Two years ago on June 4th, at Ramlila Maidan, Swami Ramdev (a Sadhu) and his supporters (Innocent public), while peacefully fasting against corruption and black money, were beaten, many of them arrested. The scale and significance of this FACT is too big for any Indian and Hindu to forget.
It was once again a big reminder to all of us that we are still ruled by centuries old laws, laws that were made by foreigners to control us, to wield muscle power on us ruthlessly, in the guise of some rule. Every human being, howsoever disabled or passive, has the potential to disrupt the peace, so just being alive is reason enough to arrest & beat anyone (even a dead man can be a threat to the peace but then, it may not be much of a use to beat & arrest him).
After this incidence, cases were filed against Swami Ramdev and his organization, investigations were carried out on his money trails, media spent lot of time highlighting those cases and making up negative stories about him.
They even found many small time Yoga teachers who questioned Ramdev’s ways of teaching Yoga. Lured into the trap, many common people started questioning his riches – why does he have so much money if he is wearing saffron clothes. There are few other things people thought about him, mainly about this vested interests – what does he want, isn’t he too ambitious?
We have seen many times politicians delivering stupid speeches in industry associations, and none of the industrialists ever says a word against the speech or the speaker, irrespective of the political party the speaker belongs to. If you want to run the business smoothly, don’t be at bad terms with any politician, it’s the basic law of the business. You can be especially closer to some party, but don’t be far from other parties. If Swami Ramdev’s priority was making money, he is smart enough to know this. The fact that he openly announced a movement against the most powerful people of this country, its clear money is not the only thing he wants.
Does he want power? Before he started speaking against the black money and national issues, he was liked equally by all political parties. Looking at his popularity in those days, he could have become an active role player in any political party. In other words, he could have become a king maker even without confronting with the existing system and this system’s key players. Life would have been easier that way – have your say in the corridors of power, remain popular with the masses through Yoga, make huge money through Divya Yog pharmacy products, no investigation of money matters and taxes, no scrutiny of products, everything rosy-rosy. It would have been a dream run. Sailing against the stream now, is he just too adventurous?
Why is he so rich – we are okay when we know industrialists make money by violating laws, or rather getting laws changed in favor of them. But we cannot see a good man having good amount of money. If someone is honest, if he is talking good things, he must be poor. Being poor means that you are honest probably because there seems hardly a way to make good money by fair means. Another reason why we don’t like saffron with money is a deep rooted tradition. Varna system of ancient India was based on the distribution of power. In Varna system, there are four pillars of power: Knowledge, land, money and muscle power (army). Our forefathers knew that if any particular group of people has more than one of these and he becomes immoral, he can have too much power that can imbalance the society. So they made such a system that no one should have more than one of these four sources of power. This is one of the key reasons that we don’t like saffron clad people with lot of money. But in today’s scenario, when all power is with political systems, its unfair to expect a poor man to bring a positive change, that too as a leader. Only to travel to different places to awake sleeping people, one needs big money.
More than two years back, when Swami Ramdev announced that he and his supporters will fast against corruption at Ramlila ground, many thought that he was competing against Anna. Anna was very popular and it seemed that Swami Ramdev did not want to be left behind in fight against corruption. No doubt we need all kinds of forces to act against this deep rooted disease and the efforts of any individual/organization are no less important than others. Looking at the vision of Swami Ramdev, he wants to attack not only corruption, but wants to bring overall change in the system comprising Education, health, legal, economy, agriculture – an overhaul that should have been done immediately after 1947. It’s not limited to few men surrounding him talking about this big change, he has been trying to disseminate this message to every village, every town so that a common man feels the need of this change. Its no easy job, considering that all media is being manipulated by people in power. All mainstream information is meant to make us believe that the only way to live is by consumerism & capitalism. We Indians are systematically made to believe that as a nation India is too inferior to give a prosper & meaningful life to every citizen unless we follow these western systems imposed on us. Swami Ramdev’s efforts may not do a big bang overnight, but are sure to start a silent revolution that will surely show results in due course. Even if you are not a big fan of him, you have to admit the courage with which he is defying the norms of the world order and at least propose an alternative way an indigeneous way to live. We have choice, we can keep floating with the stream, which even a dead wood is naturally inclined to do. Or take a pause and spend a minute to introspect and pay attention to Swami Ramdev’s effort who is making an effort to swim upstream.
If you cut through all the noise, as an Indian or as a Dharmic (read it genuinely secular) person, think about these basic questions:
- Has Swami Ramdev done anything unpatriotic?
- Has Swami Ramdev done anything against the common good of society?
- Shouldn’t all influential people in society do their shared of social service? How many Sadhus you know besides Swami Ramdev, who are working to improve social system?
- How many spiritual leaders you know, even in History, who have built strong organizations besides contritbuting to spiritual knowledge?
- Haven’t “Lakhs & Crores” benefitted from Swami Ramdev’s personal and Patanjali Yogpeeth’s effort?
Yes, numerous people have benefitted due his personal effort.
I say he is a national hero, he is a revered Sanyasi and deserves sincere respect and support of the society, let alone our passing attention.
Author: Sunil Sheoran
Published: June 4th, 2013
