraj Giri visited the site now and then. He loved that the spot overlooked the Ganga and wanted to explore the possibility of starting his own dhooni there. ‘When it became clear that Madhusudan Giri would take over Awahan akhara, I started feeling insecure. One day, while I was sitting beside that abandoned dhooni, the same man who was instrumental in chasing away Ram Puri passed by. I stopped him and sought his permission to revive that dhooni. He gave me permission and I started preparations for its renovation,’ he said. ‘Over the next few months, I spent a fairly good amount on the dhooni and got an elevated platform constructed beside it under the jamun tree. I also started spending more time here.’

But even then he did not consider making it his permanent abode until he lost all hopes of getting support from the VHP. By the time of the 2010 Kumbh, he was already known to be the occupant of Jamun Bharati’s dhooni.

IV

It was because of this history of the dhooni that the locals did not appear to be particularly shocked by the attack on Shivraj Giri.

‘It was strange that Shivraj Giri did not think of any steps to protect himself before he was actually attacked,’ said Vinod Rawat, a tea-stall owner at Vishnu Ghat.[8] ‘But it was even stranger that his devotees and disciples left him almost alone that night in spite of the fact that there was a widespread feeling among rival nagas that he had earned a lot during the Kumbh Mela.’ In fact, many of the vendors who were at Vishnu Ghat knew that an attack on Shivraj Giri was imminent. ‘Even before the end of the Kumbh Mela, it seemed impossible that he would be allowed to remain untouched for long,’ said Harish Sharma,[9] another vendor near Jamun Bharati’s dhooni. ‘Therefore, every morning when I saw him safe and sound I used to think that he has got one more day to secure himself.’

Yet, Shivraj Giri believed that he was lucky to have not been killed; his attackers could have easily murdered him. But he also knew that his time at Vishnu Ghat was up. ‘So great and intertwined were the two contrasting feelings of abandonment and relief that I thought it was awful to stay in Haridwar,’ he said, ‘and I decided to leave the banks of the Ganga.’

For the first time in eighteen years after becoming a naga, he felt dejected. ‘It was as if I had understood myself for the first time in my life. I knew that I would soon be starting a long journey now, but I didn’t know how that would happen.’

As Shivraj Giri was consumed by these thoughts the morning after he was attacked, Uma Giri, his French disciple, came to him. ‘Early in the morning that day I was supposed to meet some of the foreign devotees in Rishikesh. They were members of a group called Rainbow Family. But when I didn’t reach there on time they became anxious. Uma Giri, herself a member of the Rainbow Family, informed them about the incident of the previous night as well as my condition that morning,’ Shivraj Giri said. ‘Some members of the Rainbow Family then came in a van and took me along to their camp in Rishikesh.’

The Rainbow Family of Living Light is an informal group of hippies, musicians, jugglers and all kinds of peculiar people who congregate at a given place—the Himalayas being one of their most preferred destinations—and set up a village to last a moon’s cycle. In such a temporary settlement, there are hand-dug shit pits, a common kitchen fuelled by wood and a central fire around which people gather to eat in a large circle twice a day. The entire village runs like a commune and every member contributes something, as per their abilities, for the common meal. Once their sojourn ends, all the structures are taken down, the vans trundle out and the place looks like nobody had been there. The group has members in several countries. Most members found in India are foreigners, though there are some Indians, too. There is no central Rainbow organisation and it does not exist on paper. Instead, the gatherings are kept going by various ‘Rainbow Families’, who are mostly long-term members and as such take some of the responsibility of coordinating with the other members for organising their camps on a regular basis.

Though Shivraj Giri had known some members of the Rainbow Family, he became more closely acquainted with them in the months leading up to the 2010 Kumbh. ‘Some of my disciples were members of the Rainbow Family who had set up camps inside the forest close to Rishikesh,’ he said. ‘One day, about three months before the beginning of the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar, they took me to their camp in the forest and asked me to stay there for some time. I stayed with them during the day, and in the evening I decided to return to my dhooni. Just when I was about to get out of the forest, I saw over 100 policemen marching towards their camp. I immediately went back and alerted them about the impending danger. They started to pack in panic, but I told them not to dislodge their camps. I then talked to the police officers and persuaded them to give those foreigners some time so that they could move out of the forest in an orderly manner. After that, I started frequently interacting with the Rainbow Family.’

It was this group of foreigners who came to his rescue when Shivraj Giri lay grievously injured. ‘That morning they took me to Rishikesh, and from there we started off for Almora in vans that very evening,’ he said. ‘Over a dozen members of the Rainbow Family were travelling with me. It was a wonderful trip. Despite all my pains, I couldn’t remember ever having been so happy. It didn’t bother me that the nagas had looted everything that I had. After a day’s journey we reached Almora.’

In the forest area outside the city of Almora, the Rainbow Family set up their camps, dug shit-pits and arranged wood for cooking, heating and lighting the central fire. Under the care of the members of the Rainbow Family, Shivraj Giri began to recover quickly. The swelling on his legs and hands reduced within a week or so. He was able to stand, sit and walk properly without anyone’s help. His piles also seemed to subside. While he was recuperating, the Rainbow Family swelled to almost 100. Shivraj Giri stayed with them for a month and then decided to move on.

‘So one day after meal, while all the members of the Rainbow Family were sitting around the central fire, I revealed my decision to go further up the Himalayas towards the Pindari glacier. They tried to persuade me to drop the idea and return to Rishikesh with them. But my mind was made up. The next morning, I left the camp and walked alone towards the Pindari glacier,’ Shivraj Giri said. ‘I kept walking through the jungles and then through snow, eating whatever I could find in the forest. Then I stationed myself in a cave, staying there for seven days and seven nights. Then, I started wandering through the snow again.’

He was so disillusioned with the world he had left behind that he didn’t want to go back, he said. ‘I thought that whatever had happened to me might happen again. It seemed meaningless to return to the same old world. I was disgusted with my life and I wanted to die. But death does not come when you want it to.’

The most remarkable change that Shivraj Giri noticed in the interior Himalayas was how much more time he had on his hands. ‘It was amazing. When I was in Haridwar I rarely had the time to think about questions of religion and metaphysics. Now I suddenly had all this extra time,’ he said.

But as soon as his sense of abandonment faded away, Shivraj Giri began to miss the glamour of his former life. Why would one who has renounced everything crave that same old world again, especially after being violently removed from it? His explanation is simple and perhaps camouflaged: ‘I missed my dhooni, and I loved living on the edge of the Ganga.’

V

So, a few months later, Shivraj Giri went back to Haridwar. Though he could traverse the Himalayas by himself, he could not muster the courage to return to his dhooni at Vishnu Ghat. For a year, he wandered through various parts of Uttarakhand—Almora, Nainitaal, Uttarkashi, Shri Nagar, among others places—before making his way to Vishnu Ghat one fine morning. ‘My dhooni was under the occupation of a newly anointed ascetic of Juna akhara called Bhura Baba,’ Shivraj Giri said. ‘It was only at Haridwar Kumbh [of 2010] that Bhura Baba had taken sanyas under the new name of Gajendra Giri. Beside the elevated platform, there was an open space where I had planted a banyan tree. That portion of the dhooni had come under the possession of Shankar Giri, another young naga of Juna akhara.’

Shivraj Giri decided not to assert his claim on the dhooni that very day. The atmosphere seemed hostile and his own position rather fragile. He examined his options and concluded that making a move without taking those in the community into confidence would increase the danger of losing his dhooni forever; he would have to make gradual inroads back to his dhooni.

He left Vishnu Ghat and reached Rishikesh by afternoon. Over the next few days, he kept moving from one dhooni to another in search of a temporary shelter, eventually setting up near Laxman Jhoola at Rishikesh.

For almost a year, this dhooni near Laxman Jhoola served as Shivraj Giri’s base from where he mounted a campaign to reclaim his old abode in Haridwar. As he settled down at Rishikesh, his old associates and devotees started flocking to him again. He was soon rediscovered by some of his foreign devotees as well. But Shivraj Giri remained restless and yearned for his dhooni at Vishnu Ghat.

Then he started executing his plan. First, he won over most of the vendors of Vishnu Ghat. Then he started visiting his dhooni more frequently. ‘Finally, it became difficult for Bhura Baba to hold out on his own. Public opinion was in my favour, and I started spending even nights near the dhooni at Vishnu Ghat along with my disciples and supporters. And one day, I struck a deal with Bhura Baba, who agreed to vacate the dhooni,’ Shivraj Giri said, without revealing the details of this deal. A part of the dhooni, with the banyan tree, still continues to be under Shankar Giri’s possession.

Having regained his beloved dhooni after two years, Shivraj Giri lost no time in shifting back to Vishnu Ghat.

VI

Shivraj Giri was glad to be back at his dhooni, which became busy again with the presence of his loyalists, disciples and those who wanted nothing but free hits of marijuana. He can usually be found sitting like a content cat under the shadow of the jamun tree on the elevated platform, which he reconstructed in 2013, a year after getting it back. The dhooni along this platform is under a canvas tent overlaid with a black tarpaulin sheet. His hair has grown, now touching his shoulder but still not long enough to turn into dreadlocks. His beard too has now filled his face and tails down his chest.

Every time a newcomer stops by to watch the naked naga, Shivraj Giri makes it a point to show him his personal album, filled with photographs of his good old days when his dreadlocks, black then, used to look glorious.

Dharma Giri and Gyan Giri, the two disciples who were with him until that fateful night of 2010, are nowhere in sight. The horrors of that night frightened Dharma Giri so much that he never returned to the dhooni. Gyan Giri, who was beaten up mercilessly by the jealous nagas, lost his mental balance.

When asked about Dharma and Gyan Giri, their ex-guru resorted to philosophy: ‘Nothing is permanent in this world, not even disciples.’

He has a new set of disciples. Maybe the next Kumbh Mela in Haridwar—to be held in 2021—will even bring back the good old days. But, is he certain that the night of 16 April 2010 will never revisit him?

6

WHAT IS IN A NAME?

Akharas make huge profits from bestowing coveted titles that turn sadhus into preacher-leaders—an opportunity that sometimes lands them in embarassing controversies. In particular, the title of mahamandaleshwar granted by Shaiva akharas, and which comes with a hefty price tag, but has become a constant source of trouble for the akharas.

Shortly before the 2013 Allahabad Kumbh Mela, sadhus of Juna akhara—the biggest and most influential among the Dasanami akharas—were enraged when news broke out that its managers had granted the title of mahamandaleshwar to Radhe Maa, a female ascetic in her early forties. There was brief outrage following Mahanirvani akhara’s decision to award the title to a female ascetic in 1954,[1] but since then, almost every major akhara has opened up its titles to female ascetics. Clearly, it was not Radhe Maa’s gender that upset the sadhus of Juna.

Radhe Maa is a familiar figure in the mainstream media. She was born Sukhvinder Kaur alias Gudia, and lived in Gurdaspur, Punjab until she moved to Mumbai after her marriage. There, she lived with the family of a businessman who ran an advertising agency. On the day of her consecration, she flew from Mumbai to Delhi, from where she travelled in a cavalcade of luxury cars to Haridwar and stayed in a posh hotel. Around midnight on 31 July 2012, Radhe Maa was taken to the camp, where she was anointed mahamandaleshwar by the akhara’s acharya, Avdheshanand Giri. The next morning she returned to Delhi and then flew back to Mumbai. The arrangements for the ceremony were made by Hari Giri, the most powerful man in the akhara at that time, although officially he was one of the four secretaries of the marhis, who were supposed to run the akhara collectively.

Within days, the issue snowballed into a major controversy. Most nagas in Juna—except for Hari Giri’s coterie—as well as in other akharas, questioned the consecration. It was alleged that the ceremony was conducted secretly in the middle of the night to keep attention away from the huge amounts of cash that had exchanged hands.[2] Radhe Maa’s lavish lifestyle and eccentric, un-guru-like persona added to the suspicion of the Dasanami sanyasis. They also alleged that she had not even taken sanyas. ‘Radhe Maa is a walking beauty parlour,’ Yatindranand Giri, the Haridwar-based mahamandaleshwar attached to Juna akhara, told me. ‘There is not even an ounce of ascetic quality in her.’

Though Hari Giri was the focus of the anger, no one could directly accuse this prominent VHP ally. As pressure mounted, Juna akhara suspended Radhe Maa’s title the very next day and announced that an enquiry committee would look into the anointment, promising that Radhe Maa’s title would be revoked in the event of an adverse report. Three days later, the akhara constituted a five-member enquiry committee, which was to submit a report within three months. However, the majority of the probe panel were hardcore loyalists of Hari Giri, including Mahamandaleshwar Panchanand Giri, who had, in fact, suggested Radhe Maa for the coveted title.[3] Meanwhile, a representative of Radhe Maa told the media that she had all the qualifications to become a mahamandaleshwar and that she was ready for any kind of probe.[4]

The controversy lost steam as preparation for the Allahabad Kumbh due to begin in January 2013 took centre stage, and the deadline set for the probe panel passed unnoticed. However, after the first shahi snan on 14 January, rumours spread that Radhe Maa would be joining the contingent of Juna’s mahamandaleshwars for the second shahi snan on 9 February. The rumours picked up steam when the local media reported on 23 January that the probe panel had given a clean chit to Radhe Maa. The media report also quoted Hari Giri as having said that a decision would soon be reached.[5]

As soon as this news broke, there was a ruckus in Juna akhara, and its office-bearers were forced to call an emergency meeting that very morning. Later that day, two of the four secretaries of the akhara, mahants Prem Giri and Vidyanand Saraswati, declared at a press conference that a final decision was still pending, as it was only Panchanand Giri, and not the entire committee, who had given a clean chit to Radhe Maa. They also clarified that, since the report will not be in before the end of the Kumbh Mela, Radhe Maa will not be allowed to participate in any of the royal baths at Allahabad.[6]

Though Juna akhara was spared further embarrassment during the Kumbh, it was a personal humiliation for Hari Giri. In his six years as a secretary of Juna akhara, his decision had never been challenged. A close aide of Hari Giri told me that his temporary defeat was like ‘water off a duck’s back’ and he would ‘have another go at it sooner rather than later’, echoing the thoughts of others familiar with his tactics.

