Ascetic Games

by Dhirendra K Jha

  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 a
ttraction 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.