Ascetic Games

by Dhirendra K Jha

  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 l
east 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 anis14—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 relig
ious 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