But, according to Divyanand Saraswati, who succeeded Vidyanand Saraswati as one of the secretaries of Juna akhara at the end of the Allahabad Kumbh, Hari Giri was restrained by acharya Avdheshanand Giri, who threatened to leave the Kumbh midway if the controversy over Radhe Maa continued or if she was allowed to be part of the akhara’s shahi julus.[7] Hari Giri might be the most feared man in the akhara, but the acharya mahamandaleshwar is considered the spiritual head and is the most respected in the institution.

At the Allahabad Kumbh, Hari Giri’s six-year tenure as secretary came to an end. But using his clout, he got himself elevated to the post of ‘international patron’ of Juna akhara. Haridwar-based senior journalist Kaushal Shikhola, who has been closely monitoring the akharas over the last few decades, said that this change in Hari Giri’s position merely meant his withdrawal from the day-to-day functioning of Juna, and that he continued to retain the last word on all major issues. In the other akharas, the post of patron is merely honorary, and there is certainly no other ‘international patron’ in the world of militant monastic orders. Hari Giri not only created a new post for himself but also arrogated to himself a casting vote in the matters of the akhara.

According to Shikhola, Hari Giri would have openly forced his way on the issue of Radhe Maa too once the Allahabad Kumbh had ended had he not been bogged down by another problem. The Nainital High Court had ordered the Uttarakhand state government to demolish all structures that had come up illegally after the year 2000 within 200 metres of the Ganga. The first building demolished in Haridwar was owned by Hari Giri—a massive temple-cum-ashram complex with over two dozen rooms. The demolition, which took place even before the end of the Allahabad Kumbh, was accompanied by an FIR against Hari Giri.

But the moment the nagas and sanyasis withdrew from Allahabad after the last shahi snan, held on 14 February, and the office-bearers of the akhara met at its baithak in Varanasi, it was time for another covert operation to clear Radhe Maa’s name. This time, Hari Giri was successful, not only in forcing the akhara’s office-bearers to fall in line but also in ensuring that the decision remained secret for months until he himself chose to reveal it to the media. Hindi daily Dainik Jagran reported on 1 September 2013, quoting Hari Giri, that the enquiry committee could not find any merit in the charges levelled against Radhe Maa and that she would soon be resinstated. At first, this did not generate any significant reaction and it seemed like Hari Giri had finally had his way. But opposition started building up in Juna akhara within a week. Acharya Avdheshanand Giri and many mahamandaleshwars of Juna went up in arms, vowing not to let Radhe Maa enter the akhara premises. This deadlock too was reported by Dainik Jagran on 12 September 2013.

‘The chapter is more or less closed,’ Divyanand Saraswati told me in December 2013. ‘She is now asking us to return her money [which she had given to Juna for the title]. But what money is left now? It got distributed among the various marhis and nagas of the akhara. And all that talk about Radhe Maa giving us crores of rupees for the purpose is bullshit. The amount she gave the akhara did not exceed fifty lakh rupees and all of it has been distributed and spent. Returning it is just not possible.’

Later, in 2015, when the controversial godwoman’s name figured in connection with a dowry harassment complaint in Maharashtra, the indignation was felt in Juna too. ‘This is the kind of embarrassment you will have to face if you make someone mahamandaleshwar simply because that person offers you a lot of money,’ Divyanand Saraswati said. When the charge sheet was filed a year later, the police dropped Radhe Maa’s name from the case. Juna akhara’s entanglement with her continued until the All India Akhara Parishad added her name to a list of fake ascetics in September 2017.[8]

Within the akharas in general, the whole episode seems to have become a joke.

II

For the most part of their existence, akharas did not have mahamandaleshwars. The origin of this title, in fact, remains obscure and highly debatable. Most studies suggest that it gained currency only towards the beginning of the twentieth century, and it remained a low-profile post for the longest time. Only since the 1980s did mahamandaleshwars begin to proliferate, as peddlers of new-age spirituality, first slowly and then at a pace unknown to Hindu ascetics.

H.H. Wilson, writing in 1861, makes no mention of a mandaleshwar or a mahamandaleshwar in the Dasanami order.[9] But, writing in 1953, G.S. Ghurye argues that mahamandaleshwars might have originated from the nagas’ quest for intellectuals who could counter the attacks of Christian missionaries. He writes:

To lead disputations with Christian missionaries was almost an insuperable task for the Naga leaders, who either had distinguished themselves in the wielding of arms or had traditions amongst them only of distinguished warriors. Added to the intricacy of the philosophical topics in dispute there was the difficulty of language. Nagas solved their problem by requesting some of the learned Paramhamsas among their Dasanami brethren to assume their leadership. […] These leaders of the Nagas came to be designated Mandaleshwaras. […] When a Paramhamsa becomes a Mandaleshwara, the Naga ascetics that are attached to or ordained into the particular akhada do homage to him and recognize him as their spiritual preceptor more or less in the same way as they do the particular Naga ascetic who ordained them. […] The spiritual preceptor, during whose life-time his disciple becomes a Mandaleshwar, gets the title of Mahamandaleshwar.[10]

Surajit Sinha and Baidyanath Saraswati, whose book appeared in 1978, however, assert that the origin of mandaleshwar had nothing to do with standing up to Christian missionaries, and was the product of a dispute between dandis on the one hand and paramhansas and nagas on the other.[11] Dandis, paramhansas and nagas together constitute the Dasanami order and are initiated through the same rules of sanyas. The ascetics who continue to hold the danda, the staff, after having performed the ceremony of sanyas, are called dandis and those who give up the danda after seven days of initiation are called tyakta dandis. The dandi category of Dasanami sanyasis are invariably from the Brahmin caste, and the danda that they carry is a bamboo staff covered in saffron cloth. Shankaracharyas belong to this category of sanyasis. The tyakta dandis, on the other hand, are recruited from all the castes. They are futher subdivided into two groups: paramhansa and naga. Paramhansas follow the same initiation rites as dandis, while nagas have to pass through an additional stage of initiation, that of tang tode.

According to Sinha and Saraswati, until the beginning of the twentieth century, nagas used to attribute the highest honour to the dandis, whom they regarded as gurus, and in the Kumbh processions, nagas carried the palanquin of shankaracharyas, who were considered spiritual heads of all Dasanami sanyasis. ‘But in one Kumbha mela at Haridwar there was a dispute between the Dandis and the Paramhansas because the former were too proud of their being Brahmin and considered the Paramhansas and the Nagas inferior. At this, the Nagas together with the Paramhansas refused to pay respect to the Dandis. Consequently, the Dandis also refused to initiate the Naga Digambaras as well as the Paramhansas into sannyasa, as had been the established custom. This necessitated the latter to have someone from their own group who must be a Brahmin and who was entitled to act as an Acharya for the sannyasa. And this led to the origin of the Acharya Mandaleswara.’[12] Acharya mahamandaleshwars were to come from the class of paramhansas, because paramhansas, like shankaracharyas, are considered to be custodians of spiritual knowledge.

Swami Sadananda Giri, writing in 1976, concludes that the office of acharya mandaleshwar developed in the last sixty years or so and that in the beginning there used to be only three acharya gurus or mandaleshwars—one each for Niranjani, Juna and Mahanirvani akharas—who used to accompany them at the shahi snan.[13] Later, however, Anand, Awahan and Atal, the three smaller akharas, also instituted their own acharya mandaleshwars. According to Shri Mahant Lal Puri, Mahanirvani and Atal akharas used to share one acharya till 1922, when Atal akhara created an independent acharya for itself.[14]

Thus, the post of a mandaleshwar was originally akin to that of a priest who would initiate newcomers into sanyas, just as an acharya officiates at the sacred thread ceremony. The nagas paid him homage because he was a Brahmin and a learned one. A mandaleshwar neither had nor has any hand in the administration of the naga akharas, and is—as Ghurye points out—‘more like a Brahmin advisor of a king than the king himself’.[15] In course of time, they started calling themselves ‘mahamandaleshwars’ to claim greater distinction. Soon, the title became coveted, and many paramhansas started spending ‘considerable money for getting the distinction’ of a mahamandaleshwar.[16]

Today, there are two kinds of mahamandaleshwars: acharya mahamandaleshwar and mahamandaleshwar. The former acts as a priest on the occasion of initiation, the latter has no such function. Again, while many mahamandaleshwars are affiliated to various akharas, only one is directly involved in the akhara in his role as acharya guru. The other mahamandaleshwars often own large ashrams and deliver religious lectures to the general Hindu public.

Over the years, the number of mahamandaleshwars has grown considerably. Sinha and Saraswati list eight mandaleshwars, including one acharya mandaleshwar, for the Mahanirvani akhara.[17] Puri, writing in 2001, lists twenty-nine mahamandaleshwars affiliated to the Mahanirvani akhara.[18] Matthew Clark writes that around 200 mahamandaleshwars attended the 2001 Allahabad Kumbh,[19] a majority of whom belonged to Mahanirvani and Niranjani akharas.[20] By the 2013 Allahabad Kumbh, Juna had taken the lead over other Dasanami akharas. According to an estimate of a senior official in the Uttar Pradesh Kumbh Mela administration, one-fourth of a total of 500 mahamandaleshwars that attended the 2013 Kumbh belonged to Juna.

Akharas often accuse mahamandaleshwars of having assumed the title themselves, without actually being attached to an akhara. The lack of transparency in the akharas’ records feeds into this and only strengthens the perception that this coveted title is up for sale.

In any case, the title benefits both parties—the ascetic obtaining it as well as the akhara granting it. From the point of view of an ascetic, the title of mahamandaleshwar enormously enhances his or her position in the eyes of lay devotees. The widening of spiritual appeal has great bearing on the overall income of an ascetic. To Dasanami akharas, on the other hand, mahamandaleshwars act as permanent sources of income. Ascetics desirous of this title not only pay the concerned akhara a hefty amount—the ‘white’ part, which is made public, is called pukar—for obtaining the title but also have to provide contributions to the akhara at regular intervals. For instance, mahamandaleshwars are supposed to donate liberally to their respective akharas during Kumbh Melas. From the entry of the mahamandaleshwars in the Kumbh area, which is carried out with great fanfare, to their accommodation and, finally, to their participation in the shahi julus, everything is arranged by their respective akharas. And all of these are paid services.

The Kumbhs and Ardh Kumbhs in all the four designated cities become collection time for the akharas. To an outsider, these offerings may appear to be voluntary in nature, but they are mandatory and fixed on the basis of a mahamandaleshwar’s ability to pay. Defaulting on the payment is dealt with sternly by the akharas. This practice has an interesting historical parallel. The relationship between akharas and mahamandaleshwars today, is similar to the one the akharas used to share with the princely states. According to Sinha and Saraswati, ‘These akharas were once collecting annual taxes from such princely states as Kutch, Jodhpur, Baroda, Indore, Gwalior and several others in western India whom the Naga ascetics had once helped in recovering their lost states.’[21] This also explains why mahamandaleshwars started proliferating around the mid-twentieth century when princely states started disappearing.

The Kumbh and Ardh Kumbh are not the only time mahamandaleshwars have to cough up money. It is customary for them to contribute a part of their income to their respective akharas at least twice every year. Called guru dakshina, this sum is collected by the akhara during a formal ceremony called gola puja, where an idol made of sacred ash is worshipped. Akharas mould these idols in different shapes. Juna and Awahan make a lingam-shaped gola, Niranjani and Ananda a round-shaped gola, Mahanirvani a square-shaped gola and Atal an octagonal-shaped gola. Gola puja is conducted twice every year—on the day of Holi in March and on the morning after the day of Vijaya Dashami in October. The gola of Juna is a symbol of Dattatreya, that of Niranjani is Kartikeya, Mahanirvani’s is Kapil Muni, Anand’s is Surya, Awahan’s is Siddha Ganesh and Atal’s is Adi Ganesh.

First the nagas worship the gola, then they take it to the ashrams and mutts of their mahamandaleshwars. At these ashrams and mutts, another round of worship takes place, this time by the mahamandaleshwar who returns the gola along with the guru dakshina for the akhara, a sum that is determined arbitrarily by the nagas. They decide what each mahamandaleshwar is capable of paying and the latter has to oblige. Apart from guru dakshina, mahamandaleshwars also have to give bidai or parting gifts to each naga accompanying the gola.

Gola puja is an age-old practice in the akharas. Earlier, the roving nagas used to send the gola to a king to indicate willingness to enter into an agreement, and if the king accepted it—by smearing the sacred ash on his forehead—he was treated as a friend, or else as a foe. Now, this practice is used to extort mahamandaleshwars.

III

Despite the many monetary and other troubles that this title brings with it, sadhus and spiritual heads today still desire it. Radhe Maa is a well-known controversial example. But there are others too: take the cases of Martand Puri and Swami Nithyananda, mahamandaleshwars of Mahanirvani akhara, who were awarded the coveted title at the 2013 Allahabad Kumbh.

Martand Puri has the distinction of becoming the quickest mahamandaleshwar, only three months after taking sanyas. ‘I took sanyas on 29 October 2012. The acharya guru of Mahanirvani akhara, Swami Vishwadevanand Puri-ji, gave me diksha. I was sixty-seven at that time,’ he said. ‘My pattabhishek happened on 25 January 2013 and I became Mahamandaleshwar Swami Martand Puri.’

Vishwanand Puri played a catalytic role in Martand Puri’s transformation from a journalist to a sanyasi to a mahamandaleshwar. ‘I was born in Daraganj area of Allahabad. The baithak of Mahanirvani akhara is also situated in the same locality. My family has always been close to Swami Vishwadevanand Puri-ji. My close proximity to him, more than anything else, was responsible for my becoming the mahamandaleshwar,’ Martand Puri told me.

Journalists have often become politicians, on the lure of a berth in the Rajya Sabha, but Martand Puri is perhaps the first journalist to have become so close to the akharas that he ended up becoming a sadhu.

Once known as Madhav Kant Mishra, the swami’s new visiting card, as mahamandaleshwar, still has a whole list of media organisations he used to work for. He is polite, worldly wise and incorrigibly jovial. He told me that he was instrumental in turning around the fortunes of ‘most of the known babas’. ‘Even as a journalist, I kept serving sanatan dharma,’ he said proudly. ‘I became instrumental in the launch of most of the spiritual TV channels. Most saints and babas with a large following today used to live in anonymity till I enabled them to have a slot on these channels.’

