A Window To Perceptive Journalism

Nurmahal's Controversial Dera Throws Some Light
 On Its Activities;
It’s Somewhere
Between Your Eyebrow

S P Singh

Nurmahal, the centre of activities of controversial Godman Ashutosh, literally means ‘Palace of Light'. And very aptly these days. At Ashutosh's huge complex housing Divya Jyoti Jagriti Sansthan (DJJS), everything revolves around a mysterious light, a 'light' which has earned for Ashutosh the epithet lightan wallah baba (the baba who shows lights).

Under fire from a large number of Sikh organisations and clergy, and the subject of a Chief Minister-ordered probe, Ashutosh's DJJS is working overtime to explain its side of the story, to rebut charges of exploitation of young girls and to prove that it was out only to show people in search of a God "some true light".

"And some disciples have dropped suffixes like Kaur or Singh from their name on their own. We did not force them to. It is not conversion," dera parcharaks said.

What about charges of distorting gurbani? "We do not have even Guru Granth Sahib installed at the dera,'' was the explanation. It is only Ashutosh's huge portrait installed, just like scriptures in a gurdwara, in the middle of a huge one-acre hall where people pay obeisance.

But it is exactly these explanations offered by the DJJS which have perturbed a cross section of Sikh intelligentsia, common masses and the clergy to raise their pitch for Bihar-born Ashutosh's expulsion from Punjab and a stop to his activities.

A point DJJS managers miss. "See, so many of our followers here are Sikhs. In fact, ninety per cent of people at our monthly gatherings are Sikhs," Swami Arvinda Nanda told The Indian Express here, little realising that such large presence of Sikhs among dera's disciples had raised hackles of panthic organisations. There were many baptised Sikhs and even Nihangs among the devotees.

"People who have not seen the light here, what do they know? Baba shows the light right here, on the spot. Can those who are against us do so?" said many a disciple at the dera, each pointing out with a finger a spot between the eyebrows.

In fact, the mumbo-jumbo of ‘light’ is the core of DJJS' claim to fame. "I went everywhere, to the Nirankaris, the Radha Swamis etc. I was a skeptic when I met Ashutosh. But finally when I saw light, my God! There was such a flood of light. Then I heard divine music. How can such a man be so bad as is being portrayed in the media?" asked Gurcharan Singh Sandhu, a retired Lt Col.

Ashutosh himself also makes much of his abilities to show one the light in his book 'An Insight into Spirituality.'

But sources said dera managers, after receiving directions from Ashutosh, are now working overtime to win some brownie points in media which has been rife with reports questioning DJJS' activities. "We are now inviting senior journalists one by one and show them the dera," an retired army officer in charge of the security at the dera told The Indian Express.

Apart from the Light that Baba Ashutosh and his select band of disciples make others see in a special ritual, the dera's USP is "reforming the drug addicts" and Arvinda Nanda lined up many who claimed they were heavily into drugs but were clean now. Among these were Balbir Singh of Bhullar village in Kapurthala and Paramjit Singh of Bhodipur.

And all the ex-addicts had a similar story to tell. "I was such and alcoholic and into narcotics that I even used up loans from the banks and was defaulter, but after seeing the divine light, I am a reformed man now," Paramjit Singh said. While all of them were aware right since early morning about the The Indian Express team's visit, later inquiries in their villagers showed they didn't seem to be putting an act.

But the clergy, the Khalsa Panchayat and none of the Akali Dal factions, to whom The Indian Express spoke, seemed impressed with the Nurmahalias’ explanations. "Forget all mumbo-jumbo about light. We are not going to take things lightly," said Prof Jagmohan Singh of Akali Dal (Amritsar).■

August 13, 2002

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