05-29-2007, 01:28 AM
<b>Why many have turned to Dera Sacha</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Bathinda, May 28: In the districts of backward southwestern Punjab like Bathinda, Sangrur, Mansa and Muktsar, the Sacha Sauda Dera has acquired a phenomenal following. <b>In Bathinda, District Collector Rahul Bhandari hazards an estimate: Dera followers constitute 1.5 lakh of the total district population of 13 lakh. They are spread out all across â you will find them in every office, every workplace, he says</b>.
The following is said to have dramatically expanded in the tenure of <b>Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, its third and most controversial, and also its most gimmicky chief. Stories abound of his âmiraclesâ and the blind devotion he commands</b>. At his urging, his supporters are known to pitch in free labour to build houses for the homeless within the day. An imposing cricket stadium was built in Sirsa in 42 days, and a hospital in 46.
<b>But there may be reasons why this area offers particularly fertile ground for a cult such as this one.</b>
In 2001, Bathinda ranked 12th in the stateâs then 17 districts of Punjab in terms of literacy. Unlike the Doaba area where every household will have one person settled abroad, the NRI phenomenon is almost invisible here. And there is little or no industrial growth.
According to official figures, in 2001, the registered working factories in Punjab were 14,663; in Bathinda only 512. The average number of workers in Punjab were 4,81,484; in Bathinda only 16,592.
More significantly, <span style='color:red'>drug addiction runs extremely high. Bhandari says on an average at least one person among the stateâs 2, 29,000 households is addicted to alcohol or poppy husk. âBathinda district has the highest rate of addiction in the region,â</span> agrees Maninderjit Singh, civil surgeon Bathinda. Nidhi Gupta, psychiatrist at the de-addiction centre in Bathinda civil hospital, gives the figures: <b>In 2006, the total number of indoor patients was 704, and the total number of outdoor patients 9026. This was an increase from the numbers of 2005: 611 indoor patients and 8039 OPD patients. Of the nearly 80 patients that Gupta sees daily in OPD, over 50 per cent are addicts</b>.
âThese are definitely high trends in comparison to other treatment centre data in Punjab and other parts of the countryâ, says S K Sharma, senior research officer at the National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre of AIIMS, New Delhi.
They come to the Dera for its puritanism.<b> At the top of the 47-point rule book of the Sacha Sauda Dera is prohibition against monetary offerings, television, eggs, non-vegetarian food, but above all, intoxicants.</b> Pappu Garg joined Salabatpura Dera in Bathinda district in 1995. âI was 19 at that time and a liquor addict. Everything changed the day I became a Dera follower. I quit drinking and began concentrating on my work.â He is now the Deraâs media advisor.
<b>The ban on intoxicants was cited the most by the women </b>The Indian Express spoke to inside the Salabatpura Dera as their primary reason for joining it. They come to the Dera to enhance social status. In a state with a very large SC population â almost 29 per cent â the Dera also offers an equal space. But for Punjab Dalits, says Pramod Kumar, director of the Chandigarh-based Institute for Development and Communication, going to the Dera is not so much an act of seeking refuge. <b>âUnlike in UP and Bihar, the Dalit in this state is not a victim of purity and pollution, has experienced some occupational mobility, adopted the cultural markers of Jat identity and then looks for a separate arena of assertionâ. </b>
They come to the Dera to submit to the guru. In an increasingly complex world, the guru takes over, gives direction. âÃou can fill the room with books, but of what use are they without a guru to guide youâ asks young Rupinder Singh, 20. He lives in Patiala and regularly goes to a prayer hall of the Dera Sacha Sauda located on the cityâs outskirts. Itâs a home away from home, he says.
Then there is the 47-point code of conduct. It includes exhortations to social reform â <b>Rule 21 prohibits dowry, Rule 41 advocates widow remarriage â and more quotidian instructions. Rule 46 advises the follower to drink a glass of water and take a 5-minute pause for reflection whenever he or she gets angry</b>.