Martand Puri considers himself an out-of-the-box mahamandaleshwar, armed with the intention of restoring the ‘old glory’ of Hinduism, and is critical of how mahamandaleshwars are cut off from the ‘reality’ of modern times. ‘The truth is, none of the mahamandaleshwars have thought about using the new communication media available as a means to promote Hinduism,’ he said.

Perhaps because of his long association with babas, he has mastered the art of vague answers when questioned directly about this role: ‘Had Shankaracharya been born today, he would have established sanchar peetha first and the four existing peethas later.’ Martand Puri considers sanchar, or communication, as the foremost tool in spreading Hinduism.

But what would Martand Puri, rather than the long-gone Adi Shankaracharya, do as mahamandaleshwar of Mahanirvani akhara? ‘Here is what I’ll do. I’ll find out how to use communication media as a means to strengthen Hinduism and spread its reach. I’ll talk to all the stakeholders and try to bring them on a single platform. I’ll require huge amounts of money for this, of course. But I’ll find ways to do it.’

When asked if he paid the akhara to be anointed as a mahamandaleshwar, he was indignant: ‘Why should I? Could anyone in the religious fraternity oppose my name? Aren’t all of them obliged to me for making them what they are today in the eyes of the people?’

This sort of approach to religion—small scale, local and personal—is perhaps a journalistic speciality. Martand Puri is uber aware of the importance of launching a series of babas on the national spiritual horizon; it is a hangover that still grips him.

The other sadhu who was given the title at the same time, the south Indian seer Swami Nithyananda, silently joined the ranks of Mahanirvani akhara’s mahamandaleshwars merely three years after the scandal broke out.

During the Haridwar Kumbh in March 2010, a television channel aired a video footage allegedly showing Nithyananda in a compromising position with a Tamil film actress. When the news of the scandal broke, I observed that a number of ascetics at the Kumbh, many of them mahamandaleshwars, started surfing the net to see the sleazy video clip claimed to be recorded in 2007 by Nithyananda’s own driver. Soon after that, the swami went into hiding, but was discovered and arrested a month later from Solan district in Himachal Pradesh and granted bail after he spent fifty-three days in judicial custody. Currently, he faces charges of rape and criminal intimidation.

Nithyananda had been trying to obtain the title of mahamandaleshwar for a while and had been in touch with Mahanirvani as well as Niranjani akharas about this, and it was negotiations with the former that eventually proved fruitful.

On 9 February, just two days before the controversial Nithyananda was made mahamandaleshwar, Martand Puri went to see Vishwadevanand Puri. ‘Swami Nithyananda, Ravindra Puri [the secretary of Mahanirvani akhara] and a few others were also present. In fact, I had no idea what the meeting was about till I got there. I was aware that Swami Nithyananda was trying to procure the title, but I did not know that he would be present there. In the meeting, I said that we should try to reach out to south India, which was not yet attempted by the other akharas. Shankaracharya had united the whole country but we had left out the south completely,’ he told me.

Once Nithyananda was officially given the title, a major crisis seemed to be afoot. But Ravindra Puri, justifying Mahanirvani’s decision, said, ‘There had been a long-standing complaint that we were not honouring the saints of south India. So we decided to give him the highest honour.’[22] He also said that in the event of Nithyananda being convicted, this title would be withdrawn. It was widely reported in the media that, in return for the title of mahamandaleshwar, Nithyananda, one of the richest swamis in the world, had given Mahanirvani akhara ‘secret donations’ as guru dakshina.[23]

The controversy continued for some time amidst criticism from other Dasanami akharas. Niranjani akhara, which had in fact been negotiating with Swami Nithyananda before the latter settled with Mahanirvani akhara, now organised an open meeting of sadhus and devotees to denounce the decision.

At no stage, however, did it become unmanageable for Mahanirvani. Unlike in the case of Radhe Maa, on which Juna akhara itself was divided, there was no opposition from within Mahanirvani. Also, the office-bearers of Atal akhara, which is attached to Mahanirvani for bathing and other rituals at the Kumbh Melas, had been taken into confidence well ahead of time. The head of Atal akhara, Mahamandaleshwar Shukhdevan, was present at the time of the consecration.

The examples of Martand Puri and Nithyananda demonstrate how easy it is for anyone, ascetic or non-ascetic, to obtain this title provided one has the right contacts in the akharas and is ready to loosen one’s purse strings. Even Radhe Maa might not have faced any issues—especially as her managers had exhibited both the required abilities—had it not been for the differences within Juna akhara.

It is no surprise, then, that the ranks of mahamandaleshwar continues to swell.

IV

One consequence of the mushrooming of mahamandaleshwars was visible in the 2013 Allahabad Kumbh, where a section of them, emboldened by their sheer numbers, tried to bring together all the title-holders on one platform. At the behest of Juna akhara’s Yatindranand Giri, midway through the Kumbh on 5 February, nearly 100 mahamandaleshwars attached to various Dasanami akharas gathered at the camp of Mahamandaleshwar Balkanand Giri of Juna akhara and declared the formation of Mahamandaleshwar Parishad.[24] While Mahamandaleshwar Arjun Giri of Juna akhara became its president, Balkanand Giri was made its general secretary and Yatindranand Giri its organisational secretary. Senior mahamandaleshwars of Dasanami akharas like Pilot Baba, Dati Maharaj, Atma Prakash Yati and Ved Bharati were declared vice presidents of the new body. Partly to placate the Dasanami akharas, their acharya mahamandaleshwars were declared patrons of the organisation. In the meeting, a team of five mahamandaleshwars was also formed to draft the constitution of the body.

Talking to the media later that day, Yatindranand Giri said that, apart from the 100 mahamandaleshwars already associated with the newly formed body, talks were on with over 250 other mahamandaleshwars. He, however, remained cautious about revealing the organisation’s objective. Yatindranand Giri had attempted to launch something similar at the 2010 Haridwar Kumbh too, but the akharas had not been on board. Though he asserted that ‘there should not be politics in religion though there must be religion in politics’, his repeated efforts to organise the mahamandaleshwars under one umbrella hinted at his desire to introduce politics in religion. He told me, ‘There are thirteen akharas and they have formed an All India Akhara Parishad. Today, there is a large number of mahamandaleshwars, who should be grouped together to form a single body, which can contemplate and reflect on religious, national and social issues. There may be some exceptions, but the akharas have by and large done a commendable job of giving this title mostly to highly learned and spiritual persons. A Mahamandaleshwar Parishad will serve the nation as well as the religion.’

The Mahamandaleshwar Parishad remained a talking point at the Allahabad Kumbh for at least two days. But after that, it vanished into thin air. Dasanami akharas collectively decided to not let the mahamandaleshwars unite under a single umbrella. Akharas treat their respective group of mahamandaleshwars as their fiefdoms. The Mahamandaleshwar Parishad, which consisted of all mahamandaleshwars attached to various akharas, had the potential to grow into a body over and above the akharas. This could have deprived the akharas of their regular source of income.

It is not surprising, therefore, that no sooner had the Parishad been formed than Dasanami akharas swung into action and questioned the rationale of the newly formed body. Akharas sought reasons from their respective mahamandaleshwars for taking part in the meeting at which the Parishad was announced.[25] Juna akhara’s powerful secretary Hari Giri said that there was no change in his akhara’s opinion on the uselessness of this body and that the office-bearers of Juna would take a decision on the issue soon. Mahanirvani’s Ravindra Puri declared that it was not proper on the part of the mahamandaleshwars to form a collective body. Other akharas, too, expressed anger over the development.

The most striking aspect of the akharas’ clampdown on the Mahamandaleshwar Parishad was that it was instant and unanimous; the akharas were determined to guard their position as the focal point of the Kumbh. Mahamandaleshwars, as compared to akharas, are in direct touch with lay devotees—they hold satsangs and deliver religious and spiritual discourses, which helps them wield influence over devout Hindus. Akharas encourage such activities by mahamandaleshwars; in fact, it is the main, publicly acknowledged basis on which this title is granted. The akharas don’t feel threatened as long as the mahamandaleshwars stay well inside the lakshaman rekha, confining themselves to preaching and holding satsangs. But if they act collectively—with mahamandaleshwars attached to all the different akharas joining forces and passing resolutions on various religious, social and political issues—there is a good chance that at some point the club of mahamandaleshwars would outweigh the exotic appeal of Dasanami akharas, affecting the power balance between the two.

Once the akharas cracked their whip, mahamandaleshwars retraced their steps. Mahamandaleshwar Arjun Puri, the president of the new body, sent out a written statement the very next day that he was resigning from the post in the interest of the akhara and his responsibility as mahamandaleshwar.[26] Others, too, fell silent.

V

For all the controversy surrounding the titles given out by the akharas, never before had a sadhu switched from one sect to another for the sake of a title, till Swami Hans Das came along. He gave up his title as mahamandaleshwar of Bada Udasin akhara, and severed all ties with his parent institution during the 2010 Haridwar Kumbh.

Udasin sanyasis are a special class of Shaiva ascetics who revere the Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred book of the Sikhs, as much as they worship the dhooni and adhere to Shankaracharya’s philosophy of advait or absolute non-dualism. They resemble Dasanami sanyasis: they are usually dressed in red or black, smear ash on their bodies and have long, matted hair. Though the practice of granting the title of mahamandaleshwar was started by Dasanami akharas, which award the most number of Shaiva titles, other akharas of Shaiva persuasion—Bada Udasin in particular—have also joined the race in the last two decades.

Immediately after renouncing the title, Hans Das claimed that he had been a Vaishnava all his life and was awarded a new title by the Digambar akhara, that of jagat guru ramanandacharya. It soon became apparent, to sadhus of both Bada Udasin and Digambar akharas, that Hans Das’s spiritual switchover had been planned in advance, and was probably motivated by the fact that, despite all his efforts, he was unable to expand his following—and his income base—like the other mahamandaleshwars had been able to.

‘The sanyasis of Bada Udasin akhara objected to Hans Das becoming Hansdevacharya and obtaining the title of jagat guru ramanandacharya after joining Ramanandi Digambar akhara,’ said Baba Hathayogi, the Uttarakhand secretary of Digambar akhara and national spokesperson of the All India Akhara Parishad as well as the All India Sant Samiti. ‘The relations between the two akharas remained strained for some time, but the wound healed eventually.’

Baba Hathayogi had been a catalyst in Hans Das’s conversion. ‘When Hans Das showed interest in obtaining the title of jagat guru ramanandacharya, I talked to all the prominent vairagis and nagas of the Ramanandi akharas, and it happened within a few days,’ he said.

There were also rumours of the VHP facilitating Hans Das’s transformation. In any case, the unswerving loyalty he showed the VHP after switching over to Digambar akhara—the Vaishanva akhara considered closest to the Sangh Parivar—was as striking as his meteoric rise from a nondescript mahamandaleshwar to a prominent ramanandacharya in the country. In the years following the conversion, he frequently participated in its programmes and worked hard to promote the politics of Hindutva until he died in a road accident in February 2019.

The history of the jagat guru ramanandacharya title is similar to that of the mahamandaleshwar title—both became available in the spiritual market for sale during the last quarter of the twentieth century, coinciding with the VHP’s massive push to mobilise sadhus. The first person to be titled jagat guru ramanandacharya in 1977 was Bhagavadacharya, a scholarly ascetic who was known for settling a major conflict among the sadhus of the Ramanandi lineage. During the first few decades of the twentieth century, a serious conflict erupted in the Ramanandi order over whether the fountainhead of the Ramanandi order was Ramananda or Ramanujacharya, with the Ramanandi varigais divided into two camps—Ramanandis and Ramanujis, respectively. This divide was especially heightened in Ayodhya, where Ramanujis openly showed disrespect for the Ramanandis.[27] In their sermons, for example, Ramanujis often declared the Ramanandi belief system to be inferior to that of their own. Peter van der Veer also refers to instances when Ramanujis did not show respect for the titular deity of Ramanandis.[28]

A young Bhagavad Das, who later came to be known as Bhagavadacharya, played a central role in settling this issue in favour of the Ramanandis. Born in 1880, Bhagavad Das was brought up in an Arya Samaj orphanage at Danapur near Patna in Bihar. He later studied Sanskrit and English as well as Dayananda Saraswati’s commentary on the Vedas in Calcutta before shifting to Ayodhya, where he became a Ramanandi vairagi.

In order to counter the Ramanujis, he called a meeting of the Ramanandis of Hanumangarhi. Here, he formed an umbrella organisation of Ramanandis, called the Shri Ramanandi Vaishnava Mahamandal. Since the Ramanujis’ argument was based on their claim that Ramananda had been a disciple of Ramanuja, Bhagavad Das set out to find a new genealogy for Ramananda. He presented a forged document, which he claimed was written by Agardas, said to be the direct disciple of Ramananda.[29] The document, titled ‘Shri Ramamantraraj Parampara’, listed a genealogy of Ramananda with no mention of Ramanujacharya.[30]

In the 1921 Ujjain Kumbh Mela, Bhagavad Das invited Ramanujis for a shastrartha—a debate to settle differences in religious interpretations. In the discussion that followed, he was declared victorious, the forged document was unanimously acknowledged as a ‘historic’ document, and the Ramanandis were declared independent of Ramanujis.[31] This changed the tradition of Kumbh processions as well. Until then, in every Kumbh, Ramanandi sadhus belonging to the Brahmin caste used to carry Ramanuji preceptors on palanquins. Following Bhagavad Das’s victory, Ramanandis dropped this custom and disallowed the Ramanujis to walk with them for the shahi snan at the Ujjain Kumbh. The breach thus created continued and Bhagavad Das devoted the rest of his life to restoring pride to the Ramanandis.

In 1958, Bhagavad Das openly acknowledged in his autobiography that he had forged the document to win his case and defended his action as it had contributed to a ‘good cause’.[32] Van der Veer believes that this revelation, which came nearly four decades later, illustrated his confidence in having settled this debate forever.[33]

Towards the end of Bhagavad Das’s life, the Ramanandi akharas decided to honour him for his ‘contribution’ to the order. At the 1977 Allahabad Kumbh Mela, he was recognised as the supreme preceptor of the order and elevated to the level of Ramananda with the title of jagat guru ramanandacharya.

