Anurag Tripathi - Dera Saccha Sauda and Gurmeet Ram Rahim

T he word dera literally means an encampment. In undivided Punjab, which stretched from Delhi to the north-western frontier of the subcontinent, the term acquired a religious connotation. It came to be applied to a community headed by a charismatic figure, with its own religious practices, living in a settlement marked off from the rest of the world. Today, a majority of deras in India are offshoots of Sikhism, often with practices that are considered heterodox by the Sikh orthodoxy.

By their very nature, the deras attract followers who do not find succour within the folds of orthodox religion. Some of these followers may well be those who have found that long-settled ritual observances do not fulfil their spiritual needs, but the vast majority of them tend to be those marginalized within the caste hierarchies of Hinduism and Sikhism.

In return for the semblance of dignity offered to the congregation in a dera, the devotees offer absolute devotion and loyalty to the dera head, who is the source of all authority in a community centred around him (mostly) or her (very occasionally). Within the confines of the dera, the authority of the head is complete and unquestioned. As a result, devotees, who have already conceded to the dera head the right to question and overturn established religious practices prevalent in the outside world, consider it only natural that he should have the same right to overturn what passes for normal in worldly matters.

While deras can be sources of fulfilment in many cases, they can also be places of great oppression which can go largely unchecked over long periods of time. The dera heads power over his congregation is absolute. Anurag Tripathis book does not just narrate a stellar piece of investigative journalism, it is also a sociological text on the now-infamous Dera Sacha Sauda headed by Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. As the book relates, Ram Rahim was not the kind of person who could have founded a dera; he clearly lacked the spiritual depth or the religious insight this would require. But he had the practical cunning and duplicity to get himself nominated by his predecessor to the position of the head of this dera at gunpoint and build on the authority and charisma that he thus inherited. This authority over a vast and growing congregation included the way it voted, allowing him enormous political clout.

This is key to understanding why, across a period of over two decades, he got away with unbelievable acts of violence and depravitycastration, rape and murderwithout alienating much of his congregation. It is also key to understanding why government authorities, rather than acting against him, ended up collaborating in his acts of crime. The media itself was complicit, and what Anurag Tripathi and colleague Ethmad A. Khan at Tehelka, working under Harinder Baweja, achieved was an exception in Indian journalism.

Nothing could be more damning for the media than the nature of the court verdict against Ram Rahim. The courts upheld every serious charge brought against him, charges which much of the media had largely chosen to ignore till that point, leave alone investigate them. Till the very day of the verdict, as Ram Rahims power and wealth grew, politicians from across the political spectrum flocked to him, seeking his help in elections. Most media institutions were no better. In fact, much of the positive media coverage for Ram Rahim took place well after Tripathi and his colleague first broke the story of his crimes.

Late in August 2017, shortly after Ram Rahim was convicted, as his supporters thronged the streets of Haryana and Punjab clashing with the police, it was interesting to see the glee with which anchors from TV channels elucidated the crimes Ram Rahim was guilty of and called out the failure of the Haryana Police to secure the streets in the aftermath of the judgment. None of them referred to the fact that most channels and newspapers had been happy to run glowing interviews of the baba and give publicity to his tacky films and music videos even weeks before the court order.

Even organizations unburdened by such commercial constraints had done little to cover a story that they devoted so much time to in the aftermath of the verdict. Today, in India, good investigative journalism is rare because organizations are unwilling to give the time and backing that Tehelka did to journalists such as Anurag Tripathi. Such stories require journalists to spend weeks and even months on them; they require doggedness and persistence without the guarantee that all the time and effort will pay off.

Lastly, the book also illustrates why, when done well, sting journalism remains an essential component of the profession, albeit one that must be used rarely and wisely. There are some stories, such as this, where their public importance is evident and overwhelming, where the information cannot be gathered in any other way, which justifies the use of hidden cameras and the concealment of a reporters identity.

If Ram Rahim was finally convicted, it was because of a rare conjunction of eventsa local journalist who had the courage to stand up to him and paid for it with his life; women who had been raped and men who had been castrated, standing up to threats of murder to testify in the case; a CBI officer who would not be cowed down and was, in turn, backed by his chief and the prime minister of the day; and Anurag Tripathis Tehelka team.

New Delhi

March 2018

Hartosh Singh Bal
Political editor, Caravan

Part I

Operation Jhootha Sauda