A spot poll inside the Salabatpura Dera suggests that <b>while the larger part of the following may well be rural, lower caste and lower class Sikh, the Dera also draws in big numbers from other castes and classes and communities</b>. A similar spot poll at the prayer hall near Patiala turned up a mix of college-going youth alongwith small businessmen, government employees, landed Jat farmers and SC daily wage labour.
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The following is said to have dramatically expanded in the tenure of <b>Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, its third and most controversial, and also its most gimmicky chief. Stories abound of his âmiraclesâ and the blind devotion he commands</b>. At his urging, his supporters are known to pitch in free labour to build houses for the homeless within the day. An imposing cricket stadium was built in Sirsa in 42 days, and a hospital in 46.
<b>But there may be reasons why this area offers particularly fertile ground for a cult such as this one.</b>
In 2001, Bathinda ranked 12th in the stateâs then 17 districts of Punjab in terms of literacy. Unlike the Doaba area where every household will have one person settled abroad, the NRI phenomenon is almost invisible here. And there is little or no industrial growth.
According to official figures, in 2001, the registered working factories in Punjab were 14,663; in Bathinda only 512. The average number of workers in Punjab were 4,81,484; in Bathinda only 16,592.
More significantly, <span style='color:red'>drug addiction runs extremely high. Bhandari says on an average at least one person among the stateâs 2, 29,000 households is addicted to alcohol or poppy husk. âBathinda district has the highest rate of addiction in the region,â</span> agrees Maninderjit Singh, civil surgeon Bathinda. Nidhi Gupta, psychiatrist at the de-addiction centre in Bathinda civil hospital, gives the figures: <b>In 2006, the total number of indoor patients was 704, and the total number of outdoor patients 9026. This was an increase from the numbers of 2005: 611 indoor patients and 8039 OPD patients. Of the nearly 80 patients that Gupta sees daily in OPD, over 50 per cent are addicts</b>.
âThese are definitely high trends in comparison to other treatment centre data in Punjab and other parts of the countryâ, says S K Sharma, senior research officer at the National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre of AIIMS, New Delhi.
They come to the Dera for its puritanism.<b> At the top of the 47-point rule book of the Sacha Sauda Dera is prohibition against monetary offerings, television, eggs, non-vegetarian food, but above all, intoxicants.</b> Pappu Garg joined Salabatpura Dera in Bathinda district in 1995. âI was 19 at that time and a liquor addict. Everything changed the day I became a Dera follower. I quit drinking and began concentrating on my work.â He is now the Deraâs media advisor.
<b>The ban on intoxicants was cited the most by the women </b>The Indian Express spoke to inside the Salabatpura Dera as their primary reason for joining it. They come to the Dera to enhance social status. In a state with a very large SC population â almost 29 per cent â the Dera also offers an equal space. But for Punjab Dalits, says Pramod Kumar, director of the Chandigarh-based Institute for Development and Communication, going to the Dera is not so much an act of seeking refuge. <b>âUnlike in UP and Bihar, the Dalit in this state is not a victim of purity and pollution, has experienced some occupational mobility, adopted the cultural markers of Jat identity and then looks for a separate arena of assertionâ. </b>
They come to the Dera to submit to the guru. In an increasingly complex world, the guru takes over, gives direction. âÃou can fill the room with books, but of what use are they without a guru to guide youâ asks young Rupinder Singh, 20. He lives in Patiala and regularly goes to a prayer hall of the Dera Sacha Sauda located on the cityâs outskirts. Itâs a home away from home, he says.
Then there is the 47-point code of conduct. It includes exhortations to social reform â <b>Rule 21 prohibits dowry, Rule 41 advocates widow remarriage â and more quotidian instructions. Rule 46 advises the follower to drink a glass of water and take a 5-minute pause for reflection whenever he or she gets angry</b>.
A spot poll inside the Salabatpura Dera suggests that <b>while the larger part of the following may well be rural, lower caste and lower class Sikh, the Dera also draws in big numbers from other castes and classes and communities</b>. A similar spot poll at the prayer hall near Patiala turned up a mix of college-going youth alongwith small businessmen, government employees, landed Jat farmers and SC daily wage labour.
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