Bhagavadacharya died six months after receiving the title, but he had recommended in his will that the title be passed on to his disciple Shivaramacharya. His last wish was honoured and Shivaramacharya remained the sole holder of this title until his death on 4 November 1988. After him, a dispute emerged between two Ramanandis—Shivaramacharya’s disciple Ramanareshacharya and Hanumangarhi-backed vairagi Haryacharya—and both claimed this title for themselves. Thereafter, the holders of this title proliferated. Two prominent Ramanandi vairagis of Ayodhya—Ramchandra Das Paramhansa, the chief abbot of Digambar akhara and representative of the VHP, and Gyan Das, the anti-VHP strongman of Hanumangarhi—started taking a keen interest in the distribution of this title, which became a great source of earning. In the mid-1990s, new title-holders emerged at Chitrakut, Varanasi, Haridwar, Vrindavan, and at several places in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra. At present, the number of jagat guru ramanandacharyas stands at an estimated fifty.

VI

The jagat guru ramanandacharya title is now a business just like the mahamandaleshar title.

At the 2010 Haridwar Kumbh, Ramdineshacharya—who till then had only three years’ experience of being jagat guru ramanandacharya—hadn’t paid the amount demanded by the Nirvani akhara in lieu of the site it had given him for setting up his camp. As a result, a group of nagas ransacked his camp. He has not crossed the nagas of Hanumangarhi since, and has, in fact, become quite a vocal apologist for the akharas’ need for dakshina.

Ramdineshacharya, who succeeded Haryacharya after his death in 2007, defended the exchange of money involved in the distribution of this title: ‘Don’t call it bribe; it is dakshina. After all, no one asks you to become jagat guru. You go to akharas on your own and tell them: take fifty lakh rupees from me and make me jagat guru. So, how can you blame the akharas for taking a bribe? Also, when you get this title, your position enhances in the eyes of ordinary people. They invite you and worship you and give you a lot of donations and offerings. What will akharas get? You expect them to keep looking at you? Can’t they even ask you to pay dakshina?’

He is the only ramanandacharya in Ayodhya till date, and is, therefore, grateful to the akharas. Ramdineshacharya, in his late forties, began his conversation with me by reciting a sloka in Sanskrit: ‘Ramanandah Swayam Ramah, Pradurbhuto Mahitale.’ He then went on to explain the meaning, too: ‘Lord Ram himself manifests in the form of a ramanandacharya to remove all the evils from Vaishnavism.’ Yatindranand Giri had told me something similar: ‘When someone is made mahamandaleshwar, he becomes the god incarnate on earth.’ He, however, didn’t recite any Sanskrit sloka to back his point.

The akharas, however, do not take ramanandacharyas very seriously, putting them on a pedestal one day, casting them aside just as easily on another. The attack on Ramdineshacharya’s camp is one such example. The other is that of Rambhadracharya of Chitrakut—a VHP-backed, visually challenged Ramanandi preacher. When he published an English translation of Ramcharitmanas in 2005, Ramanandi nagas accused him of blasphemy for having changed the wording of several verses of the text they consider to be the most sacred. In 2009, the nagas asked Rambhadracharya to withdraw the text, but he refused. On the eve of the 2010 Haridwar Kumbh, the nagas lost their patience.

‘Ramcharitmanas is like mantra for us,’ said Ramdev Das, a naga of Hanumangarhi. ‘How could anybody dare to play around with it?’

Rambhadracharya defended his translation even in 2015 when I interviewed him. ‘I have only edited Ramcharitmanas. Nothing in it has been altered. Sadhus of Ayodhya are fools. They want to malign me so that they can extort money from me,’ he said.

In January 2010, while Rambhadracharya was preaching to his followers in the Kumbh area, a group of Ramanandi nagas barged into his camp and beat him up, and then undid his tent and threw out all his belongings. They also debarred him from the Ramanandi order. ‘Later, he acknowledged his mistake and apologised to the akharas,’ said Baba Hathayogi, who was part of the group that had gone to teach the VHP-backed preacher an ‘appropriate lesson’. ‘But we didn’t allow him to return to the Ramanandi order till he gave us a bhandara worth five lakh rupees.’

After the Kumbh, Rambhadracharya started giving spiritual speeches based on what Ramanandi nagas believed was the edited version of the Ramcharitmanas. The Ramanandi sadhus of Ayodhya announced his expulsion for a second time. Fearing fresh attacks, he became discreet in his movements, going out only to participate in meetings organised by the VHP and abstaining from Kumbh Melas. The animosity could have died there, but the old wound was opened again in early 2015, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the Padma Vibhushan award for Rambhadracharya. ‘Don’t ask me about any such person. Is he a sadhu?’ responded Hanumangarhi’s heavyweight Gyan Das, when I asked him whether Rambhadracharya deserved the award. Rambhadracharya was attached to Nirvani akhara before he was expelled. Ramdev Das, another naga resident of Hanumangarhi, was even more bitter. ‘If he really thinks he is right, he should come to the Kumbh,’ he said, adding after a brief pause, ‘Then we will show him how Ramcharitmanas is edited. He is the stupidest ramanandacharya ever.’

A large number of ramanandacharyas, mahamandaleshwars and shankaracharyas owe their success to the VHP. But there are also, curiously, some ramanandacharyas who, unable to come up with the constant stream of money needed to maintain the title, simply run away.

Take the case of Chaitanyacharya of Cuttack in Orissa. In 2005, he expressed his desire to obtain the title of ramanandacharya to Yugal Kishore Shastri, the mahant of Sarayu Kunj temple and a known Ramanandi sadhu of Ayodhya. ‘I told him that it can be arranged, but it would cost him over five lakh rupees because he would have to organise a bhandara and give dakshina to the naga sadhus who would be participating in the consecration ceremony,’ said Yugal Kishore Shastri. Chaitanyacharya agreed, and Yugal Kishore Shastri began the preparation. After planning the proposed ceremony, Yugal Kishore Shastri invited naga sadhus of various akharas. On the due date, Ramanandi sadhus, carrying the emblems of their respective akharas, reached Cuttack from Ayodhya, Vrindavan, Haridwar and several places in Rajasthan and Gujarat. ‘Chaitanyacharya organised an exceptionally lavish bhandara, which he thought would raise his profile in the eyes of the ascetics as well as locals. All the sadhus signed the declaration elevating Chaitanyacharya to jagat guru ramanandacharya, and all of them were given adequate dakshina before they returned,’ Yugal Kishore Shastri recounted. ‘But since Chaitanyacharya’s financial resources couldn’t match his spending, he had to take loans from local moneylenders, and he could never come out of debt.’

For some time, Chaitanyacharya, wielding the godly title, tried to reach out to lay devotees in the hope that they would give him donations and offerings through which he could repay his loans. ‘But donations and offerings do not come just like that. The title is not sufficient to make you wealthy. You have to be a good orator to impress devotees and you have to know various tricks and have the kind of network required to spread your area of influence in order to motivate more and more wealthy people to become your disciples. But Chaitanyacharya had none of these qualities, and so when the moneylenders began knocking at his door, he had no option but to run away from his house. For a few years, he remained completely traceless. One day in 2015, he suddenly came to my temple in Ayodhya. I asked him: “Maharaj, where is your danda?” He said: “I have thrown it forever and I have also left Cuttack.” That was the last time I saw him. I did not hear about him after that,’ Yugal Kishore Shastri said. ‘Now I think I should have warned him about the risk he was taking by becoming a god without having the skills to prove himself as one.’

7

PRECEPTORS TO THE WORLD

Achyutanand Tirth had reached the end of his tether. Fourteen months after getting himself anointed the shankaracharya of the Dwarka peetha, also called Sharada peetha, he found himself besieged not only by the peetha’s reigning pontiff Swaroopanand Saraswati and his disciples but also by the Dasanami akharas.

Though Achyutanand Tirth was an influential mahant in Haridwar, an open supporter of Hindutva politics and close to the VHP, the Dasanami akharas—a majority of whose sadhus are associated with the VHP—did not help him wrest power from Swaroopanand Saraswati, considered close to the Congress party. Instead, the akharas ostracised Achyutanand Tirth and threatened to ban him from attending Kumbh Melas. Finally, on 20 April 2018, he gave up the title.

‘You cannot take away the status of a dandi sadhu from me. What is a gaddi [the throne of shankaracharya] after all? A bit of wood covered with velvet,’ he told me days after giving up the coveted title.[1] ‘A sadhu is one who is ready to give up anything. This is what my guru taught me. Even now he guides me.’ His guru died over a decade ago. ‘I can interact with my guru just as I do with you. One day, while I was facing all kinds of verbal abuse from the disciples of Swaroopanand Saraswati, my guru appeared before me and asked me to get out of the muck and resign from the post of shankaracharya. He told me that such a decision would be good for me as well as for humankind. My guru’s commandment led to my self-realisation and I resigned on the birth anniversary of Adi Shankara. You can call this some kind of divine intervention.’

This divine intervention, however, seems to have guided Achyutanand Tirth only after he became certain that the Dasanami akharas would not support him.

When Achyutanand Tirth took up the title in February 2017, both Shaiva and Vaishnava akharas were in the midst of a crisis. It had started building a few months ago, during the Ujjain Kumbh Mela in April–May 2016, when the media exposed a series of scandals involving the granting of coveted titles to religious leaders. Radhe Maa was not allowed by Dasanami nagas to enter Ujjain’s Kumbh Mela, called Simhastha. Similarly, a mob of Vaishnava sadhus vandalised the pandal erected in the Mela area by the followers of Asaram Bapu, a controversial religious leader who had been arrested on charges of raping a minor girl in 2013. (On 25 April 2018, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.) The end of the Simhastha was also marred by a violent clash between two factions of Awahan akhara’s naga sadhus over the post of shri mahant. Rahul Puri, a naga who was injured by a bullet in the clash, openly asserted, as reported in Dainik Bhaskar, that important positions in the akharas were being sold for huge amounts of money.

Following this, similar scandals involving high-profile sadhus and babas started appearing in the media regularly. The All India Akhara Parishad, for the first time in its history, issued two consecutive lists of ‘fake sadhus and babas’, first in September and then in December 2017, and warned the laity to beware of them. The list included, among others, Radhe Maa, Asaram Bapu, his son Narayan Sai, and Swami Aseemanand—an RSS pracharak who was accused in the Mecca masjid blast and Ajmer dargah blast cases of 2007, but was exonerated for lack of evidence. It was in this climate that the Dasanami akharas did not come forward in support of Achyutanand Tirth.

Trouble started brewing for Achyutanand Tirth even before he got himself anointed shankaracharya. Two days before his pattabhishek, the AIAP president, Narendra Giri, threatened to ostracise him in case he declared himself the new shankaracharya. A letter, signed by Narendra Giri and sent to Achyutanand Tirth, alleged that the latter was ‘trying to be a self-styled shankaracharya’ and that this would not be tolerated.[2] Once Achyutanand assumed the title, the AIAP ‘expelled’ him as well as those who had attended the anointment ceremony from the ‘community’ of sadhus.[3]

When, in the first week of September 2017, local Hindi newspapers in Haridwar carried reports that his name might also be included in the list of fake babas being prepared by the AIAP, his legal representatives warned the akharas of dire consequences if they put his name in the list. Though his name did not figure in the list, his fate was sealed in March 2018, when the AIAP declared that barring pontiffs of ‘established’ peethas, it would not allow any other dharma guru to use the title of shankaracharya in the upcoming Ardh Kumbh Mela to be held in Allahabad in January–March 2019, and that the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath had accepted this recommendation and directed the local authorities to act accordingly. The AIAP also announced the formation of a team of 500 naga sadhus who would be on round-the-clock duty during the Ardh Kumbh, to keep an eye on the activities of self-made religious heads.

Out of ideas, baffled by the VHP’s indifference, badgered by akharas and beaten in the race by Swaroopanand Saraswati, Achyutanand Tirth gave up his title.

II

Shankaracharyas are dandi sadhus, who are placed at the apex of the Dasanami structure and are referred to as jagat gurus or preceptors to the world. They reside at mutts or peethas supposedly founded by Adi Shankara. Till the beginning of the twentieth century, shankaracharyas were considered the spiritual head of all the sanyasis of the order. As elucidated in the previous chapter, though shankaracharyas used to perform the role of priests during the initiation of sanyasis and nagas, who in turn, used to carry the palanquin of shankaracharyas in the Kumbh processions as a mark of respect, this relationship soured around the beginning of the twentieth century when nagas and paramhansas developed their own system of initiation.

Though now estranged from the Dasanami akharas, the title retains its significance since Hindus consider the peetha of a shankaracharya to be the oldest surviving gaddi. The position is also highly lucrative because it attracts a large number of followers; the proliferation of shankaracharyas has been almost as fast as that of mahamandaleshwars. Which is why, akharas still intervene when there is a dispute related to a peetha.

‘Adi Shankaracharya founded four peethas in four directions on the basis of four Vedas. He also laid down the rules as to who could be acharya of which peetha. All this is written in Mathamanaya. There is no room for any confusion, but still new shankaracharyas keep cropping up every now and then,’ Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, the heir apparent of Swaroopanand Saraswati, told me.[4]

In practice, however, there is utter confusion regarding the authenticity of a series of short Sanskrit texts, known as Mathamanaya, Mathamanayastotra, Mathamanayasetu and Mathetivritta, which detail the various amanayas or sacred traditions, all, supposedly—but improbably—written by Adi Shankara.[5] Historically, there is no substantive evidence to connect Adi Shankara with the early history of any of the peethas claimed to be founded by him. These Sanskrit texts present an overview of the Dasanami order, its ten lineages and a variable number of peethas. Mathamanaya, in particular, is used by the pontiffs of the four main peethas to legitimise them—Jyotish peetha (Badrinath–Kedarnath), Sringeri peetha (Chikamagalur), Govardhan peetha (Jagannath Puri) and Dwarka peetha (Dwarka)—to the exclusion of other claims. ‘Even in the nineteenth century the claims of the official four mathas to be the only legitimate ones were far from universally established,’ writes Matthew Clark.[6] ‘Over the previous few hundred years, several other advaita mathas have also claimed legitimacy, many of the disputes being settled by royal decree or by a court case.’

This ambiguity gives rise to an unending number of claims to the position of jagat guru. According to Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, there are over 100 shankaracharyas today. He also claimed that their numbers continue to swell. Nishchalanand Saraswati, shankaracharya of Govardhan peetha, was also of the same opinion.

Varanasi, in particular, has become a manufacturing hub of shankaracharyas. Sumeru peetha, located in this town, is claimed by the VHP and a section of Dasanami sanyasis to be the fifth peetha founded by Adi Shankara as the northern peetha, though, many theologians describe the fifth peetha as an allegorical ‘heavenly’ peetha.[7] A pair of wooden sandals called paduka, believed to have been used by Shankara, is preserved here and hence it is also called Paduka matha. Sumeru peetha is no stranger to controversies either. As of March 2019, two shankaracharyas—Narendranand and Chinmayananda—claim to be its pontiff.[8]

Even the four main peethas, those that quite vociferously claim a direct link to Adi Shankara, are not free of controversies and rival claimants. Swaroopanand Saraswati, the shankaracharya of Jyotish peetha since 1973, became the pontiff of Dwarka peetha, too, in 1982. Till date, he shows no sign of wanting to give up his ownership of either. Meanwhile, new claimants have emerged for both the peethas. While Achyutanand Tirth had to withdraw his claim over Dwarka peetha, Rajrajeshwar Ashram, another seer who is said to have the backing of the VHP, has remained firm and has called himself ‘Shri Shri 1008 jagat guru shankaracharya of Dwarka peetha’ since 2000. Rajrajeshwar Ashram, however, lives in Haridwar because Swaroopanand Saraswati is mostly at the Dwarka peetha. Swaroopanand Saraswati’s other peetha, Jyotish Peetha, too has two claimants—Shankaracharya Vasudevanand Saraswati and Shankaracharya Madhav Ashram, both of whom have the VHP’s backing.

Similarly, Nishchalanand Saraswati has been the shankaracharya of Govardhan peetha of Puri since 1995. In July 2000, Adhokshjanand Tirth, from Varanasi, arrived in Puri, claiming that he was the ‘real’ shankaracharya, having been ordained by the previous acharya of the peetha, Niranjandev Tirth. Although he was arrested and expelled from the town, he is still fighting the case. One of the objections raised against Nishchalanand Saraswati’s appointment is that the shankaracharya of Puri should be a Tirth and not a Saraswati. According to Mathamanaya—often used in courts by shankaracharyas of the four main peethas—Tirths belong to Dwarka peetha and Saraswatis to Sringeri peetha. In practice, however, this is hardly followed. The reigning shankaracharya of Sringeri peetha is Bharati Tirth. In addition to him, there are fourteen other persons who, too, call themselves shankaracharyas of this peetha.

Shankaracharyas, particularly in the south, also question the authenticity of the so-called southern peetha supposed to have been founded by Adi Shankara. Kamakoti peetha in Kanchipuram, is the most important claimant, and is recognised as the southern peetha in some orthodox circles. Sringeri peetha in Chikamagalur vies for the title of the primary southern peetha as well. Both these peethas have issued a substantial volume of polemical literature in their favour. The argument against Kanchipuram is the absence of any reference to it in the Mathamanaya. Kanchi peetha denies the authenticity of the Mathamanaya, and around the end of the nineteenth century, the supporters of this peetha claimed to have discovered another Sanskrit text, Mathamanayasetu, that included Kanchi as the fifth amanaya,[9] while Mathamanaya only has four amanayas.

As the debate stands today, Kanchi peetha claims that Adi Shankara founded five peethas, and that he himself was the first acharya of Kanchi peetha and his four disciples became the pontiffs at the four peethas recorded in Mathamanaya. Sringeri, on the other hand, asserts that Kanchipuram is its branch mutt and not an independent peetha.

Besides this dispute between Sringeri and Kanchipuram peethas, there are at least five other mutts which have claimed legitimacy in the south as being the authentic peetha of Adi Shankara—in Pushpagiri, Andhra Pradesh and in Avani, Virupaksha, Sankeshvara and Kudali in Karnataka. While the Kudali mutt in Shimoga can be traced to the twelfth century, the other mutts are from a later period.

III

While in the south a large number of mutts are claiming to be the legitimate southern Shankara peetha, in the north it is much more complex. Although a good number of shankarachayas in the north, who display their titles on even their cars, are motivated by monetary benefits to claim the title, political amibitions too fuel their proliferation. In the VHP’s quest to obtain support from religious figures, they found that the shankaracharyas of the four main peethas were largely unwilling to sacrifice their independence to the Hindutva project, and hence it had to manufacture support as well as shankaracharyas.

There have been exceptions, though. In the 1960s, during the early years of the VHP’s mobilisation efforts, the then shankaracharya of Puri, Rameshwaranand, did succumb to the charms of Hindu supremacist politics. He actively participated in the cow-protection movement of 1966–67. Rameshwaranand even went on a fast along with some other sadhus to force the government to accept their demand of cow protection, which failed. Since then, the shankaracharya of Puri has not actively participated in the VHP’s agitational programme. The present shankaracharya of Puri, Nischalanand Saraswati, has always rejected the views of the VHP, though his ideology is similar to the organisation’s. ‘The RSS and the VHP are now working as a political party, not like a social organisation,’ he told the media in December 2018.[10]

The various shanakaracharyas of Sringeri, considered the most prestigious Shankara peetha of all, have given their ‘blessings’ to the VHP but have never participated in any of its political programmes right since the VHP’s inception in 1964.

Swaroopanand Saraswati has had a more complex relationship with the Hindutva outfit. In the begining, before becoming shankaracharya of the two peethas, he largely shared the views of the VHP and was even present in the first conclave of sadhus organised by the RSS outfit in the 1966 Allahabad Kumbh. But after becoming shankaracharya, he took a U-turn and actively opposed the politics of the VHP, and has been the most hostile of all Hindu religious leaders to the Sangh Parivar. A few months after the demolition of Babri masjid, Swaroopanand Saraswati, with tacit support from the Congress government, organised a meeting of the shankaracharyas of the four peethas on 27 June 1993 at Sringeri. At this meeting, it was decided that an independent, apolitical and religious body would be constituted to oversee the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya, saying that the VHP did not have the religious authority to construct the Ram temple. Though the body—Ramalaya Trust—fell into disuse because of differences among its founders, the shankaracharyas of the four main peethas at the time continued to stay away from the VHP.

The VHP knew that it could not launch an open battle against the shankaracharyas of the four peethas without drawing the ire of the Hindu constituency. Neither could it overlook the fact that it did not have the support of the topmost seers of the Dasanami structure. Therefore, it sought to undermine the shankaracharyas of the four peethas by obtaining legitimacy from those shankaracharyas who were struggling to get their own claims to the title recognised.

It was no accident, therefore, that Shankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati of Kanchipuram joined the VHP bandwagon early on. He financed one of the two vehicles in which the VHP leaders toured Tamil Nadu after hundreds of Dalits converted to Islam in Meenakshipuram in 1981,[11] which had made Brahminical and Hindutva organisations furious. This tour, called the ekatmata yatra or the yatra for unity, was touted as symbolising unity among Hindus and called upon Hindus of all castes to show their support. In 1983, Jayendra Saraswati joined this yatra, which was also conducted across the country and hugely strengthened the organisational apparatus of the RSS outfit. The yatra was the first major attempt by the VHP to politicise Hindu religious symbols at an all-India level. Jayendra Saraswati also presided over the VHP’s Dharma Sansad held in 1989, in which the building of a Ram temple in Ayodhya was discussed. Although his activism tailed off after that, his connections with the RSS, VHP and BJP remained intact. His image, however, received a major dent in 2004, when he was arrested in a murder case that remained unsolved for a decade. Even his acquittal in 2013 did not help restore the stature of the Kanchi shankaracharya, who died on 28 February 2018.

Another shankaracharya, whose association with the VHP is rooted in his aim to strengthen the claim of his peetha as one of the original ones, is Narendranand Saraswati, the pontiff of Sumeru peetha. This peetha does not find mention in Mathamanaya and getting it recognised by the orthodox circles has remained a major challenge for Narendranand. While Swaroopanand Saraswati and other pontiffs of the four main peethas have refused to recognise Sumeru peetha, the VHP, desperate to get as many shankaracharyas as possible on board, has openly backed this Varanasi-based peetha’s claim. In return, Narendranand Saraswati has remained one of the most vocal supporters of Hindutva politics. Unlike Jayendra Saraswati, who refrained from making provocative statements despite maintaining his association with the VHP, Narendranand Saraswati is known for making controversial and outlandish statements. He asked Hindu couples to have ten children each, arguing that children were God’s gift. After Narendra Modi became the prime minister in 2014, and physical attacks on Muslims and Dalits by Hindu militia groups in the name of cow protection increased manifold, the Sumeru shankaracharya demanded that cow be declared the mother of the nation and that those who slaughtered cows be tried and beheaded. He also supported the Modi government’s demonetisation in November 2016. When the opposition parties protested the government’s decision, he argued that those who disrupted Parliament should not be paid their salaries.

Yet, the shankaracharya whose services the VHP has used the most is not Narendranand Saraswati, but Vasudevanand Saraswati, who, with the backing of the Sangh Parivar, has claimed that he is the ‘real’ pontiff of Jyotish peetha in Uttarakhand. Vasudevanand Saraswati has remained the most visible shankaracharya in the VHP’s programmes, presiding over most of its Dharma Sansads since 1991, after Jayendra Saraswati stopped participating. Vasudevanand Saraswati also has the distinction of fighting a three-decade-long legal battle with Swaroopanand Saraswati to establish his claim over Jyotish peetha. In September 2017, the Allahabad High Court rejected the claims of both and directed that a new shankaracharya be elected within three months by the pontiffs of the other three peethas (Dwarka, Sringeri and Puri), along with the Kashi Vidwat Parishad (KVP) and Bharat Dharma Sabha. Within weeks, Swaroopanand, outsmarting Vasudevanand Saraswati and the VHP, once again got himself elected as the shankaracharya of Jyotish peetha. Vasudevanand and the VHP contested this re-election, alleging that the last round of elections did not follow the procedure laid down by the high court. The case is still pending.

Besides Vasudevand Saraswati, the VHP also propped up Rajrajeshwar Ashram to destabilise the anti-VHP Swaroopanand Saraswati. Although Rajrajeshwar Ashram has got himself anointed as shankaracharya, he lives mostly in Haridwar, staying away from the Junagarh-based peetha—the stand-in peetha for the Dwarka peetha that is said to have been submerged in the ocean—guarded ferociously by Swaroopanand Saraswati’s men.

The VHP similarly spurred the proliferation of shankaracharyas, who recognised that the title would greatly help them in the growing spiritual market. This new breed of shankaracharyas, who are present in large numbers in the Dharma Sansads organised periodically by the VHP, are hardly ever attached to any of the peethas mentioned in the Sanskrit texts said to be written by Adi Shankara.

The Kashi Vidwat Parishad, a Varanasi-based body consisting of ‘learned’ persons from the Brahmin caste, has played a key role in the proliferation of shankaracharyas.[12] Believed to be established around the mid-nineteenth century by legendary Sanskrit scholar Mahamahopadhyay Pandit Shiv Kumar Shastri, the KVP has remained an amorphous body marred by various claims and counter-claims. There is no record of its origin. The only authoritative book on the history of Varanasi’s Sanskrit scholars, Kashi Ki Panditya Parampara by Acharya Baldev Upadhyaya, talks of Pandit Shiv Kumar Shastri attending the meetings of the KVP, but says nothing about the origin of the body.[13] The scanty references to KVP in this voluminous book talk about the body resolving issues concerning the interpretation of Hindu canonical texts, but the book does not touch upon the distribution of high-profile titles like that of shankaracharya.

During the 1980s, however, the KVP emerged as the bestower of coveted religious titles. Before long, these titles were up for sale, and there began an internecine fight among various groups of Varanasi’s ‘vidwats’, each claiming to be the real inheritor of Pandit Shiv Kumar Shastri’s legacy, and hence the real KVP. This fused with the VHP’s demand for religious leaders and triggered an exponential rise in the number of dharma rishis, dharmacharyas and shankaracharyas. Through much of the last two decades of the twentieth century and the initial years of the twenty-first century, groups of Sanskrit scholars claiming to be the KVP became a wild new industry producing shankaracharyas and other coveted title-holders rather frequently.

Occasionally, however, Varanasi’s Sanskrit scholars break their silence over the KVP’s new role. In 2004, for example, the KVP almost imploded when two of its prominent members—Pandit Ramyatna Shukla and Pandit Shivji Upadhyay—went out of their way to declare Dayanand Pandey, an activist of the VHP’s youth wing Bajrang Dal, as shankaracharya and gave him the new name Amritanand Dev Tirth.[14] The question of who has the authority to announce a new shankaracharya has always remained a grey area, adding to the confusion of claims. The scholars even fabricated a new peetha for his sake—Sharada Sarvagya peetha—which nobody had heard of and which claimed to control a Sharada temple in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. This angered the community of Varanasi’s Sanskrit scholars and both Ramyatna Shukla and Shivji Upadhyay were ostracised and expelled from the KVP.[15] A few years later, Amritanand Dev Tirth was arrested and charge-sheeted as one of the main accused in the 2008 Malegaon blast case. ‘But by then Ramyatna Shukla had re-captured the Kashi Vidwat Parishad. By dividing Varanasi’s scholars along regional lines and mobilising support from those belonging to Banda district [Uttar Pradesh], he started calling himself as president of this body,’ claimed Pandit Kamlakant Tripathi, another member of the KVP.[16]

The factional fight continues, and so does Shukla’s control over the body. But the VHP, which fuelled the fight and and kept switching sides as the fight progressed, remains at ease, having largely accomplished what it had set out to do. There are many other instances of the KVP anointing a shankaracharya at the behest of the VHP. The proliferation of shankaracharyas and the VHP’s quest to undermine the pontiffs of the four main peethas have remained closely intertwined.

IV

It was this institutional backing that Achyutanand Tirth had taken for granted rather confidently when he set out to dislodge from Dwarka peetha a shankaracharya who had remained the biggest stumbling block for the Sangh Parivar. Much of his initial efforts—both before and after declaring himself the shankaracharya of Dwarka peetha in February 2017—involved an unusually bitter and public campaign against Swaroopanand Saraswati. He declared, at the very outset, that Swaroopanand Saraswati’s possession of the two peethas, Dwarka and Jyotish, was against the norms and that his continuation as the shankaracharya of Dwarka peetha was a total violation of Mathamanaya.

‘Moreover, no one is allowed to hold two seats of shankarayacharya simultaneously,’ Achyutanand Tirth told me a few days after giving up the title of shankaracharya.

These arguments were also printed in a series of handbills that flooded Haridwar after Achyutanand Tirth became shankaracharya. One such pamphlet, which was distributed on the day of his consecration, was titled ‘Shastriya Paramparaon ka Atikraman (Subversion of Sacred Tradition)’ and was clearly an attack on Swaroopanand Saraswati, though his name was not mentioned. Detailing how the ‘reigning shankaracharya’ had occupied the Dwarka peetha with the help of his ‘money and muscle power’ and in violation of all the provisions of Mathamanaya, the pamphlet exhorted ‘all the akharas and their associated ashrams’ to come forward in defence of sanatan dharma and ‘expel such acharyas’. Several other handbills, issued by an unheard of outfit, Akhil Bharatiya Shri Dharmaraksha Sena, levelled unsubstantiated and highly provocative charges against Swaroopanand Saraswati. At least two of these pamphlets also attacked Narendra Giri, the head of Niranjani akhara, who in his capacity as the president of the AIAP had taken a public stand against Achyutanand Tirth’s bid to become shankaracharya.

To send a message to the Sangh Parivar, which had not come out in the open to back his claim, Achyutanand Tirth got Sumeru peetha shankaracharya Narendranand Saraswati—a prominent member of the VHP’s Kendriya Margdarshak Mandal, the highest decision-making body in the outfit—to preside over his consecration ceremony. After the ceremony, Narendranand declared: ‘Swaroopanand Saraswati does not deserve to be a shankaracharya. Therefore, the sadhu community decided to remove him and appoint Achyutanand Tirth in his place, for Achyutanand Tirth fulfils all eligibility conditions.’[17]

No sooner had Achyutanand Tirth got himself declared as the shankaracharya than he launched a crusade to protect the holy river Ganga and proclaimed unflinching loyalty for Prime Minister Modi. ‘No one except Narendra Modi has done as much for Ganga as I have. I walked along the length of the river twice, first from Gomukh to Haridwar and then from Haridwar to Patna,’ he said as he showed me some of the photographs he claimed were taken during his journey. ‘By the way, which seer went to Kargil when our jawans were dying on the front, sacrificing their lives to save our nation? Only I did.’

But none of this seemed to have worked. Instead of coming forward to support him, the VHP stayed away from the entire controversy. A close aide of Achyutanand Tirth who preferred to remain anonymous, said, ‘It was shocking. Achyutanand Tirth had done so much for the VHP. Yet it never tried to persuade the Dasanami akharas to not go against him even when he was facing a fierce attack from Swaroopanand Saraswati. Why on earth did the VHP try to strengthen the hands of Swaroopanand Saraswati?’

Since the akharas were in danger of losing their credibility further by supporting Achyutanand Tirth, especially given the various controversies they were publicly mired in, any attempt by the VHP to prevail upon these monastic orders might have been counter-productive and created a distance between the VHP and Dasanami akharas. Letting Swaroopanand Saraswati vanquish Achyutanand Tirth was necessary collateral damage.

So when the VHP acted pragmatically, the Sanskrit scholars, whom Achyutanand Tirth had gathered from Varanasi and Delhi to attend his consecration ceremony as the representatives of the KVP, turned hostile. Of around the dozen Sanskrit scholars who were at the ceremony, I talked to three—two from Varanasi and one from Delhi—and discovered that none of them were associated with the KVP. Interestingly, all three claimed that they were misled into attending the consecration. ‘I was told that there would be a conference of Sanskrit scholars who would debate on dharma shastras. It was only after reaching Haridwar that I realised that the real purpose of the ceremony was to declare Achyutanand Tirth as the shankaracharya of Dwarka peetha. However, I did not take part in the consecration part of the ceremony. After the consecretion, I was invited to speak on Adi Shankara’s rationale behind establishing the four peethas. I deliberated on the issue for nearly an hour and then left the venue,’ recounted Professor Anjaneya Shastri of Vaidik Darshan department, Banaras Hindu University.[18]

Hariprasad Adhikari, vice president of the Kashi Pandit Sabha and a professor at Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, who also attended the ceremony said, ‘All I was told when I got the invitation from Achyutanand Tirth was that a conference of Sanskrit scholars would be held on the day of Shivratri. I knew of him and so I accepted the invitation. I discovered the real purpose of the event only after I reached Haridwar. But since I had accepted the invitation, I attended the ceremony but made it clear to everyone that I had not come to declare Achyutanand Tirth as shankaracharya of Dwarka peetha.’[19]

Professor Ramesh Kumar Pandey, vice chancellor of Delhi-based Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri National Sanskrit University, attended Achyutanand’s consecration ceremony thinking he would be taking part in the annual festival of the magnificent Bhuma Niketan temple in Haridwar. ‘I was late and reached there around two in the afternoon. As I entered the town, I was struck by the hoardings along the road declaring Achyutanand Tirth as the shankaracharya of Dwarka peetha,’ he said. ‘Initially, I ignored that—mahants and swamis have the habit of using laudatory titles with their names in public posters and hoardings. Later, after I reached the venue, I realised that the entire event was meant to make him shankaracharya. But since I reached late, I missed much of the fun.’[20]

Achyutanand Tirth fell from the position of shankaracharya not because he did not do enough to secure the coveted title but because he had chosen the wrong time. But this was not the only time he had attempted to become shankaracharya. This desire had taken root in him as early as in 1996, when he attempted to set up a ‘Vidwat Parishad’ of his own in Varanasi. Back then, taking advantage of the internal strife in the KVP, he succeeded in attracting several of its prominent members. Many Sanskrit scholars responded to Achyutanand Tirth’s initiative and broke away from the KVP.[21]

The breakaway members held several meetings at Bhuma Adhyatma peetha, Achyutanand’s Varanasi ashram. Finally, after deliberating for months together, these Sanskrit scholars formed the Shri Kashi Vidwat Gaurav Parishad with Pt Shripatiram Tripathi as its president and Pt Kamalakant Tripathi as its vice president.[22] ‘Within a year, the new body acquired the reputation of being the real incarnation of Kashi Vidwat Parishad. It continued like that for several years. Around 2003–04, Pt Vatukprasad Sharma started a drive to unite all factions of the Kashi Vidwat Parishad. He succeeded in persuading all the members of the Shri Kashi Vidwat Gaurav Parishad to return to the parent body. That was the end of Achyutanand Tirth’s initiative,’ said Pt Kamalakant Tripathi. ‘Achyutanand had made it clear even back then that he aspired to become shankaracharya. This was the impression I had when we started holding meetings at Bhuma Adhyatma peetha. But somehow, he did not press for it. Gradually, he even withdrew from Varanasi, and Shri Kashi Vidwat Gaurav Parishad fizzled out.’[23]

Pt Tripathi, who acted as Achyutanand’s point man back then and who was, therefore, made the sole vice president of Shri Kashi Vidwat Gaurav Parishad, agreed that Achyutanand Tirth could easily have become shankaracharya while the new body was alive. Achyutanand Tirth, however, missed the opportunity, or perhaps decided to wait for a more appropriate moment. But, the timing of it all, over which no godman has any control, is critical.

V

The decision that cost Achyutanand Tirth his exalted position stemmed not only from the Dasanami akharas’ wish to stay away from any fresh scandal but also from their desperation to blunt the charges levelled by the shankaracharyas of the four main peethas that militant monastic orders play a role in creating bogus, self-made shankaracharyas. Since the 2010 Haridwar Kumbh, these main pontiffs, under the leadership of Swaroopanand Saraswati, have increased their pressure on the Kumbh administration to allot them contiguous land so as to distinguish them from the fake shankaracharyas. Dasanami akharas, whose popularity has been dwindling, have been frantically opposing the shankaracharyas’ demand. Having enjoyed a star status in the Kumbh so far, the akharas fear that this might lead to the emergence of a rival focal point in the Mela area, which might eventually steal the show from them.

Traditionally, the camps of shankaracharyas in the Kumbh area have always been dispersed, with perhaps a few of them becoming localised centres of attraction for devotees. In contrast, the lane with the camps of the Dasanami akharas, which are grouped together, act as a popular hub for devotees. This might be affected if the shankaracharyas of the four peethas are permitted to set up their camps together, which would give them a chance to reinvent themselves and become a rival centre of attraction for devotees. The peethas were revered in the past and the shankaracharyas of the four peethas wish to rekindle the memory of this past glory; and there is no better way to do this than to have a focal point for them in the Kumbh Mela area, providing them a good opportunity to also distance themselves from the rest of their breed.

Partly because of this, no sooner had the 2010 Haridwar Kumbh begun than the pontiffs of the four peethas launched a fierce agitation against ‘fake’ shankaracharyas. The agitation, which created brief turmoil in the Kumbh, was spearheaded by Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati. ‘The agitation continued for nineteen days and, in the end, the local administration was forced to act. The administration had to remove the signboards of all the shankaracharyas, other than those of the pontiffs of the four original peethas,’ he said.

The agitation put the Shaiva akharas in an awkward position because they were responsible for awarding titles to many of the ‘fake’ shankaracharays. The AIAP, which was headed at that time by Vaishnava sadhu Gyan Das of Nirvani akhara, was divided on the issue. While Vaishnava akharas openly supported the demand, Shaiva akharas stayed away from the controversy. The AIAP, therefore, remained mostly inactive all through the agitation, with Gyan Das declaring: ‘Till the Maha Kumbh Mela ends, there should be no controversy.’

The demand for allocation of contiguous land came up again during the 2013 Allahabad Kumbh, and began surfacing as soon as land allocation in Kumbh Nagar began. The shankaracharyas demanded that they be alloted land near the Sangam, around a statue of Shankaracharya. They referred to this yet-to-form area as the Shankaracharya Chatushpad. The idea of the Chatushpad was mooted by Swaroopanand Saraswati and led on the ground by his disciple Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, while the shankaracharyas of the other two peethas—Nishchalanand Saraswati of Govardhan peetha and Swami Bharati Tirth of Sringeri peetha—consented.

The Kumbh administration initially agreed to this demand and allocated land to these pontiffs. But the moment the shankaracharyas started the construction of their camps, the Shaiva akharas collectively passed a resolution asking the Kumbh administration to annul the move, threatening to withdraw from the Kumbh if it did not. The administration caved in and rejected the proposal on the ground that the implementation of the idea of Shankaracharya Chatushpad would amount to ‘starting a new tradition’.[24] The akharas succeeded in vetoing the whole thing.[25]

Miffed at the administration’s U-turn, the shankaracharyas declared that they would boycott the Kumbh unless their Chatushpad demand was accepted. Nirvikalpanand Saraswati, the secretary of Nishchalanand Saraswati, was reported in the media to have said that the Kumbh administration’s refusal to accept this demand was an attack on the Hindu religion and that the pontiffs would hold a discussion before responding to the development. Ramani Shastri, the representative of Bharati Tirth, said that the shankaracharyas of the four peethas were the highest gurus and that the Kumbh administration’s decision to reject their proposal was an assault not only on them but also on Sanatan Dharma. According to Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati, ‘The Chatushpad proposal should have been treated as the commandment of our shankaracharyas. Instead of showing reverence for the proposal, the administration asked them to remove their camps from the proposed area. This means that in the eyes of the administration there is no respect for shankaracharyas.’ About a fortnight before the Kumbh was to begin, Swaroopanand Saraswati addressed a press meet at Allahabad and declared his decision to boycott it. ‘In Kumbh Mela, people come to secure the life after death. For this, they should get the guidance from proper gurus. In the absence of Chatushpad, this won’t be possible. I am, therefore, leaving the Kumbh area in protest,’ he announced before departing for one of his ashrams in Madhya Pradesh.[26]

But the Kumbh administration remained adamant; as long as the akharas cooperated, the shankaracharyas’ move would not affect the Mela. However, the reverse situation would be a disaster—a Kumbh without the Shaiva akharas would be unimaginable. Primarily because of this, when the issue reached the state government, even the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav decided not to intervene, by refusing to comment on the issue.[27] The Mela began without any Shankaracharya Chatushpad, and the pontiffs of the four peethas stayed away in protest. Two weeks after the Kumbh had begun, following a conciliatory gesture by the Uttar Pradesh government, they ended their boycott and returned to the Mela area.[28]

The akharas might have temporarily overcome the challenge posed by the shankaracharyas at the Allahabad Kumbh, but that does not mean the threat is over. Even during the stand-off, Allahabad’s pandas, called Prayagwals, extended their support to the shankaracharyas. A panda is a Brahmin priest whose hereditary job is to officiate at religious ceremonies. Prayagwals are pandas specific to the Sangam at Prayag. Prayagwals, who claim that their exclusive right to serve pilgrims at the Sangam was established by Mughal emperor Akbar through a farman (charter) dated 1593,[29] have their own reasons for being upset with the hegemonic and monopolistic attitude of the akharas during Kumbh Melas. For the duration of the Kumbh Mela at Allahabad, the akharas are centre stage in the spiritual market at the Sangam, relegating the Prayagwals and others to the margins. Though the Prayagwals are not a part of the Kumbh and do not have camps in the Mela area, they consider themselves as the owners of a large chunk of land near the Sangam. They have a vast network of contacts, from having been in the spiritual market for a long time. Not only did they enjoy considerable freedom under the Mughals since the time of Akbar but also were respected during the rule of the nawabs of Awadh. During the initial years of the British rule, they faced problems from time to time, but even then, their right over the Sangam area was never completely denied. Since 1860, when the Prayagwal Sabha was formed, they have continued to exert greater influence over devout Hindus as they occupy one of the most important pilgrimage sites. They found an opportunity in the Chatushpad issue to challenge the akharas’ hegemony during the Melas.

The intentions of the Prayagwals became clear about a fortnight before the Kumbh began, when Swaroopanand Saraswati announced his decision to boycott the Mela. Around that time, the president of the Prayagwal Sabha, Ajay Pande, requested the shankaracharyas not to boycott the Kumbh and offered to build the Chatushpad ‘anywhere on the 950 bighas of land owned by the Prayagwals in the Kumbha Mela area’.[30] Although this did not come to fruition in the 2013 Kumbh, this option might still be open to the shankaracharyas in the subsequent Kumbhs.

Though the pontiffs of the four peethas did not respond to the Prayagwals’ offer, it seems to have shaken the akharas. In this climate, supporting someone like Achyutanand Tirth simply does not fit into the akharas’ new scheme of things.

EPILOGUE

In anticipation of the upcoming general elections, the RSS sought to make a massive political show of the Ardh Kumbh held in January–March 2019, including renaming it a Kumbh Mela. This attempt to hijack the show did not go down well with many sadhus, especially those who had so far been unable to profit from the RSS’s network of patronage. The shankaracharya of Dwarka peetha, Swaroopanand Saraswati, and the AIAP president Narendra Giri, in fact, actively damaged the reputation of the VHP’s much-hyped Dharma Sansad, where the RSS had originally strategised to rekindle the communally sensitive Ram temple issue in time for the polls.[1]

The VHP’s experience in the Kumbh and Ardh Kumbh Melas so far, especially since the Allahabad Kumbh of 1989, was that it was able to posit itself as the sadhus’ representative body, using the Sangh Parivar’s clout among religious leaders and their mutts, ashrams and akharas. While a section of sadhus endorsed the VHP, others did not, but the latter merely stayed away from the VHP without whipping up a public fuss.

Meanwhile, the RSS worked behind the scenes and never got directly involved. As an organisation, it remained conscious not to be seen directly propagating its ideology in Kumbh and Ardh Kumbh even though its top leaders have participated in, and have often presided over, the events organised by the VHP.

This pattern was broken in the recently concluded Ardh Kumbh when the RSS, aided by the BJP governments at the centre and in Uttar Pradesh, entered the arena rather aggressively, perhaps keeping in mind the upcoming elections. The Ardh Kumbh was arbitrarily renamed Kumbh, to make it seem grander. Massive pavilions of various RSS outfits—such as the VHP, BJP, the RSS student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the RSS education wing Vidya Bharati, the cultural wing Sanskar Bharati, and the tribal wing Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad—sprang up. Images of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, the two prominent poster boys of Hindutva, loomed large on giant billboards all over the Mela area, while below, RSS workers roamed the grounds in groups, making the religious congregation seem more like a Sangh Parivar party rather than a fair of sadhus and pilgrims. They put up a whole tent city, rather than just a cluster of camps.

Initially, neither Narendra Giri nor any of the other akhara representatives in the AIAP protested the renaming of the Mela, hoping, perhaps, this would attract a Kumbh-like gathering of pilgrims and devotees. But their hopes were dashed; there was a paucity of devotees in the camps set up by individual sadhus, mutts and ashrams.

‘You can’t underestimate the traditional wisdom of devotees,’ asserted Martand Puri, mahamandaleshwar of Mahanirvani akhara.[2] ‘Kumbhs and Ardh Kumbhs are calculated based on the positions of celestial bodies that can’t be changed by a government order or for the sake of helping the BJP in the elections. The masses go by the Hindu calendar and strictly follow the tithee when deciding on the date and time to embark on a pilgrimage. They know that the present Mela is not a Kumbh but an Ardh Kumbh. That is why you don’t find Kumbh-like enthusiasm this time.’

Many sadhus I spoke to felt that the religious gathering had been overshadowed by the political agenda of the Hindu Right. Others blamed the BJP for having done nothing towards the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya during its five-year term at the helm of the government—a promise the BJP had made at the time of the last general elections in 2014.

Though this disquiet was limited only to a section of the religious leaders, it still posed a threat to the RSS’s plans. The first jolt came on 30 January, a day before the VHP’s two-day Dharma Sansad. Swaroopanand Saraswati announced in a parallel conclave of sadhus that he would lead a march of religious leaders to Ayodhya and lay the foundation stone for the construction of the Ram temple on 21 February. The announcement put the RSS on edge. It caused a section of sadhus who had previously collaborated with Hindutva politics to stay away from the Dharma Sansad. Though later, Swaroopanand postponed this march, claiming that it was on account of the terrorist strike on the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, the Sangh Pariwar’s plans had already been thwarted.

Before the RSS could respond to Swaroopanand Saraswati’s move at the Kumbh, the AIAP announced its decision to boycott the Dharma Sansad, early on the day the conclave was to begin. Never in the past had the AIAP openly stopped sadhus from attending a VHP event. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat immediately met with top office-bearers of the VHP and senior leaders of the BJP. Chief Minister Adityanath, himself a member of the ascetic community, had to travel from Lucknow to the Ardh Kumbh to meet Bhagwat and prominent religious leaders. But the AIAP refused to budge.

‘The VHP works for the BJP, and sadhus should stay away from politics. That’s why the Akhara Parishad decided to boycott the VHP’s Dharma Sansad,’ Narendra Giri told me.[3]

‘But this is hardly a secret. The VHP has always been working for the BJP. Why didn’t the Akhara Parishad take a similar decision earlier?’ I asked.

Narendra Giri flashed a ready smile so characteristic of politicians. ‘As a matter of fact, politics is tempting, perhaps, but unrewarding in the long run,’ he said. ‘I wish I had realised this earlier.’

There was speculation that Narendra Giri’s revived equations with the leaders of the Samajwadi Party, BJP’s rival in Uttar Pradesh, had influenced his decision to boycott the Dharma Sansad. The other theory was that the akharas were not comfortable with the RSS and its various affiliates taking centre stage in the Ardh Kumbh. Whatever the reasons fuelling the AIAP’s decision, it eventually led to a large number of sadhus steering clear of the Dharma Sansad.

Out of ideas and short of sadhus, the RSS set aside the Ram temple agenda in the Ardh Kumbh and instead focused on the ‘attempts to divide’[4] sadhus. Many speakers at the conclave called upon Hindus to defeat the forces behind this ‘conspiracy’.[5] The Sansad passed a resolution to withhold the temple agitation till the upcoming general elections. ‘The sant samaj shall not give the pseudo-secular pack the opportunity to drag this holy and important movement into a political vortex and swamp,’ it declared. This did not match the promises that the RSS and VHP leaders had made over the past few months. Bhagwat’s speech in the concluding session was followed by sloganeering, with demands to announce the exact date for the construction of a Ram temple.[6]

High-profile religious leader Namdeo Das Tyagi alias Computer Baba, convened a gathering of the dissenting sadhus, on the day after the Sansad, which made things worse for the RSS. Computer Baba had led a rebellion of sadhus against the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh ahead of the state assembly polls in November 2018, in which the Congress had defeated the BJP.

He called his conclave ‘Santon Ke Mann Ki Baat’, putting a satirical twist on Modi’s radio programme ‘Mann Ki Baat’. The sadhus outraged at the setting aside of the Ram temple issue in the Dharma Sansad flocked in large numbers to the conclave, where they vowed to uproot the BJP government in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. ‘By not taking any steps for the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the BJP ditched Hindus who had voted for it in 2014. If it does not pass an ordinance on the Ram temple issue before the next election, we will throw it out of power,’ Computer Baba told me.[7]

This series of events does not necessarily mean that the RSS’s clout among the sadhus has decreased. But the Sangh Parivar’s plans to use the Ardh Kumbh to campaign for the 2019 elections was foiled. To dominate this volatile world of sadhus is a complex mission, and there are no long-term guarantees for the wearer of the crown.

NOTES

Introduction

1. Walter K. Andersen and Shridhar D. Damle, The Brotherhood in Saffron, Westview Press, Boulder and London, 1987, p. 133.

2. Organiser (Diwali Special, 1964), Bharat Prakashan, Delhi, p. 15.

3. Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, Hurst & Company, London, 1993, p. 353.

4. Organiser (1 August 1982), Bharat Prakashan, Delhi, p. 1.

5. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, p. 353.

6. Richard H. Davis, ‘Contesting the Nation: Religion, Community and the Politics of Democracy in India’ in David Ludden (ed.), The Iconography of Rama’s Chariot, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1996, pp. 42–43.

7. Sir Jadunath Sarkar, A History of Dasnami Naga Sanyasis, Shri Panchayati Akhara Mahanirvani, Allahabad, 1958, pp. 262–286

8. Ibid., pp. 123–261. See also William R. Pinch, Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires, Cambridge University Press, 2006.

9. Ibid., p. 158.

10. Ibid., pp. 163–166.

11. Ibid., p. 178.

12. Richard B. Barnett, North India Between Empires: Awadh, the Mughals, and the British, 1720–1801, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1980, p. 79.

13. P.N. Bhalla, ‘The Gosain Brothers’, Journal of Indian History, vol. 23, part 2, no. 68 (August 1944), pp. 128–36.

14. The Mughal Emperor’s farman granting diwani (the right of civil and revenue administration) to the Company covered the territories of present-day Bihar, West Bengal, Bangladesh, Orissa and parts of Assam.

15. J.M. Ghosh, Sannyasi and Fakir Raiders in Bengal, Bengal Secretariat Book Depot, Calcutta, 1930, p. 36.

16. A.N. Chandra, The Samnyasi Rebellion, Ratna Prakashan, Calcutta, 1977.

17. David N. Lorenzen, ‘Warrior Ascetics in Indian History’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 98, no. 1 (1978), p. 74.

18. Pinch, Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires, p. 84.

19. Chandra, The Sannyasi Rebellion, pp. 84, 101–14.

20. Ibid., pp. 131–137.

21. William R. Pinch, Peasants and Monks in British India, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1996, p. 31.

22. Matthew Clark, The Dashanami-Samnyasis, Brill, London–Boston, 2006, p. 261.

23. Robert Lewis Gross, The Sadhus of India, Rawat Publications, Jaipur–New Delhi, 1992, p. 163.

24. J.N. Farquhar, ‘The Fighting Ascetics of India’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. 9, no. 2 (July 1925), pp. 431–52. See also his ‘The Organization of the Sannyasis of the Vedanta’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (July 1925), pp. 479–86.

25. Farquhar, ‘The Organization of the Sannyasis of Vedanta’, p. 483.

26. Ibid.

27. Farquhar, The Fighting Ascetics of India.

28. Lorenzen, ‘Warrior Ascetics in Indian History’, pp. 68–69.

29. Pinch, Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires, pp. 28–29.

30. W.G. Orr, ‘Armed Religious Ascetics in North India’, The Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. 24, no. 1 (1940), pp. 88–90.

1. Murder in a Holy City

1. Author’s interview with Ram Asare Das conducted on 16 and 21 November 2012 in Ayodhya.

2. Author’s interview with Brijmohan Das conducted on 20 November 2012 in Ayodhya.

3. For details, see Krishna Jha and Dhirendra K. Jha, Ayodhya: The Dark Night, HarperCollins Publishers India, New Delhi, 2012.

4. Organiser (22 April 1984), Bharat Prakashan, Delhi, pp. 1–2.

5. Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, Hurst & Company, London, 1993, p. 363.

6. Peter van der Veer, ‘God must be Liberated!’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 21. no. 2 (1987), 283–301.

7. Ibid., p. 298.

8. Ibid., pp. 298–299.

9. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, p. 372.

10. van der Veer, ‘God must be Liberated!’, p. 300.

11. Author’s interview with Nandini Dasi conducted on 19 January 2013 in Ayodhya.

12. Author’s interview with Ramlakhan Das conducted on 12 November 2012 and 20 January 2013 in Ayodhya.

13. Peter van der Veer, Gods on Earth: The Management of Religious Experiences and Identity in a North Indian Pilgrimage Centre, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1989, p. 180.

14. Sondra L. Housner, Wandering with Sadhus, Foundation Books, New Delhi, 2012, p. 74.

15. Robert Lewis Gross, The Sadhus of India, Rawat Publications, Jaipur and New Delhi, 1992, p. 318.

16. J.C. Nesfield, Brief View of the Caste System of the N.W. Provinces and Oudh, Government Press, Allahabad, 1885, p. 60.

2. The Thugs of Ayodhya

1. Author’s interview with Ajit Das conducted on 19 January 2013 in Ayodhya.

2. Author’s interview with Dharam Das conducted on 20 November 2012 in Ayodhya, on 6 February 2013 and 10 May 2013 in Allahabad.

3. Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, Hurst & Company, London, 1993, p. 469.

4. Statesman, 21 April 1993.

5. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, p. 470.

6. India Today, 30 June 1993.

7. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, p. 470.

8. Frontline, 16 July 1993.

9. Times of India, 29 October 1993.

10. G.S. Ghurye, Indian Sadhus, Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1964, p. 165.

11. Ibid., p. 177.

12. Ibid., p. 177–178.

13. Ibid., pp. 178–179.

14. Mathew Clark, The Dashnami Sanyasis, Brill, Lieden–Boston, 2006, pp. 57–59.

15. Peter Van der Veer, Gods on Earth: The Management of Religious Experiences and Identity in a North Indian Pilgrimage Centre, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1989, p. 146.

16. Ibid., pp. 149–150.

17. Ibid., pp. 143–144.

18. Niyamavali Hanumangarhi, Varma Printing Press, Ayodhya, 1963, pp. 1–10.

19. Robert Lewis Gross, The Sadhus of India, Rawat Publications, Jaipur–New Delhi, 1992, p. 318.

20. For details, see Niyamavali Hanumangarhi.

21. For details, see Krishna Jha and Dhirendra K. Jha, Ayodhya: The Dark Night, HaperCollins Publishers India, New Delhi, 2012.

3. Kumbh Mela as Political Theatre

1. Author’s interview with Yatindranand Giri conducted on 12 January 2013, 12 May and 18 May 2018.

2. Organiser (11 February 1979), Bharat Prakashan, Delhi.

3. Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, Hurst & Company, London, 1993, pp. 357–358.

4. Organiser (1 August 1982).

5. Author’s interview with Vijay Kaushal conducted on 18 May 2018.

6. Author’s interview with Yatindranand Giri conducted on 12 January 2013, 12 May and 18 May 2018.

7. Samanvay: Shri Swami Satyamitranand Giri Abhinandan Granth, Mahamandaleshwar Shri Swami Abhinandan Granth Samiti, Jabalpur, 1999, p. 8.

8. Swami Shraddhanand, Hindu Sangathan: Saviour of the Dying Race, 1926, pp. 140–141.

9. Sumathi Ramaswamy, The Goddess and the Nation: Mapping Mother India, Duke University Press, Durham and London, 2010, p. 166.

10. Lise McKean, Divine Enterprise: Gurus and the Hindu Nationalist Movement, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1996, p. 148.

11. Ibid., pp. 148–149.

12. For details, see Krishnakant Chaturvedi and Brahmajeet Sharma, Divyalok: Parivrajak Ki Divya Yatra, Samanvaya Prakashan, Haridwar, 1986.

13. McKean, Divine Enterprise, pp. 124–163.

14. Author’s interview with Akhileshwaranand Giri conducted on 25 May 2018.

15. Patriot, 23 January 1966, p. 4.

16. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, p. 206.

17. Patriot (8 November 1966), p. 1.

18. Ibid.

19. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, p. 211.

20. Times of India, 23 January 1977.

21. Author’s interview with Jitendranand Saraswati conducted on 25 May 2018.

22. The Statesmen, 1 February 1989, p. 7.

23. Mark Tully, The Kumbha Mela, Indica Books, Varanasi, 2001, p. 29.

24. Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement, p. 373.

25. Tully, The Kumbha Mela, pp. 31–32.

26. Patriot, 23 January 1966, p. 4.

27. Statesman, 1 February 1989, p. 7.

28. Statesman, 3 February 1989, p. 4.

29. Sunday Pioneer, 21 January 2001.

30. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, The Publications Division, 1966, vol. 16 (November 1920–April 1921), p. 257.

31. Report of Sadhus Taking Part in Non-cooperation, Political Department, Special Section (PDSS), Bihar State Archives, Patna, 1921, part 2, fol. 3, file no. 80.

32. Ibid.

33. Between the years 1920 and 1935, a good number of reports on the subject of ‘political sadhus’ was compiled by the intelligence department as is evident in the index to the PDSS files in the Bihar State Archives, Patna.

34. Gyanendra Pandey, The Ascendancy of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh: A Study in Imperfect Mobilisation, 1926–34, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1978, p. 104.

35. William Gould, Hindu Nationalism and the Language of Politics in Late Colonial India, Cambridge University Press, Delhi, 2004, p. 48.

36. Ibid., p. 49.

37. Ibid., p. 49.

38. Ibid., p. 63.

39. Ibid., p. 49.

40. Ibid., pp. 49–50.

41. Leader, 24 January 1942, p. 3.

4. The Broken Leg Test

1. ‘Lack of Fresh Blood Bares Naga Sadhus to Near Extinction’, The Economic Times, 4 February 2013, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/slideshows/nation-world/lack-of-fresh-blood-bares-naga-sadhus-to-near-extinction/many-akharas-parading-fake-nagas-at-kumbh/slideshow/18330229.cms; http://daily.bhaskar.com/news/MK-NE-allahabad-know-what-is-pushing-naga-sadhus-towards-extinction-4168835-PHO.html.

2. Report of the Kumbh Tragedy Enquiry Committee, Police Department, UP State Archives, Lucknow, file no. 1041/54, p. 153.

3. Kama Maclean, Pilgrimage and Power: The KumbhMela in Allahabad, 1765–1954, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 2008, p. 205.

4. Author’s interview with Kanhaiya Lal and his friends, Gopal, Ilam and Ballu, conducted on 30 October 2012, 28 November 2012, 19 December 2012 and 14 January 2013. The first three interviews were conducted in Haridwar and the last one in Allahabad.

5. For details, see Jadunath Sarkar, A History of Dasanami Naga Sanyasis, Shri Panchayati Akhara Mahanirvani, Allahabad, 1958, pp. 65–76, Clark, Matthew, The Dasanami Samnyasis, Brill, Leiden-Boston, 2006, pp. 81–99.

6. Author’s interview with Anand Giri conducted on 14 April 2013 in Joshimath.

7. Author’s interview with Ravindra Puri conducted on 30 July 2012 in Haridwar.

8. J.N. Farquhar, ‘The Fighting Ascetics of India’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, vol. 9 (1925), p. 485.

9. G.S. Ghurye, Indian Sadhus, Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1964, p. 113.

10. Robert Lewis Gross, The Sadhus of India, Rawat Publications, Jaipur–New Delhi, 1992, pp. 125–126.

11. Roderick Neill, Sadhus and Hippies, Quest, Bombay, 1970, p. 23.

12. Gross, The Sadhus of India, p. 133.

13. Sondra L. Hausner, Wandering with Sadhus, Foundation Books, Delhi, 2007, p. 127.

14. Ghurye, Indian Sadhus, pp. 98–99.

15. Kama Maclean, ‘Seeing, Being Seen and Not Being Seen: Pilgrimage, Tourism, and Layers of Looking at the KumbhMela’, Cross Currents, vol. 59, no. 3 (September 2009), p. 327.

16. Maharashtra State Gazetteers: Nasik District, Government of Maharashtra, Bombay, 1975, p. 964.

17. For details, see Report of the Kumbh Tragedy Enquiry Committee

18. Ibid., pp. 152–153.

19. Ibid., p. 155.

20. UP Information Newsletter No. 146, UP Government Archive, Lucknow, 14 November 1958, file no. 69M/54.

5. A Jamun Tree, a Naga and the Rainbow Family

1. Author’s interview with Shivraj Giri conducted on 8 March 2013 in Delhi and 19 April 2013 and 10 May 2013 in Haridwar.

2. Jadunath Sarkar, A History of Dasanami Naga Sanyasis, Shri Panchayati Akhara Mahanirvani, Allahabad, 1958, pp. 57–59.

3. G.S. Ghurye, Indian Sadhus, Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1964, p. 106.

4. Matthew Clark, The Dasanami Sanyasis, Brill, Leiden–Boston, 2006, p. 69.

5. Surajit Sinha and Baidyanath Saraswati, Ascetics of Kashi, NK Bose Memorial Foundation, Varanasi, 1978, p. 87.

6. Ibid., p. 90.

7. Soma Wadhwa, ‘Haridwar’s Unholy Wars’, Outlook, 11 May 1998.

8. Author’s interview with Vinod Rawat conducted on 11 May 2013 in Haridwar.

9. Author’s interview with Harish Sharma conducted on 11 May 2013 in Haridwar.

6. What is in a Name?

1. Surajit Sinha and Baidyanath Saraswati, Ascetics of Kashi, NK Bose Memorial Foundation, Varanasi, 1978, p. 98.

2. Amar Ujala, 5 August 2012.

3. Amar Ujala, 4 August 2012.

4. Amar Ujala, 8 August 2012.

5. Dainik Jagran, 24 January 2013.

6. Dainik Jagran, 25 January 2013.

7. Author’s interview with Divyanand Saraswati conducted on 2 March 2013 and 10 April 2018 in Haridwar.

8. ‘Ashram, Ram Rahim, Rampal: The 14 Fake Babas Put on Boycott List’, Hindustan Times, 11 September 2017, https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/asaram-gurmeet-ram-rahim-on-fake-baba-list-meet-the-14-faces-hindu-sadhus-want-boycotted/story-JYEQQkSYOOBFFQzKfbD7UP.html.

9. For details, see H.H. Wilson, Religions of Hindus, Vol. I: Essays and Lectures on Religious Sects of the Hindus, Asian Publication Services, Delhi, 1976. The book was first published in 1861.

10. G.S. Ghurye, Indian Sadhus, Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1964, pp. 109–110.

11. Sinha and Saraswati, Ascetics of Kashi, pp. 96–97.

12. Ibid.

13. Swami Sadananda Giri, Society and Sanyasin: A History of the Dasanami Sanyasins, Kriyayoga Ashrama, Rishikesh, 1976, pp. 50–53.

14. Shri Mahant Lal Puri, Dashanam Naga Sanyasi evam Shri Panchayati Akhara Mahanirvani, Shri Panchayati Akhara Mahanirvani, Kankhal, Haridwar, 2001, pp. 133–134.

15. G.S. Ghurye, Indian Sadhus, pp. 109

16. Sinha and Saraswati, Ascetics of Kashi, p. 97.

17. Ibid., p. 98.

18. Shri Mahant Lal Puri, Dashanam Naga Sanyasi evam Shri Panchayati Akhara Mahanirvani, Shri Panchayati Akhara Mahanirvani, Kankhal, Haridwar, 2001, pp. 133–134.

19. Matthew Clark, The Dasanami-Samnyasis, Brill, Leiden–Boston, 2006, p. 48.

20. Ibid., p. 76.

21. Sinha and Saraswati, Ascetics of Kashi, p. 98.

22. Mail Today, 13 February 2013.

23. Ibid.

24. Hindustan Times, 6 February 2013.

25. Dainik Jagran, 8 February 2013.

26. Author’s interview with Divyanand Saraswati conducted on 2 March 2013 in Haridwar.

27. Peter van der Veer, ‘God must be Liberated!’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 21. no. 2 (1987), 101–102.

28. Ibid., p. 102.

29. Ibid., p. 103.

30. Swami Bhagavadacharya, ‘Shri Paramparaparitran’, in Shrimahant Harinamdas Vedanti (ed.), Shri Sampradaya Manthan, JGR Swami Haryacharya Prakashan, Varanasi, 2001, pp. 113–143.

31. Swami Bhagavadacharya, Swami Bhagavadacharya, Shri Ramananda Sahitya Mandir, Alvar, 1958, p. 86.

32. van der Veer, ‘Gods on Earth’, p. 103.

33. Ibid., pp. 105–123. See also Bhagavadacharya, ‘Shri Paramparaparitran’.

7. Preceptors to the World

1. Author’s interview with Achyutanand Tirth conducted on 26 April 2018 at his ashram, Bhuma Niketan, Haridwar.

2. Times of India, 22 February 2017.

3. Times of India, 4 March 2017.

4. Author’s interview with Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati conducted on 12 January 2013 in Allahabad.

5. Matthew Clark, The Dashanami-Samnyasis, Brill, Leiden–Boston, 2006, pp. 114–119.

6. Ibid., p. 122.

7. Ibid., p. 145.

8. Tehelka (Hindi), 15 February 2013.

9. Clark, The Dashanami-Samnyasis, p. 131.

10. Patrika, 18 December 2018.

11. Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, Hurst & Company, London, 1993, p. 357.

12. Tehelka (Hindi), 15 February 2013.

13. Acharya Baldev Upadhyaya, Kashi Ke Panditya Parampara, Vishwavidyalaya Prakashan Varanasi, 1983, pp. 209, 216.

14. Pitambaramrita, no. 12 (December 2017), p. 17.

15. Ibid.

16. Author’s interview with Kamalkant Tripathi conducted on 10 May 2018 in Varanasi.

17. Times of India, 25 February, 2017.

18. Author’s interview with Prof. Anjaneya Sastri conducted on 4 May 2018 in Varanasi.

19. Author’s interview with Hariprasad Adhikari conducted on 9 May 2018 in Varanasi.

20. Author’s interview with Prof. Ramesh Kumar Pandey conducted on 4 May 2018 in New Delhi.

21. Pitambaramrita, p. 15.

22. Ibid.

23. Author’s interview with Kamalkant Tripathi conducted on 10 May 2018 in Varanasi.

24. The Hindu, 26 January 2013.

25. Author’s interview with Avimukteshwaranand Saraswati conducted on 12 January 2013 in Allahabad.

26. Dainik Jagran, 31 December 2012.

27. Dainik Jagran, 3 January 2013.

28. The Hindu, 26 Januaray 2013.

29. Clark, The Dashanami-Samnyasis, p. 298.

30. Dainik Jagaran, 31 December 2012.

Epilogue

1. In a press conference held on 27 October 2018, the VHP working president Alok Kumar declared that a date for the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya would be announced at the Dharma Sansad during the Ardh Kumbh at Prayagraj. https://www.amarujala.com/india-news/vhp-said-that-dharm-sansad-in-kumbh-will-decide-the-date-of-ram-mandir-construction.

2. Author’s interview with Martand Puri conducted on 20 January 2019 in the Ardh Kumbh Mela area in Allahabad.

3. Author’s interview with the AIAP president Narendra Giri conducted on 1 February 2019 in Ardh Kumbh Mela area at Prayagraj.

4. ‘Did VHP and RSS Stop Ram Temple Plans because of Congress?’, Caravan, 7 February 2019, https://caravanmagazine.in/politics/ram-temple-agitation-on-hold-rss-vhp-congress.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Author’s interview with Computer Baba conducted on 2 February 2019 in Ardh Kumbh Mela area in Allahabad.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Archival Materials and Reports

Maharashtra State Gazetteers: Nasik District, Government of Maharashtra, Bombay, 1975.

Niyamavali Hanumangarhi, Varma Printing Press, Ayodhya, 1963.

Report of the Kumbh Tragedy Enquiry Committee, Police Department, UP State Archives, Lucknow, file no. 1041/54.

Report of Sadhus Taking Part in Non-cooperation, Political Department, Special Section (PDSS), Bihar State Archives, Patna, 1921, part 2, fol. 3, file no. 80.

The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, The Publications Division, 1966, vol. 16 (November 1920–April 1921).

UP Information Newsletter No. 146, UP Government Archive, Lucknow, 14 November 1958, file no. 69M/54.

Books and Periodicals

Acharya Baldev Upadhyaya, Kashi Ke Panditya Parampara, Vishwavidyalaya Prakashan, Varanasi, 1983.

Alfonso Caycedo, India of Yogis, National Publishing House, Delhi, 1966.

A.N. Chandra, The Samnyasi Rebellion, Ratna Prakashan, Calcutta, 1977.

C.J. Fuller, The Camphor Flame: Popular Hinduism and Society in India, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2004.

Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian Politics, Hurst & Company, London, 1996.

Daniel Gold, The Lord as Guru: Hindi Sants in the Northern Indian Tradition, Oxford University Press, New York, 1987.

David N. Lorenzen, ‘Warrior Ascetics in Indian History’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 98, no. 1 (January–March 1978).

Dilip Kumar Roy and Indira Devi, Kumbh: India’s Ageless Festival, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1955.

G.S. Ghurye, Indian Sadhus, Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1953.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have worked intermittently on this book for almost a decade. On many occasions, while researching and writing, I faced daunting challenges, which I could not have overcome without considerable help from numerous individuals, some of them outstanding. I cannot acknowledge them all here and a significant number have preferred to remain anonymous. However, I do wish to thank the following people for their contributions to my work: Mahendera Singh Verma, Vijaypal Singh, Merajuddin Khan, Hartosh Singh Bal, Krishna Jha, Basharat Peer, Dinesh Singh, Raghunandan Das, Pravin Jha, Rajnish Kumar Singh, Ankit Khanna, Swami Satyavratanand Saraswati, and my editors Ajitha G.S. and Janani Ganesan. My mother, Bimla Jha, was my vantage point, and I dedicate this book to her memory. She was always by my side through the entire process of writing, but because of her sudden death she will not see the finished version of this book.